[Days 97 -98] Tokyo Suprises

Hip Hop!


Today is Saturday, May 2nd. Spent the last 12 nights in Egypt and good gawd it was incredible. The people, the cities, the desert, the culture, the sights... astounding... many of Brad's pics are already on his facebook. Tomorrow we arrive in Turkey for another stint of experience!

Here's 24 hours in Tokyo...

New Zealand was a nice introduction; Australia was a party; Bali was exotic.... Japan was a challenge. It's not foreigner friendly—every sign's in Japanese and most people “don'tuh speak eny ingrish, sawry.” It also lays claim to the best rail system (JRL) in the world.

Our plane lands in the afternoon. It takes more than an hour to find our bags, go through customs, and get a JRL swipe card, aka Suica, which grants easy access to every train in the country. We waddle with our enormous backpacks through the airport, down to train level B5, or basement level 5 (the place has 5 stories of trainlines!). Tokyo trip takes __ minutes—extremely quick and futuristic—the car is impeccable and the seats are first class—a digital map on the wall tells location, and clocks provide both ETA and time remaining.



Now in Tokyo station, the task at hand is finding our local train and getting to the hostel—we're delirious and still semi-hungover from Christmas night. The station is astoundingly huge, the size of San Diego's Fashion Valley Mall (parking lots included), and mostly underground. There are restaurants, cafes, coffee houses, fashion boutiques, convenience stores, etc. We wander aimlessly through Japan's biggest train-hub, trying to understand the color-coded strange-named (Akinobashi, Kokobunji, Shibuya, etc) system. Though it's frustrating, it's our first glimpse at Japanese people... unforgettable.

Many guys resemble G-Star Raw ads—denim everything with unnecessary straps, zippers, washes, and crinkles. Others are suit-clad, clean-cut, and walk determined on balls of feet. Young women dress posh in boots, warm coats, and mini-skirts. Many people run, a few strut hair styled like Anime characters. It is winter, flu-season, so 40% wear surgical masks—at first we thought this was to avoid germs or pollution, but it's the opposite: ill people (sniffles, flu, a mere cough, whatever) wear masks to not spread germs... remarkable, and sums up the general vibe of Japanese—extremely polite and kind. We ask them where our train is and the first lot smile so big then apologize for not speaking English, and giggle around seemingly nervous but I think they just naturally squirm for foreigners. Then, we ask an old balding man and he perks up pointing his index finger like a cartoon'd epiphany “Ah yass yass go o'er der den up stair” off we trudge, and we wind up exactly where the airport train let us out. Turns out many Japanese men have too much integrity to admit 'I dunno'—they instead give you wrong directions... sweet.

Eventually, we meet a Japanese-American girl who speaks perfect ingrish, and happened to spend 6 years living in San Diego...what are the odds? She's kind enough to walk us to our train, and we thank her 88 times. Now on board, we look around and everyone's mouth's shut—they're staring at their phones, ostensibly texting (cell minutes are expensive so everyone texts, and their phones have 10 megapixel cameras). 8 ft away, in the corner, there is a fat kid (22?) playing his PSP console—I can hear the music from his headphones—oblivious to the world, he picks his nose twice and eats his findings.

Arrive our stop, walk a tunnel, up 2 stair flights, and into street. Turn right and after 5 steps notice how clean it is—no litter whatsoever—every 30ish yards there is a big 'no smoking sign' painted on the sidewalk. The weather is near freezing, or maybe I'm just a pansy... compared to Bali the place felt like the North Pole and damn the wind chill!

We traverse the area for half an hour trying to realize our location. We finally ask directions and discover we've spent the entire time going the wrong way—turns out the hostel was just a block away from the subway exit... we turned right instead of left... beautiful.

Now sun is down and we're at the hostel. We remove our shoes in the front lobby, put on provided slippers, and check in. Go to our rooms and WOW the place is silent! and weird... In New Zealand and Oz, hostels are proper dorms: just big rooms with bunk beds, but the bunks here are totally private—imagine a cabinet for sleeping in—long, woodgrain, rectangular-enclosed cube-pod; inside is a bed with 4-feet of head room; entrance is a thick curtain at the foot of the bed—big cabinets. I stash my backpack in a locker, take a shower, climb in my bunk stark naked, and drift into the most wonderful sleep.

Then I startle awake to a stranger in my cabinet, on my bed...it's a dude what the fuck! I flip on the light and staring at me square in the face comically blank “Todd! what are you doing in JAPAN MAN! NO WAY! NO WAY! Bro I'm naked get out of here” I throw on some clothes and hop down. Old high school pals Todd Smith and Matt Flischer have surprised us in Japan! I'm dreary, high on adrenaline, flattered, and speechless, literally unable to speak beyond loud mumble—we'd been away from old chums for so long and it takes a minute to realize I'm not dreaming. Todd says he saw Bradon returning from the shower, and Brad's face went through 5 different expression in 5 seconds...it's a celebration bitches!

Snag our duty-free bottles then scurry upstairs to the communal room and over sloppy vodka pulls we catch up on Todd's film career and Matt's teaching gig, and then Kelly, our outstanding friend met back in New Zealand, who's on a similar round-the-world trip running marathons on every continent, struts in and more big hugs abound as the scene grows blurry in the best of ways.

We found a Japanese - American translation book... hilarious

The 5 of us set out for pub-laughs. The 3 of em already know the trains inside and out, so they lead to Shinjuku, 1 of the bar districts. We get some beer at a sidewalk vending machine and trot alive from the layers of reunion, the buildings themselves alive with soundtrack'd video-billboards, everything so techno— bulb'd signs flash as street corners scream neon and people walk hurridly in front of shops with neon indoors and others with faint indoors and others even mysterious with doors mask'd opaque, all inviting and electric—I feel exactly like Harrison Ford in Bladerunner but exuberant and the landscape's clean—trains plow bridges between skyscrapers overhead, but no sound over jamming streets of incessant action!


Nigerian promo-men hype the girls in their bar and their girlie-bars and skin shows; they hype relentless and over-the-top stating how the most beautiful are in their club, and their street fronts blink pink kanji (Japanese letter). but our group is so absorbed in each other and the moment and JAPAN! that we march past 'til a lonely door catches our eye, 'Rock and Roll Bar', so we shift down 3 stair flights into a dim basement pub hearing the American-soul-song of Stevie Ray Vaughn. We find a table in the back and plunge into rounds of pints amidst conversation that breaks only for short moments of stunned awe--the 5 of us are together in Japan... plans evolve.