Hello everyone! I have only a few minutes to write a quick note, but I wanted to let you all know that I have landed safely in Narita and am about to get on a train to Tokyo. I almost lost my camera but it survived so photos will come shortly…

Update!

I’m now sitting in my room at Hotel Hikari after roaming around lost for a while, which was way more fun than it sounds. I booked two nights here and am glad I did because it seems like a very good location from which to explore for a bit. Tomorrow: electric razor shopping and a visit with Kiyomi!

I just arrived at the olympic youth memorial center (?) in yoyogi (shinjuku area) to try and book a room at the youth hostel here, but they are closed until 5pm so I have some time to kill… So far, it looks like Hotel Hikari is going to end up having been much nicer, so I will likely only stay the night here. It is very close to some recommended spots in Shinjuku and Shibuya, though, so that is good. As soon as I arrived at the center, two young japanese girls asked if I would do an interview with them for a school project about high school in the US, so I answered some questions. They told me that this is a popular spot for backpackers visiting Tokyo even though it is rather deserted today. Maybe when the hostel opens up I’ll run into some others.

A few hours later…
The Yoyogi hostel wouldn’t take me as they were all booked, so they sent me to Tokyo International (the other major hostel in Tokyo, right near central tokyo and the tokyo dome). I finally found it with the help of some friendly japanese folks, but they too turned me down. They suggested the Sakura Hotel which is only two subway stops away. I got to the station closest to it (Jimbocho) but was having a hell of a time finding it, so I stopped to ask the staff at an empty restaurant. They didn’t know where it was, but went so far out of their way to help I was blown away: one guy ran down the street and photocopied a detailed map of the area and drew a line for me indicating exactly how to get there. I thanked him profusely and went on my way, but my legendary sense of direction failed me and I was once again lost. I stopped again, this time at a copy shop. The two guys there busted out the giant blueprint style city map and made two massive photocopies of it and gave me practically footstep-by-footstep directions. I can’t believe how incredibly nice and helpful every single person has been so far. I finally found the Hotel and booked one night in a shared room, which ended up being cold and noisy. I am now back in the Hikari Hotel for 4 nights which is far cheaper (3300Y/night for a single room), cleaner, quieter, has free wifi, and I think in a nicer location. They even gave me the exact same room I was in the other night.

Yesterday I visited Akihabara to see the giant electronics store there. It is supposedly the largest in Tokyo, and it certainly is huge. The place is 8 storeys tall and occupies an entire city block. They have entire floors dedicated to cell phones, computers, video games, TVs and all sorts of home appliances. I found a cheapo headset to use with Skype for about $6US, but almost everything there is either the same price or more than it is at home. On the streets around there I saw some good deals on cameras and computers, though. While I was walking around there I found a similarly huge music equipment store and spent a couple hours playing every instrument I could get my hands on. The highlight of my day was rocking out on the drums for a while (the place wasn’t crowded at all! I got to play for about 40 minutes).

Yesterday I ventured out to Ueno (only a few minutes from my hotel, the location for this post) to see the Ameyoko market and get some of the good cheap food I was told about there. I went into a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant close by and waited for a while to be seated, but the sushi was delicious and cheap (photo below).

From there I walked through the market and then into the park area where several museums are located. I spent a few hours walking through some very good exhibits of Egyptian, Chinese and Japanese art in the Tokyo National Museum.

I finally met up with Kiyomi last night. She brought her friend Megumi along and we all went to Ginza to join another friend Kazu. Last night near the Tokyo station there was a huge festival going on (Illumination festival?) which involved a series of huge gates made of lights set up all the way down a main street. We all went to see it and took some photos, then walked to a restaurant.

I wish I could remember the name (Wataki? Watami?) - as Kiyomi promised, it was nothing like I’ve experienced at home. The food was excellent and we all had plenty of sake and biru. Tonight I have plans to meet up with Mayu’s friend Shige and Kazu in Shibuya for drinking and karaoke.

Yesterday afternoon I spent walking around Ebisu (Shibuya area, the location for this post) aimlessly, just stopping in random shops and restaurants mostly. I did have one objective while I was there, though: ramen. I read about a place there called Ippudo Ramen which is supposed to serve a fantastic bowl of chashu (roast pork) ramen. It was easy to find, and with some difficulty I ordered a bowl of ramen and some gyoza. My ramen senses were tingling when the bowl landed in front of me - it took all of my willpower to pause for a moment and take a photo. Easily my best chashu ramen experience to date.

Later on I found an English bookshop and finally got myself a copy of the Japan lonely planet and Microserfs by Douglas Coupland (a recommendation from Adam). I was rung up by a very nice but cynical New Zealander and we talked about traveling for a bit. He pretty much told me not to go to any of the places on my list, except New Zealand of course.

Shige took me out in Shinjuku last night and I had a great time!
We had agreed to meet at the Shinjuku station’s east exit ticket gate at 6pm. I got there at 6:05 after mistakenly stopping at Shibuya (1 stop too early on the Yamanote line) and walked around for a bit looking for Shige. Shinjuku station is the largest and busiest train station in Tokyo (the world?). I did finally make it to the east gate after finding the east south gate… Even standing right there at the gate, it took me another 30 minutes to finally spot Shige, who had been waiting for me the whole time.

He took me to a great (and cheap!) restaurant and we enjoyed a light dinner and several drinks before he took me to this tiny bar a few blocks away. His friends were working the bar and there was only a small handful of people inside including a belligerent (but entertaining) woman. We enjoyed many more drinks, sang some karaoke, and I met some great people. I really wish I could have stayed longer, but my hotel requires that I be in by 1am every day. Shige walked me back to the station and I made it home just in time - 1am exactly.

Today Shige and I took a day trip to Kamakura, a quiet town about an hour outside of Tokyo that is home to many temples and shrines, including the famous Daibatsu statue (13.5 meter tall bronze buddha). I woke up early and met Shige at a train station and we rode out to Kita-Kamakura to start walking south through town, visiting a bunch of temples along the way.

It was fantastic to have Shige as a guide - he pointed out a lot of things I would never have noticed and explained a bit about buddhist and shinto practices. Inbetween temple visiting we stopped for lunch (kaiten-zushi-ya!) and looked at souveneir shops. It was a really nice day.

Afterwards we went out in Shinjuku with some of Shige’s friends (Keiko, Nozomi and Sean) to an Irish pub. It was nice to be out with a group of people who can speak English!

Happy New Year everyone!
I hope you are already off to a good start. I had a great New Year’s Eve / Day:
I started in Asakusa after spending the night in a capsule hotel there. Jay and I both decided to check it out the night before because we hadn’t arranged a place to stay and it was on both of our agendas as something to do in Tokyo. It turned out to be really cool. When we checked in, we bought tickets from a machine next to the front desk. 1 night is Y3000 / person, with an extra Y500 charge if you arrive after 2am. We were then given keys to a shoe locker, a larger storage locker and assigned a capsule. Inside the capsules we were provided:

• Fresh bedding
• Pajamas
• A bar of soap
• A razor
• A toothbrush
• Television
• Radio with an alarm clock
• Temperature control
• A comfy pillow

It was surprisingly comfortable and not as tiny as I had imagined. I think I’ll end up doing it again as it is cheap, easy and check-in is possible in the middle of the night if necessary. At most capsule hotels women are not allowed, but this one had a section for women as well.

In the morning I walked around beautiful Asakusa and visited two of the major temples there which were gearing up for the New Years celebrations. I took a lot of breaks (had a mister donut along the way!) as I was lugging around my full backpack, but managed to walk a couple miles before meeting Jay, Maddie and Dustin to catch a ferry to Odaiba. Odaiba is a sort-of tourist center by Tokyo bay that has a few major attractions like the Fuji TV headquarters and some giant shopping malls. When we arrived there was some Japanese girl-band performing on a stage in front of the Fuji building which was rather entertaining. The Fuji building has a large observatory that is open to the public and has an amazing view of the bay and the Tokyo skyline that includes the Rainbow Bridge and the Tokyo Tower (above) so we went up there and expected nothing more than some good photo-ops. We had no idea what was in store. Up in the observatory, they had everyone stand behind rows of railing in the middle of the room. Windowshades lowered, music came on and after a brief weird little light show a video started. It was a hilariously cheesy (and thus fantastic) virtual flyover tour of Tokyo complete with a cast of uniformed narrators. The best part, though, were the cameos by Hard Gay. Hard Gay is a popular comedian in Japan who does a lot of ass-shaking, woo!-ing and arm-waving. I have no idea what to make of it or what most Japanese people think about it but they seem to love him. The camera would fly by a big landmark and then zoom in and he’d be dancing around shouting something. I don’t get it, but I love it.

After that we joined up with Mayu, Shige, Kiyomi, Derek and Michelle at Palette Town (no idea why its called that) and hashed out the plans for the evening. Another great think about Japan is that you can buy alcohol at any hour and drink in public, but no one seems to abuse the privelege. So we hung out, enjoyed some chu-hai, sake and arcade games, then went to Shibuya for dinner. Our group was 8 people so we had a large room to ourselves and ate a delicious dinner together before attempting make it to a temple by midnight. Trying to mobilize the group proved difficult and we ended up being part of the massive crowd on the street in the famous giant intersection in Shibuya. It was madness.

From there we went to the temple, made some New Years wishes, had some New Years snacks, then went to Shinjuku for… Karaoke! We found a place that offered an all-you-can-eat-and-sing-and-drink all night until they close at 5am so needless to say thats what I did until 5. So much fun. Then Mayu and I went to Meijijingu temple, the largest and most famous (and most crowded) temple in Tokyo. Even at 5:30am it was full of people who had been partying all night.

Then, finally, sleep. Such a great New Years.