04 Dec JAPAN! Tropical Storms! Harajuku! Fish!
yo yo, this is a craaaazy week…but I’d really like to get these up before the holidays. We’ll see.
I left LA at noon on Friday…I arrived at 4pm on Saturday in Tokyo. It was only an 11 hour flight…
+ 16 hours and the international date line.
Approaching Narita we had a good 30 minutes of consistent turbulence. I’ve never thought I was going to get airsick like I did then…the reason? Oh just a little tropical storm of the coast of Japan.
Awessssome.
Apparently, they really want to know that you have a place to stay…and a contact number before letting you into Japan. I knew neither.
Luckily, I had a guide book. The Tokyo YMCA seemed like a good place to be “staying.” I suppose that means I entered the country under false pretenses…oops.
It didn’t take Micah and I as long to find each other as it did in Germany…
I felt naked without a cell phone…so one of our first stops was the cell rental place. The girls were very friendly and giggled a lot. The next order of business was food. And beer. We had noodles and beer…maybe Kirin. I don’t quite recall. It was delicious.
You could smoke in the restaurant.
We made our way back to Micah’s on via the train subway system. Micah had never done it before…
it was an adventure…and cost about $40.
$5 to get to Oakland doesn’t sound so bad now does it?
We took a High speed train to an Express to a Local.
Everywhere people were on their phones, txt’ing. No one talked on them. No phone rang.
Night. Neon. Shinjuku.
After checking into the hotel we went for dinner number 2…
Most of the Japanese I know involves sushi…so I felt pretty comfortable ordering that…we had some amazing fish at this place. The guy seemed to recognize Micah.
Sake. Sushi. Horse Meat.
My body was now at about 8am time…but we kept going. Back to a club near the hotel for another drink.
I was like a shark…as long as I kept moving. 26 hour day ain’t nothin! This is Japan!
—–Day 2—–
I don’t know if was the adrenaline or the fact that I’m an awesome traveler…but that next morning I was set on local time.
None-the-less, a surreal way to start the day…
Cappuccinos were our drink da-jour in Europe…but apparently they didn’t know what they were here. This “Latte” however was surprisingly Cappuccinoesque.
We ate some baked goods from the “Swedish Smell” place, drank our coffee and planned.
the plan was Harajuku…
back to the train.
the madness that is…
Harajuku is pretty much the Cosplay capital…of the Universe. (go ahead and google cosplay) And every Sunday is the meeting of Galactic Representatives. You thought Haight Street was weird?
Haight Street ain’t got nothin’ on this…
People come to take pictures, people come to have their picture taken: it’s a big picture fest.
Little Bo Peeps and a Yeti.
We bopped around for a while, took some wrong turns looking for a place to eat…but I didn’t get us lost. I was getting cranky quick…my blood sugar was crashing…correction, it had crashed. Finally we found a place. (the place with a “Grass of Beer”)
I’m pretty good with chopsticks, I actually taught myself how to use them in college. I’d sit out on the back porch and eat rice and veggies when I lived on Taraval with Christian (who strangely enough JUST signed onto AIM as I was typing this…) We never had chop sticks at home, and didn’t go out to Asian restaurants…except Thai…and Thai people don’t use chopsticks. But I digress…
The point being. Luke: white boy can sit w/ no chair and eat with sticks. BUT…fish…on the bone. HARD. Really hard. It took me forever to eat this fish…and I had to pull soooo many bones out of my mouth. I tried multiple techniques. Nothing seemed to work.
Eventually I figure out to scrape in the same direction as the ribs…
After dinner we headed out to Tokyo Central Station to go to a wine bar…it took us a while to find, because it wasn’t it the first super huge, super modern, super nice mall we went in. It was in the equally big one next door. It was like going to the Grove and looking for a shop, only to find out it was in Grove B…next door but with just as many shops (or in this case floors).
The staff was friendly, the view was incredible, the wine was…ehn. It was ok. I guess I’ve been spoiled recently with wine. We watched a guy carve a block of ice into a perfect sphere for a drink.
We talked. We laughed. Then we headed home.
Next time…
Sushi, Cheesecake, Pumpkin Ice Cream, Tokyo Tower!
I’m off to see some good ol’ Rock and Rorr.
-Luke
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