Jet Lag and Stray Cats

‘Not Yet Three’ is a fairly under-appreciated song by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers from their 1983 album, Jonathan Sings! The song itself is about a small child fighting sleep to stay awake and soak up life — but aside from this fairly strange narrative, the opening lines have always stuck with me; “Could you sleep at a time like this? Hearing Oldsmobiles traveling from town to town.”

It might be said that quoting old songs is a slightly smug or pretentious way to start a magazine article… but at four o’clock in the morning, after a twelve hour flight, with the general buzz of my wedding a few days before still resonating as I tried unsuccessfully to sleep in a tiny flat just across the road from Yoyogi Park, the lyrics seemed particularly pertinent.

Whilst there might not be too many Oldsmobiles in Tokyo, the sentiment still applies — is there any wonder that people suffer from jet lag when they land in this city? How could you let yourself fall into the soft and pillowy arms of sleep when the bells of a nearby level-crossing ring endlessly throughout the night?

Out there it’s all happening. In Family Mart a man in a surgical mask works alone, stocking shelves and selling cans of cold Asahi. Motorbikes zip by, seats stacked with tomorrow’s newspapers. A few early starters in dark suits run for a train.

Just off a main road is a long stone staircase which weaves up behind a railway bridge. At the top there’s a small shrine hidden behind a patch of trees. An old woman feeds a gaggle of stray cats scraps of food and pays us no attention. Stone foxes with red neckerchiefs stand in a line by a narrow path and large, real-deal toads sit motionless on the well-brushed floor.

In Yoyogi Park, someone is sat in darkness, cross-legged under a tree, practicing the flute, whilst in Shibuya a white-haired man is smoking a cigarette, feeding a gambling machine with tiny ball-bearings in a brightly-lit arcade. The arcades play some of the most intense music I’ve ever heard - a brash genre in its own right, presumably designed with rapid-fire money-loss in mind.

Even the stationary objects demand close inspection. The wooden telegraph poles… the over-complicated pipe-work on the side of a house resembling the inner-sanctums of a keen plumber’s over-worked mind… the smiling faces painted crudely onto metal shop shutters.

And then there’s the vending machines and their promise of mysterious canned liquidity, lighting up even the quietest back-alleys and side-streets, seemingly miles away from passing trade. It’s reassuring to know that even in the small hours of the morning down a desolate path filled with overgrown plants and locked-up bicycles you can still purchase a can of coffee with a picture of William Faulkner’s face on the side.

As the sun comes up the street is taken over by crows who swoop down to the pavement to peck away at the bin-bags that have been left outside the cafes and bakeries to be scooped into a passing truck. A few lucky ones strike gold, flying off with stale pastry delights wedged in their beaks.

I could go on, listing all these various minor spectacles as if they were the most important events in the world… but I think I’ve probably said enough now. I don’t think many people really enjoy jet lag, but without it me and my wife wouldn’t have been wandering around the streets of Tokyo at five in the morning watching well-mannered stray cats being fed by an old woman in the hallowed ground of a Shinto shrine. And what else are you going to do on holiday?

JET LAG BY SAM WALLER