It was approaching midnight on a cold Tuesday. My boyfriend and I were drunkenly trawling the backstreets of Shibuya, leading us to the street of dôgenzaka in search of a Love Hotel (rabu hoteru).
The hotels towered over the street, drawing in cliental with grandiose light displays that looked like they had been plucked out…
He bumbles aimlessly through the station, his sandy brown hair a beacon, head and shoulders above the tide of mostly black. He has no passport and no wallet. He is a ghost - a shadow, staring with blank confusion at the tangled train timetable, buzzing his hotel room key at the turnstile instead of his…
I was trying to explain to him why the only phrase I knew in French besides, “Oui, oui,” was “Will you please take off your shirt for me darling?”
He seemed perplexed.
“There was this song that was huge in Australia in 2009 called ‘Parlez-Vous Français’ by this local band, Art Vs. Science. That phrase…