Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - [tabloid] ayu's hangouts??

dunno if it's true, but yahoo just alerted me with this news:

http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/0411/1114gay.html

Gay neighbors bummed out by
dangers of walking on wild side

By Ryann Connell
Staff Writer
November 14, 2004

Tokyo's gay quarter in the Shinjuku 2-Chome district is fast becoming one of the capital's most popular tourist spots among Japanese heading in from the sticks for a sight of life in the big city, according to Shukan Shincho (11/18).

But it seems the area filled with pubs and clubs catering largely to a gay and lesbian clientele can also be a lure for the unwary.

Shinjuku 2-Chome's ascent from simply being the *** end of town to a cult site where tourists come to gawk at gays and leer at lesbians can largely be attributed to a couple of the country's biggest pop divas.

Ayumi Hamasaki is a regular at gay bars, which apparently offer her a haven from adoring fans and lecherous lads, while Hikaru Utada heads the young entertainers who're said to frequent the area.

"Some cafes have been listed in guide books and there're lots of foreign tourists who visit, too," a 2-Chome restaurateur tells Shukan Shincho. "There was even one tourist mob made up of members of a Viennese opera group touring Japan."

Despite the gay quarter increasingly being seen as one of Tokyo's trendiest scenes, there's still something apparently ***** about the area.

"All the different people coming along to see it has just made the are more brutal," a reporter for a women's magazine says.

Indeed, the aura of seediness that once hung over the area still appears to remain, claims the highbrow weekly, citing a particular incident involving a 61-year-old man from Kitakyushu on Nov. 5.

"He says he was in Tokyo for a sightseeing trip and was interested in having a look around 2-Chome," a police spokesman says of the case.

At about 9 p.m. on that fateful night, the old man drunkenly stumbled around the streets of 2-Chome.

He came across a pretty young man in his early 20s, who promptly offered to show him "a really interesting place."

The young man led the old gent to a nearby park, where he was greeted by another young friend of his guide who stood there brandishing a knife, which he thrust up against the old man while yet another young man marched him into a girl's toilet nearby. The three younger men ripped off the old man's jacket containing 130,000 yen in cash, tied him up in adhesive tape and fled.

"There've been loads of other reports of robberies and muggings in 2-Chome, but the vast majority of them go unreported," a gay quarter insider tells Shukan Shincho. "Fraud and illegal drugs are also part of the daily life in this place."