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Published: September 28th 2006
Tokyohmygoditshot!
Shibuya, Oxford Street without the dirt under your fingernails.Between arriving in Japan (more specifically Tokyo) and writing this blog both a lot of time has past and a hell of lot of things have happened - however, I think I am starting it just in time to catch it all before it gets lost to my ever dissolving memory
I'll start off with a little on Tokyo, and although I spent only 2 days there and was a bit brain dead for the most of it, it was an all around wicked city to enter Japan through.
As cities go it is pretty cool and having never been to one of those scyscraper style, billion storie building places I found it all pretty impressive - an incredibly clean and quiet city that is not exactly cosmopolitan by London standards but has a colourful mix of well dressed, clean cut, polite and friendly people (as cities can be).
We were put up in pretty plush style also. I think there is a certain attempt to wow the Jets who arrive, ( that or Japan really is a rich as we are led to believe) and we spent 2 nights in the Keio Plaza Hotel which by English
Trip down memory lane.
Old school Tokyo - a restaurant where there should be a phonebox. standards this is a 5 star hotel, but who knows what is here as they take hopitality to another level. We were told by our JET supervisor lady thst it was where they filmed Lost in Translations, however, it sounded a little too convenient for me. Either way, we ate well, slept strangley and stared like apes in awe at the toilets - (again) at least I did.
We were being broken in to Japanese life slowly, as we dined on bacon and bread in the mornings and pasta or Japanese curry in the evening.
I have to say it was an experience I'll never forget, as there were around 1600 of us foreign boys and girls looking much the worse for wear, but in our best suits, who (in my cse anyway ) had never been to hotel yet alone a country like this before. I also had to wear a name badge which was a magnet for Mormon lookalike's to approach me and say 'Hey!'.
In the time we were in Tokyo, me and Den managed to get out every night and made to over to Shibuya (equiv. of Oxford Circus) and Roppongi (supposedly the
equivelant Soho, but they must have cleaned up their act knowing we were on our way). We managed to arrive for a kodak perfect pedestrian road crossing with five intersecting crowds at Shibuya, and headed down to a place called memory lane which is one of the only places in Tokyo not to be flattened during WW2 and consists of lots of little restaurants that seat about 10 people and serve, anything on a stick. It was probably the best intro to Japan and we met some sound people who seemed pretty curious as we were the only westerners there. I later read in the Lonely planet that it had earned the nickname 'piss alley' (or something like that) for obvious reasons, which may have explained the turn out .
Either way it was worth the walk and after purchasing a dandy looking casio watch (cheapest in the shop) I decieded that I could take on anything this country decided to throw (or politely offer) at me.
There was a lot of other adventures in Tokyo, including meeting the fantastic Jets that make up the Kamijima-chou 4: Luke, Jenny and Ethan; as well as the rather colourfultalks on'being
Room with a view
I had to lay down very shorlty after this pic was taken. No joke. God apparently didn't put me on this earth to ride lifts at speed... a rural JET' and finding out just how unique out placements are (especially Ethan's), and generally feeling like your walking around in sauna, fully clothed - but I want to get onto the Love Princess (Ehime) who would be my home for the next year.
(ps: these entries are pre-dated)
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Stephanie
non-member comment
WOW!
What more can I say!