Tokyo Adventure

Actually, nothing noteworthy happened. I basically wandered around Tokyo for 4 days. The pictures do a much better job at telling the story. But here is the rough outline in writing.

At 10:30PM on Tuesday, Dec. 23rd I set off on a night bus towards Tokyo. We arrived at Ikebukuro station at 4:30AM, so I headed over the the Tsukiji fish market. It was a total mad house with lots of dead sea creatures for sale. Then I explored Ginza, went to the Imperial Palace, Hibiya park, Tokyo Tower, walked to Ropponggi district and then Shibuya. I spent the afternoon in Shibuya exploring and looking for a specific capsule hotel and I ate all-you-can-eat pizza to Shakeys (yummm). I finally found the hotel, checked in and then went out for a few drinks. That was Christmas eve.

Christmas morning I walked over to Harajuku and checked out the Meiji temple and Yoyogi park. Then, once again, I spent all afternoon looking for a specific place. Once I found it, I met up with a bunch of other English teachers (mostly from England) for an extremely expensive and miniscule turkey dinner. Then we went off to the sticks for extremely affordable all-you-can drink karaoke. Back at their apartments we continued to sing and party until very late. I got an unclaimed bunk which was nice and private but totally bare, so no pillows, blankets or pads for me.

On Dec. 26th I got to sleep in (on the empty bunk) and then one of the hosts made amazing breakfast sandwiches. I took off back to the main city and stopped by the SONY building and then Akihabara, the electronics/computer geek capital of Tokyo. I spent the night there in an internet cafe. 

The next day was probably my favorite day, which I spent at Ueno park. It is a great park with statues and museums and a zoo. I spent all day there and I could probably spend another day there. There were also some really good street street performers. That evening I headed to another part of the city to catch a band, but I could not find the venue... even with the assistance of a bilingual college student. It turns out I had the address wrong. Even though I initially wanted to go to Harajuku on Sunday morning to see the people who dress up, I decided to save some money and the struggle to find a cheap hotel and just head home. So I caught the shinkansen home and met a really nice old guy that bought me a beer in exchange for English conversation practice. 

It was a good trip. Very challenging and lonely at times, but I'm really glad I had the experience. And I learned many new things. For example, even if you have a map and an address, it can still take hours to find an establishment in Tokyo.