Day 2 - Tokyo

This is the main area of the hostel common room. Nice.
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This is going to be a long blog entry. Two reasons

1. I have the time because it is 06:50 and Amy will be in bed for a few more hours
2. This is Tokyo and after one day I could write a book.

Smells like tent

We began the day around 7 AM. I had been woken up by one of our roommates at least half a dozen times starting at 9 PM. In a room of 8 people, only one woke me up. He didn't mind rummaging through paper and plastic bags with the lights on. He didn't mind leaving the room for half an hour with the lights on. I am happy that he was comfortable enough with this to start it again at 03:30 and turn the lights off and on at least another 11 times.

Yes, I wanted to eat my hand.
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At 3 AM it was mid morning in Vancouver, so I had trouble getting back to sleep. I did though and lasted a few more hours to 7 AM.

At 7 AM the hostel lobby was lively. There were 3 or 4 people down there drinking coffee, sharing stories, and preparing for the journey home. I sat and wrote the first journal entry, while Amy planned our day.

Not quite prepared to take on the language, we decided to head somewhere a little bit more familiar and less intimidating for our linguistic skill level. Starbucks and Denny's. Starbucks was the same as home, except that my Americano that I pay $1.60 at home for, was $3.40.

Oh yes, the infamous vending machines. These ones only sell drinks and ciggarettes.
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The Denny's menu was a little shocking; noodles, soup, tofu. They did have a nice looking "Denny's Breakfast" though. When my breakfast came, I was a little smaller than back home. Small like: If you are having trouble losing weight, come here.

I forgot to mention my smell impressions yesterday. At first I thought that Tokyo smelled like tent and the people smelled like Peru. Now my impressions have change. I believe that Tokyo smells like 1960's plastic and trains in the mountain.

After breakfast, we headed back to the hostel to clean up and get ready for the day.

Amy and her Cosplay girl. Crazy.
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We received decent instructions from the girl that was working at the front desk. Somehow we still spent 30 minutes in the subway station staring at the 3 maps of the system. There are 3 maps as there are three systems as there are 3 companies running the systems. They share nothing in Common. Good luck.

So we went back to the hostel for further instruction. Eventually we were on the correct train. Headed to Harajyuku.

We arrived after a confusing system transfer and a lot of pinning ourselves against the station walls to protect ourselves from being flattened by the sudden surges of thousands of train off-boarders.

The middle of the shrine.
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When we walked out of the station, the feeling of sensory overload and complete overwhelming "crazy wow goodness deluxe funtime happy yay" hit us like a dump truck.

We walked up the sidewalk to the park entrance. Here there were hundreds of girls standing around posing in what they call "Cosplay". This means "Costume Play" as Amy pointed out.

The cost play people are dressed like fictional japanimation (just called "animation" here, I would assume) characters, and some just in strange outfits made to shock or draw attention to them. They do this for what? Attention and to pass time, that's it!

Part of Shibuya. Doesn't do it justice.
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There were crowds of people with their cameras clicking away, posing with the girls. In most places of the world, you can't have your pricture taken with someone for free. Here you can.

After a long visit with the freaks, we walked into the park to see the shrine. I was a huge park with a huge shrine. You have to cleans your hands and mouth before entering.

It is really really cold here. Like 4 degrees.

The shrine was pretty cool. People cleansing. Writing wishes and hanging them on this wall thing, throwing money into some thing, praying. At one point some important looking guy escorted a bunch of people into the middle of the shrine so that they could all pray together, while some less important guy beat a drum.

Cost
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After this we spent the next few hours wading through a sea of young Japanese girls in the shopping districts (Mostly Shibuya). It was so overwhelming trying to take in the sights and sounds of this city. It is just thick with people and shops. Every inch of every building has some sort of add, banner, sign, or something on it.

There is a business in every nook and cranny. There is a restaurant or shop on every level of every building. This city is so overwhelmingly commercial.

What sums up Tokyo:

Parking
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1. Girls
2. Cars
3. Technology
4. Food

All the people are kind and polite. People go out of their way to be nice. Everything is so extremely well thought out. There is no vandalism, almost no crime.

If you are not interested in "stuff" then this place would seem sickeningly materialistic to you. This is the epitome of consumerism. It seems like the people here live to show themselves and their things. The live to spend money and socialize.

We headed back to have dinner with that girl that works at the hostel. She brought another girl that works there too. We headed to what would turn out to be the most unique eating experience I have had in my life.

Prayers on a wall
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We walked about 5 blocks to a famous Sushi bar. We lined up outside. When I got inside we realized that we had been lining up outside in preparation for the lineup inside.

After about an hour we were seated at the bar. I ate:

• Fish guts
• Whale
• A live fish while it still twitched in the dish

It was difficult, but it was pretty tasty. I think my soul dropped a few points after eating the live fish and whale.

The Audi presentation centre. The tower on the left is actually where they store the cars. The are stored on shelves.
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After dinner we walked to a not-so-near-by bar for a taste of the local booze. I had a really good sake. So good. Amy had a plum wine cocktail, also so good.

Home by 22:00, then hit the sac. Here we are 07:38 now. Time to get ready for another day.

We have started online albums. Here is the fixed link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/babyblues6