Travel Journal – Saturday 26/4 – 08
Today will also be a short post, I think. I’m not in the greatest mood for writing but well, what can one do? However I’ll try my best to retell everything that I remember from today1.
Today Danielle was the first one up and running. I’ve been up to about 03:00 writing and watching things and she was up around 6-7 already. This was due to the fact that she couldn’t sleep and I think it also had to do with the fact that we were going to have a visitor. She’s been in contact with her host from Kyoto that were going to come over here today and during Sunday to be with us or something and she’s been quite anxious about him for different reasons. To begin with he’s quite old, almost forty years old, and he drinks beer all the time like it’s a normal thing to do throughout the day. But well, sometimes you can be anxious and make up things to worry about even without a reason.
Well, we got up and dressed and ate and after a while he arrived, very, very tired after his long trip on the bus. He had taken the midnight bus from Kyoto to get here, which is one of the reason why his two days stay seemed a little bit weird. I mean, he came all the way here to be with Danielle from Kyoto which is about 12 hours on a bus. Even so according to Danielle nothing had happened between them so we figured that he was just bored…2
However, he was here and he seemed very tired so after getting him something to sleep on Danielle and I went to check the internet and talk to Jim before we decided to go to Sensojii to buy some things. I had almost decided to buy some things to some people but as we got there I got stingy and just watched, I really got a problem with spending money I think. Just want to hold onto them. But well, that’s most likely the reason to why I even are able to do things like this. Even thou buying Linsuss3 is not really the usual me, or going to Japan at all. But now it happened, I am a geek anyway and computers are really things I like, even thou I use them less and less.
When it comes to Japan, it’s really nice to have this change of pace and environment. Doing something completely different and being on my own, for real, for the first time ever. Well, I know that it’s a little bit like the first three months when I moved the first time. But that was just a desperate escape from the cage of childhood. I mean, most people sooner or later want to move away from home, and some do it in a calm way, preparing everything with their parents and actually have the money and things like that for it, while others do it in a more rebel way by just moving even thou they don’t really have worked out all the details. I did it in the latter way, I had worked out most of the details, but only for my first stay. However, it was really good and I think both me and my parents learned a lot from that. However, that’s an completely different story…
However we were at the Sensojii for the, I don’t know… forth time maybe? Danielle bought some really expensive jackets and a backpack that could be transformed to a rolling backpack. I myself only paid the train tickets and looked around. Really saw many small things and big things I wanted to buy to other people. They don’t cost much, nothing does compared to Sweden, but I’ve adjusted to the Japanese prices and always think that if I buy something here I’ll have less money to pay things I need to pay when I get home, even thou I have quite alright with money and I’ve turned in a couple of papers just before I left so I will probably have quite a lot when I get home to use anyway…
Well, if we go on with the day I think we got back here due to the rain, even thou it was only brief showers, to check upon Makoto and to prepare for the supposed concert this evening. The general idea was to go to two shows. One around 18:30 and after that go to a discothèque where the same band would DJ, together with Aya and Jim and Vanessa… and yeah, Makoto. But well, we made salad while trying to decide what to do. I actually didn’t feel like going to a concert today… money you know. And I didn’t like Makoto at all. I mean, some people around his age are actually pretty fun to be with, but this guy was boring as hell. He seemed really old and his English was terrible, he was quiet most of the time only drinking beer and when we got back he worked too, with something I don’t know what. And he was very drawn back otherwise. I mean, I’ve met some Japanese here with no English at all4 but they all try to be social and they seem nice.
Well, anyhow… we talked a lot about it and it seemed like Makoto didn’t want to go either. He was tired so he would be here to rest. Nathalie didn’t want to go either, she goes to bed pretty early and likes to read before going to bed, and with my reluctance it seemed very unlikely that I would go. Then we checked with Aya and Vanessa, and when both of them weren’t going Danielle gave up. She obviously wanted to go, but not alone. So she instead decided to go to the disco and see them then instead. So after eating our salad she and Makoto took a nap while I was attending to the Tea Room in Miiko’s office again. It was really nice. This time it was two Japanese men and one woman. The men were around 45-60, and the woman was 38. Jim and I were the only foreigners but it was fun anyway. We talked about a little about this and that, after we introduced ourselves.
After this Jim had a lesson, then after that he would come up to our room and we would go to meet up with Aya and some guy called Wolfgang. So I went up, I watched some things, chatted with the others a little and prepared myself for going out tonight again, just hoping that this time would be even funnier than the last time. And that this crazy night wouldn’t end at seven in the morning…
So we were just hanging around for about two hours before we finally went. Makoto didn’t come with us this time either, he wanted to sleep. So Jim, Danielle and I took the train to meet up with the others in Shinjuku. Let me correct myself now…
Earlier in this Journal I’ve said that I and Lucien went to the world’s busiest crossing at Shinjuku. At that time I didn’t follow where we were to well at that time but now I know better after being there quite often. It’s Shibuya not Shinjuku, cause this was the first time I went to Shinjuku during my stay.
So Shinjuku is almost like Shibuya, only more crowded, less space, and no cars. Shibuya has a lot of stores and things like that, but most areas are actually pretty neat and separated but in Shinjuku everything is on top of each other and it’s stores, signs and neon lights everywhere and you can hear music all the time. It’s also younger people here than in Shibuya where you can find a wider range of people. Here most of the ones hanging around were in the age of 18-30. It’s like a Japanese mix of Roppongi, Akihabara and Shibuya. Pubs, bars and clubs as in Roppongi5. Lights, advertisement and buildings as in Akihabara and people, crowds and music as in Shibuya. It’s most likely one of the most entertaining parts in Tokyo if you want to see Japanese having fun the Japanese way. There was a lot of things to entertain yourself with in this area; bowling, cinemas, game halls and everything!
Well, we ate first at an Indian restaurant, with real non-vegetarian food as well as vegetarian food. And then we got to the place where the disco would be. Now this is quite a funny thing that seems so Japanese…
The place where the disco was was called the loft. Right… now what is a loft now again? Yeah, a loft is something you often have high up in a room or a barn or something like that. My kind of bed is called a loft-bed due to the fact that it’s closer to the ceiling. Well, now when we got that sorted out we can now go down four floors under the ground to the Japanese loft. Yeah, under the ground… you saw right. I mean, that’s so backwards, but that’s so Japanese. They like this kind of irony in things. Like a band named the Age of Punk, that plays rock, and many similar things…
Well, however, here was when this night was beginning to go wrong… this time without alcohol. When we got to the loft entrance you had to show up your ID, and pay the fee. This is a lot like western clubs, but in Japan only the high quality clubs is like this, and it’s only Japanese clubs that are considered to even have a possibility to have this high quality in Shinjuku. To begin with, Aya is only 196, which is under the legal age to be drinking in Japan and Danielle had forgot her ID back home… So there we were, going to a place where Danielle wanted to go but it was impossible to enter. For anyone other than Me, Jim and Wolfgang, thou we weren’t the ones who wanted to go in so badly due to the fee.
So then Danielle’s night was ruined. She had missed one of her favourite bands and she became really, really disappointed. We went to a bar to try to cheer her up but she decided to try to take the last train home so we all decided to go back home and try to do it tomorrow instead after the show tomorrow. So we tried… we failed. We missed the last train home from Ueno at around 01:00 so we got to take a taxi back home. I actually said that we could do as Jim and Aya did after the crazy night, go and sleep in a park, it would have been cheaper, but Danielle was so in a bad mood that she just wanted to go home. She paid the whole trip with the taxi, which I’m glad that she did, because it wasn’t cheap at all…
This post didn’t become so short that I thought it would7, so well… see ya!
Best regards,
Herid Fel
Or rather yesterday ↩
Yeah, a guy who wants to sit on a bus for twelve hours… bored? I don’t think so… ↩
My laptop, for those who didn’t know ↩
Like Tashio, that I’ve told you about, his name is actually Tatsuo I think Aya said… ↩
But more Japanese, those in Roppongi is a lot like western culbs ↩
She had her birthday yesterday, she hates birthdays ↩
By the way the journal is now up in 34 pages ↩
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