Tokyo-Wako

7 a.m. came to quick for me. The plan was to go to Tokyo that morning, and we had another friend Aaron traveling with us. I felt not so great, so I told everyone I would meet them in Tokyo later that evening, and to email me the name of the hotel they found. This was a pretty stupid idea.

I went back to sleep and woke around 11. Feeling good I hopped on the railcar, and then took the subway to the train station. After a transfer in Osaka, I arrived in Tokyo via the bullet train around 4. As soon as I got into the train station it was complete pandemonium. Thousands of men in suits were walking in every direction, and I had no idea where to go. I found a computer at a FedEx shop in the station. I opened up my email, and my heart sank when it was empty. What to do now? I was alone in Tokyo with no plans or direction. I decided to kill a few hours, and headed out into the rain.

The area around the train station reminded me a lot of New York City with less people. Huge bank buildings, nice granite and marble planters, big sidewalks, etc. The first thing I noticed was all of the bicycle messengers. They were zooming around all over the place, except in Japan they ride on the sidewalks instead of the street. It looked like fun, but was pretty gnarly to be walking around on the sidewalks. The messengers were sporting the same fixed gear bikes, and the same bags, caps, and everything else like in America. It was pretty cool to check out the messenger scene in Tokyo.

I wandered through a party of town called Jim-bo-cho, which had hundreds of little book stores crammed into very skinny buildings. After a while all of the lights and corners started looking the same and I was lost and disoriented. I found my way to and internet café, which was on the seventh floor of a building. They also sold comics, porno, and had a massage parlor. Super-sketch. I had to become a member of the club before I could use the computers, but I managed to get on the internet and get hotel directions.

I proceeded to the subway, and got lost even more. After a while I went back up to the street and found a cab. It turns out I was 8 miles away from my destination. I chilled out in the hotel lobby for an hour before my friends turned up, and it was a very happy reunion. They thought for sure that they weren’t going to see me again in Japan. Traveling alone without any communication was pretty hairball, but I definitely got the crash course in Japanese transportation that served me well the rest of the week.