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September 11th 2007

Published: February 25th 2008

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Yellow Head

Samurai in Shibuya

A sweet festival we ran into in Shibuya

The fervid heat of a Tokyo summer is enough to put anyone into a state of general malaise. It goes straight to your bones and deprives you of all of your energy. At times I felt like a zombie wandering around in a maze. If it wasn’t for the omnipresent vending machines providing me with pumped up sugar drinks and ice coffee I would have collapsed.

The sprawling metropolis seemed to stretch off indefinitely and the subway and streets were so foreign and difficult to navigate at times that I spent hours just staring at my map in disbelief. The air was constantly filled with a cacophony of sounds; talking vending machines, salesmen trying to outshout their neighbors, pachinko parlors, speeding taxicabs, gaming centers with their doors ajar, giggling school girls, Elvis impersonators blasting the King’s music from old boom boxes, and cars with giant speakers promoting a person for an upcoming election. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. And it was worlds away from the insular community that I call home in the Japanese Inland Sea. However, despite all of this, I loved it. These are the things that make Tokyo, Tokyo.

We were only able

Senso-ji

Wandering around the temple grounds in Asakusa at night.

to stay there for three days but in this short amount of time we were able to see and experience a lot of what the city had to offer. There is still a lot more to be explored, however, and I know that I will visit again. Tokyo always calls!

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