Travel Journal – Monday 12/4 – 2010

A rail pass, raining and a schedule of cultism.

For some reason I thought that this tagline start for each entry were quite suiting to stir up some interest. Not that it seems to do so, but anyway that’s the thought behind it.

Today much and nothing has happened at the same time. Due to the downpour and overcast skies plus my broken shoes it’s been quite wet. Not like that have stopped me but it could have been much better without it.

Miiko woke me today. Yesterday I thought I should take it easy to day since Higuchi said he were to come here today to get money from Drak. She had something she wanted to show us immediately and asked if she could come by soon. Since Higuchi would soon come over too it seemed alright. Higuchi himself, who is by the way Miiko’s brother, called right after declaring that he’s on his way here. Miiko later arrived with the company’s secretary instead of Higuchi so we paid her and she told us she would come back next Monday. Both me and Drak thought of her as quite pretty, just as a side note.

Miiko then declared what she had in mind for us. As earlier mentioned, I think, she wanted to take us to the Main Temple on the 28^th of April. She had for some reason come up with the plan that we were to try go through some kind of Meditation training or something. It sounded interesting so to be allowed to participate in this group meditation/training/cult sacrificial ceremony or whatever it is we had to go to the temple five times. So then she showed us a note she had written.

My question when I saw her note was; “I don’t know anything about planning,”. I mean she had laid out a full schedule with alternatives of dates and different hours and places we could go to the temples. There was quite a variety of them too and not just five she had chosen. Drak and I concluded that she must be the very next thing to the cult leader considering her level of enthusiasm in not only recruiting us but also showing us as much as possible. Well, it’s something to do and it’s only an hour here and there and it seems to be fun. Not to mention a good way to practice our Japanese.

After we had chosen some dates and also accepted to help her this Saturday to move some heavy things – there is a Roof Party afterwards and we get free food – we tried to decide what to do today. We really need to get going and do something of our time here and not just wait for time to run away before we’re going back to Sweden again. So we decided to go to the JR Office in Ueno and exchange our voucher to a JR Rail Pass to be able to get around more freely plus also be able to use the Shinkansen and more expensive means of transportation soon so we can go on day trips outside of Tokyo.

After that we went to Akibahara to find a converter. My converter doesn’t work for some of my bigger cables which is pretty stupid so we tried to find another. We also just walked around with the rain pouring down on us looking around in different kinds of stores; everything from game stores to manga and book stores. Drak tried to find a charger for his Mac but failed and I got a converter, even though it still didn’t work. Did you know that Sweden have two kinds of electrical sockets? I didn’t know that…

Just because we didn’t want to waste the day we continued to Tokyo and later Shibuya after having eaten some food that you get to cook for your self in on a hot plate. For those of you that remember, I did eat that before and have shown pictures of it. But well, who knows who remembers what and not. I’ve come to stop trusting in others memories. They often seem to be flawed and concentrated in the most peculiar areas…

Any way, I managed to take out some money in Tokyo! I Found a CitiBank and withdrew the same amount of money that I had had Drak to withdrew earlier. I used it to repay him and to finally feel that I were using my own money. So that problem is now solved even though we need to go to the more commercial and bigger districts to be able to withdraw money. But well, I will take out a stash big enough to not have to go there too often.

Just before we went home we went to a Internet Café in Shibuya since Drak’s computer isn’t working and surfing and writing on the iPhone isn’t the most optimal way to do things on. We sat in that place for about an hour or so before we were finished and went home. Since none of us had a good idea of what to do or rather wanted to do anything in the rain and in my case; soaked shoes, we went home to Kita Urawa where I borrowed Drak’s shoes and went shopping. The rest of the evening we decided what to do tomorrow and then finally went to bed without visiting our free Internet Spot.

Best Regards,
Herid Fel