Day 4: The Night is Not Fool

I had the most fun this day.

Circadian rhythm all thrown out of whack, I'd been waking up at 6 am every day. So I got an early start and walked around Asakusa, feeling completely recovered and - having met my English and French floormates the day before - with new energy. I ran a couple of errands and took a bunch of photos, seeing as it was a beautiful morning.

the abundance of flowers in tokyo and my hostel from the outside

equally abundant are the super convenient vending machines and (as i've mentioned) cats

I decided to visit the temple in Asakusa - the Sensoji Temple.

In reading the descriptions of the sculptures and shrines, I noticed how many of them

were reconstructed after the originals had been destroyed in the war. Another thing

that struck me was the extreme contrast in environment -- one minute you're dodging

traffic through a busy Tokyo street and the next you're witnessing a Buddhist prayer

ceremony in an Edo-period temple. Japan is incredible.

I had made lunch plans for later that day with the wonderful Jason Cody Douglass

who is studying in Japan with Yale University. Since I don't have a phone, we were

forced to rely on thorough planning and being on time: rendezvous at Hachiko at

13:00. It worked! And for those of you who don't know the story of Hachiko (I'm

assuming it's most of you), I highly, highly recommend reading all about it. I provided

the link, so I'm really expecting you to. Jason was allowed to flex his Japanese by ordering

for me at the restaurant - sushi over rice with soba noodles. NOM.

After that, I had planned another rendezvous at Hachiko with Yusef and his

travel buddy, Euan. Our agenda? Simply to wander around Shibuya and Harajuku,

visit Meiji-jingu and watch the night unfold...

we ran into a people's park! that was about to be purchased by Nike (though not

without a fight).

Meiji-jingu was really impressive. Once again, I was struck dumb by the extreme

contrast in environment - Harajuku one minute, surrounded by tall, tall trees the

next.

crepes in Harajuku (not gonna lie, I think the ones I make are the boss dogs).

merry fuckin' xmas bitch // 'juku lifeeee

and then we went into this shop/rooftop bar called the (brace yourselves)

Tokyo Hipster's Club. The photo above features a Bukowski candle and a Sam

Shepard collection. The photo next to it features glasses once full of sparkling wine

which we enjoyed over good conversation and general pretension.

But it's totally cool because we went to a ramen place afterwards! It was really unique

in that you picked the ingredients you wanted in your soup and they'd make it for you.

The guy behind the counter was a world traveler himself and spoke English quite well so

we struck up conversation.

After paying our bill, saying our "arigato's" and bowing out, we stepped back out into the

rainy Tokyo streets. We decided to go to Yusef and Euan's go-to hangout in Shibuya called

the Rhythm Cafe where they served good drinks, had a neat atmosphere and a hefty Grace

Jones album collection tacked up on their walls.

Having had a decent amount to drink, our next activity needed to be karaoke! What would

a trip to Asia be without a karaoke bar? And an overpriced one at that. Regardless, I had

fun being a mic-hog and whatnot. I picked all of the horrible pop songs that are undeniably

fun to sing and the men picked the cool stuff.

At one point, one of us looked at the time and remembered that there was a last train back

to Asakusa that I needed to catch. The night ended with the three of us tumbling through

Shibuya station and me apologizing for not having the time for a goodbye hug.

I caught the train and caught my breath. Good night, good night!

A day later, as I was leaving Tokyo for good, I saw a guy with a t-shirt that read, "The Night

is Not Fool." I thought, "Oh! Appropriate blog title!"

Days 2 and 3: Love Hotels and Recovery

Well, to be honest, I don't exactly want to talk about my second day in Tokyo. It was kind of a waste of what could have been and should have been an awesome day. But it wasn't.

Long story short, I went to the right place with the wrong person.

I met this guy at the hostel on day 1 and he seemed nice. A little creepy, but nice. I let my first-time-traveler naivety take over and conclude that he was simply "nice".

The next day, I was sitting in the common room talking to two hip looking artsy folks. One named (I believe) Asha, from England and another whose name I can't remember but was funnily enough planning on going to Pratt for his masters degree. We were talking about art and all that when said guy asks if I want to go around Tokyo with him. I said sure because he spoke a little Japanese and I spoke closer to none than some.

We took the Ginza line out to Shibuya and on that thirty minute train ride, I was told all about the Love Hotels in Tokyo and all about Love Hotel Hill. I avoided making eye contact for the entire rest of the trip around Shibuya and Harajuku. I also quickly learned that my travel companion was not one with particularly cultural interests. He seemed more into flashy objects, shiny things, easy girls and cheeseburgers. Total lech.

Oh well! On the bright side, I got well introduced to Shibuya, Harajuku youth culture and the Tokyo metro system - all wonderful.

Ah, and unfortunately, I woke up the next morning feeling the grim reaper's scythe inches from my neck so uh.. I stayed in to recover. It was also raining and cold outside. I think this is when I started to make Asakusa my home. Since I stayed in the whole day, it gave me a chance to meet a lot of the people staying at the hostel. We exchanged travel stories, experiences, advice. The best part? I met Brian who very generously offered to let me stay in his apartment in Seoul, after I told him I'd be in Korea in two weeks. "I'm not using it and it's code-locked."

Who has two thumbs and will be crashing in an apartment in Hongdae?

Day 1: Land of the Rising Sun

Just getting off the subway feeling excited, sweaty and overwhelmed entirely, I took a deep breath.

Because there I was!

Taking my first steps onto the streets of Tokyo, Japan; ta

king the first steps of this kind of crazy venture.

Of course, I got lost trying to find my hostel so I was wandering the area for about two hours before I arrived to the check-in counter at Khaosan Annex hostel all flustered and out of breath. I checked in and looked around the common room - a bunch of 20-30 year olds, looking hip and ready for the world, eyes fixed on a ball scurrying across a great green field on a television screen. I dont care what anyone says - the world cup is a magical thing.

Unfortunately and regrettably, I don't have any photos to share from my first night in Tokyo. My camera was out of battery. So I'm going to have to try my best to verbalize this. My very, very best.

I took the keys to my room and walked up four flights of stairs to my floor. The layout consisted of four or five sleeping areas with doors that open up to a single common space that had a table, kitchen area, bathroom and a shower room. My room was an eight bunk mixed - luckily, I got the bottom bunk closest to the door. I set down my bags, did a little stretch and logged onto Skype to tell my mom I made it in safe.

The initial plan was for me to sleep - I hadn't slept for about three nights. I was more or less racing the sun to the coast. Thursday night I had stayed up so that I could pass out on the plane. Me and a good friend went for a drive at 4:00 am to watch the sunrise and have a fond farewell. It was breathtaking, needless to say. Also, somewhat needl

essly said: didn't get a wink of sleep on the plane.

Anyway, so I had just gotten off Skype with my family when I get a facebook IM from a Yusef. I knew Yusef through an acquaintance at Pratt and had met him only once or twice before, but he was in Tokyo and we had decided to "definitely hang out." Deciding to rendezvous in front of Matsuya (Japanese equivalent to Macy's), we met up at around 10 or 11 and bought a case of Asahi Super Drys (a terrible beer that has won Yusef's misguided heart).

Yusef ended up missing the last train back to his stay in Shibuya -- the next train arrives at around 5 am. So, unable to have strangers in the hostel, we decided to wander the streets and observe the night life. Because really, what's one more night of not sleeping? Asakusa, to my

delight and surprise, has a fairly active night scene. After doing a fair amount of wandering, a bar by the name of CafeRest Cuzn captured my attention (there was an I love NY sticker posted on the front door. I know, I know).

We went in and were greeted with an enthusiastic "konichiwa!" from the tan woman with long, silvery white hair working behind the bar counter. After ordering myself a Darjeeling Cooler (a new favorite poison), me and Yusef struck up a conversation with the bartender who spoke English beautifully. In fact, she actually ended more or less every sentence with the word, "beautiful!" which was, in itself, beautiful. She played a lot of dub-step, was immensely kind and asked to take a picture with us. I'm currently waiting patiently on Yusef's uploads.

At around 4 am, we said our goodbyes to our new friend and started walking back to my hostel, grabbing a bite to eat in between. As we crossed the Red Bridge over the Sumida River, I realized that it was just about time for sunrise.

First night in Tokyo --

watched the sunrise over the Sumida River slightly intoxicated and full of soba noodles.

I'm not sure life gets more perfect or quintessential.

Getting the ball rolling

Well… Where/how do I even begin?

A few days post send-off and sitting on the shinkansen (bullet train) going from Tokyo to Kyoto, I’m finding it rather difficult to wrap my head around the fact that less than a week ago, I was sitting on my bedroom floor struggling to get a shoe out of my dog’s mouth. It’s all very surreal. I regret having not started blogging from the get-go. Then again, more time blogging means less time doing, right?

With the popular idea that “a home is where the heart is” in mind, I feel myself emotionally investing in my host country far faster than I could’ve imagined. I am making a point of this despite my recently acknowledged habit of falling in love with everything and everyone in a heartbeat (hah, but seriously). I am just completely smitten! [Speaking of kittens, there are so many of them in Japan and they’re all unbearably kawaii (cute). It’s an unfortunate thing for your “dude, I’m really fucking allergic to cats” friend here.] But the people here are so kind and polite, albeit, shy and (as I'm looking at the mountains rolling past my window) the country itself is absolutely gorgeous.

Anyway, I’m homesick for my hostel in Asakusa if you can believe that. I stayed there for four nights and met some really lovely, kind and interesting people. I was talking to this one couple from Australia about how staying in the hostel really beat a) the homesickness/loneliness and b) the culture-shock.

Being able to come back to a hostel lobby and just talk to people in the native tongue really makes the whole traveling alone bit a lot easier to bear. It was also really cool to hear French and German and Japanese getting thrown into the mix. The more veggies in the salad, the more fun for the palette. But yeah… Now that I’m on the shinkansen going to Kyoto, I’m feeling homesick and lonely for Tokyo! Isn’t that kind of funny? Well, I think it’s funny. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve had an outrageously fun first few days...

And so, it begins... So this is how to start this off!