I’ve been going to Ni-Chome, in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo, long before writing Frommer’s Tokyo. It had a very cool reggae bar there called 69 that I loved; it was no larger than a subway compartment and was often just as jam packed. There were usually people there I knew, and I remember more than one occasion when the whole place was dancing in one rhythm as though one living organism, belting out the words in unison. There was another bar there called Birdland, eclectically decorated with antiques and a bunch of weird decor and run by a very Zen-like Japanese couple, she with the shaven head of a Buddhist monk, he with long hair.
Kinsmen, a sophisticated gay bar, is still there, welcoming people of all persuasions, and Advocates across the street spills out onto the sidewalk like a friendly block party almost every night. In any case, I’ve seen Ni-Chome grow over the past couple decades into what is probably the largest gay nightlife district in Asia.
My updated account of Ni-Chome appeared in the December/January 2014 issue of Element, a magazine for gay Asian men published in Singapore. To get a handle on what’s new, I enlisted the aid of Shintaro Koizumi, president of Out Asia Travel, a gay travel agency.
P.S. Unfortunately, Element ceased publication, so my article, Queer Tokyo, Lost in Translation, is no longer in print. I found smaller versions online, however, in fridae, and GlobalGayz.
