Travel Journal – Sunday 20/4 – 08
Sunday, dear Sunday… I’ve now been here for a whole week. I arrived at Sunday and it seems like I’ve managed to survive for a whole week. And even so it now seems like no time at all has passed while it ALSO feels like I’ve been here for ages. I feel like I’ve just arrived here and haven’t even been able to see and do all things I want to do and at the same time it feels like so much have happened that it feels like more than a week. I mean, I’ve met a lot of new people and I’ve already learned a bunch of new stuff and I’ve seen things that in the beginning felt so different from back home but now I’m used to most of it… and all this in only one week. It’s amazing!
According to my calculations I’ve spent circa 3000 SEK so far. This includes food and living. So all expenses I’ve had since I entered Japan. I have all my expenses written down so I’m pretty sure that this is pretty much everything. In the beginning I missed some small things here and there but now everything works perfectly. The book matches the reality and I keep track of every expense. I also keep an eye at my bank account in Sweden so I know how much it costs to transfer money and how much money I have to spend. Let’s say that I will spend circa 2000 SEK a week1 I will have spent circa 7000 SEK when I get home. Most likely it won’t be that much because when I came here I took the easy ways out and hadn’t really realized how much things cost and where to get it cheap but worth it, like breakfast for one example.
As you may remember the first days I walked without it. Now I have at least a small breakfast every day. This contains of one cup of tea (yeah, maybe two it time allows), four slices of toast with ham and no cheese cause they don’t have real cheese here. Can you actually believe that? They have small packages with cheese or things like butter-cheese but in very small packages and often it’s not much at all for about 1000 yen, which is to much for just one day of cheese, so I don’t buy it. Just ham and margarine2. So it’s nothing at all, but at least it’s something, often enough to survive till lunch, even thou I’m hungry all the time, but I’m always hungry, even at home so it doesn’t matter anyway. And if I really want something there is like small food shops every ten meters or so.
Today… yeah… nothing I guess. Much of nothing, haha. Actually we’ve been trying to get to that park to see late cherry blossoms… well, we failed. But that was during the evening. In the morning I got to the girls apartment as usual, and it was really good weather again with sun and still a cool breeze that made it very pleasant to take walks. Well, the two siblings3 was going to take it easy and pack their stuff and then go shopping. They are going to leave tomorrow so they wanted to do the last shopping. Sara thou, wanted to go with us to the Harajuku to see the Cosplayers in Yoyogi Park so we decided to go there. But as usual the girls took more time than usual… They weren’t ready until around 2 pm to go4 due to some misunderstanding and stuff. So we actually got to Harajuku…
Well… to actually go to Harajuku station was fine this Sunday afternoon. Sunday is their day off and I mean, there is no Japanese trying to use the subway or trains to get anywhere. Why should they? Having their day off they should just sit in their homes relaxing enjoying that they didn’t have to go to the trains and make the Rush Hour to a Crush Hour and make the stations look like it was just a sea of floating meat. But they did, how could they? I mean, why go to Harajuku and Yoyogi Park? Because the park is one of Tokyo’s biggest and most pleasant ones filled with events, cheap stuff, ice cream, kids and thousand of cosplayers wearing cool outfits they’ve made themselves? Or maybe to go shopping or watch the demonstration against OS outside the big sports arena whose ceiling/roof only hang in metal wires? No it’s nothing to see at all… or maybe not.
Needless to say much things happen around Harajuku at Sunday at it’s much to see. We mostly looked at the Cosplayers that tried to dress like anime characters or band members from different VK-bands5. Other than that we watched a group of Japanese men in their forties that had dressed up as Elvis and styled their hair in the same manner and was dancing around to some of his music. It looked stupid but well, it was something really different I must say. When we finally got to the park trough the endless rivers of meat it wasn’t that much of a crowd but before that it was pretty tough to get there. This happens every Sunday, and one would think that the Japanese would have gotten tired of going here due to this, but no. Even thou its many tourists it’s mostly Japanese people hanging around here.
Well, Sara, Danielle and I walked around for a bit then we sat down to try to plan the rest of the day. We had decided to meet up with the two sisters at 1800 at Shimbashi to go to the Hamarikyo Park which the Japanese woman told us about. Due to the weather Danielle and I decided to go to Shibuya to search for a concert hall we were going to tomorrow and maybe even next Saturday. Walking to Shibuya is about 4-5km so it was quite the walk, Sara thou wanted to stay around Harajuku and maybe search up her friends so we parted ways here.
Nothing much happened during our walk to Shibuya, it was quite a long walk but we managed even thou Danielle were afraid that we would loose our way, but we didn’t. When we were there I ate at a steak house, which was very interesting. I’m sure that they have this kind of thing in other countries as well, it didn’t really seemed Japanese, and if it was it much be pretty popular in other places of the world. You chose what you want to eat at a vending machine6 give the note to the waiter/tress and they will bring you a warm plate where you cook it. On this plate they’ve already placed the meat, some leek and other stuff and you get a bowl of rice and a little bowl with a soup. It’s not too much but it’s enough to get satisfied, the price varies depending on what you order, I ordered lamb so it was around 500 yen, but the most expensive was around 900 yen.
Well, after this we tried to search for the park… As I’ve previously said we failed. We took the subway from Shibuya to Shimbashi, but we walked around for two hours trying to find something but we only found a Donki, which is a kind of supermarket that is pretty famous, it seems to have everything. Everything from food, clothes to electronics and manga. Everything mixed up together like an unlogical surrealistic world of… weirdness. And in the background their theme song was playing… all the time, over and over again… Pretty annoying.
We finally got back home around 23:30, I walked Danielle home7 then got back here. Oliver was still missing at the time, and he hadn’t been here either which seemed strange. But well, I guess that he would find his way back here sooner or later if nothing had happen to him. I started to write this when suddenly it knocked on the door and very much happened at once, let’s see if I can recap it…
The one who knocked at the door was Jim, one of the teachers down stairs. I’ve talked to him before and heard about him from Danielle who had been out drinking with him a couple of days ago. He wanted to introduce me to another CouchSurfing host in Tokyo named Yuji, he didn’t know at the time that I’ve already had, had contact with him. So when we he came into the room we were quite surprised to see each other. I had completely forgotten about him and we started to talk but we hadn’t even talked for about a couple of minutes before it knocked again. There was Miiko and some other strange guy. So suddenly the apartment was like… crowded. Four people plus me sitting on the couch standing up talking to each other. This went on for about then minutes then Miiko assumed that I was going to sleep so she shooed everyone out of here and it was quiet for about five minutes.
Then it knocked again, and there was Jim and Oliver that finally found his way back from Niiko and a party he had been too. We invited Jim in and for some reason we decided to talk while we finished a bottle of wine that I had bought earlier this week. After this we went on to my Jack Daniels Whiskey that I had gotten myself. Oliver didn’t want any; he didn’t like Whiskey or Vodka. So well, we talked, and talked until the Jack Daniels were gone…
I don’t really know when but at some point Jim had to go out to take a smoke and call her girlfriend that had been messing him all night. Oliver was in distress, he needed internet so while Jim went for a smoke we went out to a free spot I know for WiFi8, to surf, check E-mail and such things. I chatted a little with Robert and some others and checked a couple of things. Then we went to 7-11 to buy something to eat. I didn’t buy anything but Oliver did, but now when I think about it I should have gotten some money, I’m running low on cash, hehe. Well, maybe some other time.
Well… that was pretty much it, we went to bed after that. Now, when I’m currently writing this it’s actually 2100 on Monday, we are going out now for a drink (Danielle, Ayaha, Jim and me) so we’ll see how long it will take for me to write the Monday post, it depends a little on how much I’m going to drink and what we’re doing tomorrow (Tuesday) we’ve got nothing planned I think.
Best regards,
Herid Fel
Which doesn’t include the rent-like thing Miiko wants us to pay which is really cheap ↩
I eat this because Danielle is a vegetarian and want things made out of vegetables and it’s no real difference from butter ↩
Not Sara, but the other two ↩
Which actually was a bit late, which we soon would find out ↩
Visual Kei ↩
As I have previously stated, in most places in Japan where you eat you pay the machine not the people, at least at the cheap good places ↩
She have a bad sense of direction so she is afraid she may get lost ↩
Wireless Internet ↩
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