Catching Up On The Past Week

The day after the concert, Travis and Garrett were understandably pretty tired so they spent the afternoon sleeping at the hostel. I couldn't fall asleep so I went out with Frank to explore the town. We went to a really spectacular conveyor belt sushi place that was extremely fair price. After that we hit the train to go to Roppongi to hit up the nightlife. Definitely staying true to the Tokyo feel, it was bright and full of buildings and pachinko parlors.

After hitting that up we walked through a beautiful area that was obviously a set of parks, schools, and shrines that represented the less hectic side of town. We then emerged on the other end where we realized there was a little bit more nighttime chaos going on, but in a less youthful way and more in the form small, dirty shops. There we found a place that had a sign saying that Japanese people only were allowed in. Of course, we went in to see what the secret was. It turns out that prostitution up until intercourse is allowed in Japan if veiled in the right way. We had to leave -- for many reasons.

However, on the way out, we met a man on the streets who redirected us to the side of town where we might have a little more fun. He showed us some cool places to go around town, then we split up with him and started to venture on our own. We went in various buildings to check out what the scene was like and found it to be more hilarious than anything else. Some of Japan's social interactions are just alarming... If this has been an indication, I am sure that I would never want to be a lonely Japanese man or a poor woman working here. Although we didn't really do anything in particular except see what kinds of places we didn't want to enter but wanted to find out about, it was really eye opening and quite an adventure


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The next day, Garrett, Frank, Travis, and I headed to the Sony building and around central Tokyo. It was definitely the classier side of Tokyo, everyone was really well dressed but not obscenely so. We explored a shopping center that was undeniably nicer than any I'd seen before this -- every store inside was really high class and designer and you could buy a suit or a $400 man bag pretty much anywhere (except the women's stores ^^). Frank started to not feel so well so he took off as we went to the Ebisu beer museum.

The museum was pretty small itself (how much culture could it have, really?) but the area it owned was pretty evident of the success of the industry. We checked out the museum which was less than a 50 meter walk, then headed out for Shinjuku.

This city was insane. When I had previously thought of Tokyo, it was obvious this was the part of Tokyo I was thinking of; surreal lights with LED everything. There were tons of stores ranging from niches for nerds to designer clothes to really high tech gear. We walked dinner and looked around, eventually realizing that it was 12:05. Well, the trains stop running at 12:00 so we had to stay there the whole night. Garrett knew what this town was like at night so he warned us that Nigerian men would hassle you to go to karaoke clubs virtually all night if you were in certain parts of town. He was not exaggerating at all. If you look idle for more than 15 or 30 seconds, a man who claims to come from Nigeria with the name Tony or Mike will come and ask you to come to their bar. After spending about 45 or 90 minutes talking these guys up (mostly in the form of letting them pitch their karaoke bar and then ask them for ridiculously low rates and hassle them about the deals) we lost interest. So we went to a convenience store to get a snack on the outskirts of this area where we met a few late nighters who were very kind and fun to talk to. We talked about music, what they were up to that night, etc. Eventually they all got bored and ready to go to bed, but one led us to an izakaya (tavern/bar) he liked so we could sit down (very very tired feetsies) while we waited for the trains to start again at 5. There we just chatted with him and talked to the bartender. I find myself only capable at this point of talking with Japanese people about their taste in music and what they like to do, so we did that with him. The man that led us there said he was getting tired and so he headed out. A few minutes later, he came back with some candy for us from the convenience store... some kind of ice cream with a chocolate shell on the outside about the size of a thumb. They were delicious. So after a few more minutes of loitering, we headed to the trains, where we slept literally all day long with the exception of saying goodbye to Frank in the morning who headed out to Kansai.

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That night, Taka-san was staying at our hostel because it had better deals. I woke up around 6 to the great news that if we gave Taka-san $4 he would cook everyone dinner. About an hour later, 6 of us ate some really fantastic dinner that in both quality and quantity exceeded a four dollar meal. We thanked him, said goodnight and went back to bed.

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We started our JR pass the next day but missed the first option of trains to get there around 7-8, so we ended up there around 10 (or later, I forget). Travis was pretty beat from 10 hours of trains from Tokyo to Sapporo so he stayed in the hotel while Garrett and I wandered around looking for some food. After that we got to our hotel, I took a shower, and went to bed.

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Today, we woke up around 10 and started our Sapporo adventure. We found Korokke (fried potatoes incomparable to hashbrowns) for 50 cents a piece at a local restaurant and I pigged out on that for breakfast. Afterwards, it was off to the Sapporo factory which was pretty similar to Ebisu's except less busy because its in a more distant location than Tokyo. Along the way we hit up some nice modern art (fountains, towers, etc) that we saw along the way. It was really a great town and I loved the hybrid feel of something between New York and Boulder. We all agreed it would be nice to live in a place like Hokkaido :-)

We went to another fish market today and wow it smelled like fish... I never realized how much I liked that smell if its in the right setting I suppose. After that we had some errands to run

We went back to the hotel to get our stuff (they kindly let us keep it there for free all day... I didn't know hotels did that too) after buying sleeping bags and a flashlight at the local Don Quijote <-- I just realized I don't know how to phonetically spell Spanish, I hope that's correct.

Ever since, we've been on a train to Wakkanai, our destination for the night. We're going to stay there and hit up Rebun tomorrow, truly getting out of the city life and into an area preserved if nothing else, by proximity away from Tokyo and a smaller influx of foreign travellers there; primarily only Russian's come into Japan from that area.