Travel Journal – Sunday 25/4 – 2010

Chargers, coincidences and drinking…

I have a small feeling that the journal for 2010 will be smaller than the journal for 2008. It feels like even though I’m here longer I have less to write even though more is happening. One of the reasons for this might be that I often let myself wonder of in more deep thoughts in the previous journal than this time. Plus I had a lot more time for myself and for my observations. This time I know much of Japan and things I wrote about before I it doesn’t strike me as much of a subject anymore.

That plus the fact that I’m actually writing less details now than before since we do so much that I’m often exhausted and gets behind on the writing. And when I fall behind things tend to become foggier and things I would have written about if I had had it in clear memory falls away. Not that it matters, like the last journal and trip it will fill my memory with things, both big and small and I will most likely have things to tell and refer to as people do when they have this so called social interactions where the speak with each other. Strange thing that, heh.

Anyway this day began with some temple activities… yes we know what that is now. No need to go further into details I think. We’re both becoming a little bit tired of this and has put up a “stop” for all the activities proposed to us concerning the temple and Shinnyo-en. Its interesting but it has swallowed enough of our time now.¹ And after this we went back home to the apartment to do some things before we went out and enjoyed the good weather. We wrote some posts on internet, we looked around we got some food and then we headed out to just walk and enjoy things.

We went to an apple store to get Drak a charger for his computer he had brought with him (that unfortunately hadn’t worked at all so far). And he actually found a working charger and everything was happy. I myself found that their laptops were much cheaper here than in Sweden. Though their iPhones weren’t. I’ve been thinking about getting myself an iPhone for quite some time now and I think I might do this when I get home. Especially since iPhone here is almost exactly the same price as home. The only way I can get it cheaper is if I sign a contract with a Japanese company which isn’t really if interest for me I’m afraid. The laptop though is calling to me and I’m thinking about getting one, but I need to first think how much I need it, how much money I will have left when I get home and how good it will be for my economy.

I mean lately my economy has become a lot more stable than it’s been for years. I’ve been more thorough and on time with all things I need to do and I’ve managed to decrease my expenses quite a lot. If I hadn’t gone to Japan and if I wouldn’t buy a computer I would almost have 50k now and by the looks of things I might even soon have a job. But now I’ve spent about 15-20k on Japan and if I buy the laptop I would’ve spent 7k on that too. I will still have a good amount left but then I would have to take care of rent, bills and such things and I would probably be off where I started four months ago. So the question is, is in worth it? Do I need it? Of course I want it, it’s hard and almost hypocritical to say that one does not want things that are fancy, but the real question is always if I need it. If I know myself good enough I think that I will probably not buy this thing just because of the simple reason that it costs money that I instead can save.

But one thing that speaks for the laptop is that it’s perfect size, works good for me, and is half the price of any computer even close to the same quality and power back home. That assuming I won’t find a replacement battery for Linsuss. If I find a replacement battery, it would be pretty much useless to buy another computer since Linsuss works perfectly with the sole exception of her bad battery (or mood).

But back to the day. I didn’t buy a computer and then we just started to walk around in Shibuya with no idea what to do. Then one amazing coincidence happened. Aya, the girl that arranged the Karaoke bumped into us. Now one thing you should know is that Shibuya is pretty big. And we were there when there was about as many people as it gets during a weekday. This is still a couple of thousand people crowding the streets and sidewalks. But even so Aya, of all Japanese people we know in Tokyo, bumped into us. I always have luck like that. That, plus my hair plays a pretty big part of it. It’s often pretty easy to spot me in a crowd for better or worse, even here.

So we talked with her, walked with her and decided to meet up with a friend of hers that she was to meet. Then on our way to meet this friend she bumped into another Japanese and a British guy she’d met before and we all decided to go together and meet her friend. When we met her friend we decided to go eat something together at a place where everything you ordered cost 270 yen. We drank some beers at this place and ate and talked before we went to an English bar I went to last time I was here too called “The Hub”. For those who don’t remember me telling you about that it’s because it’s mentioned in the locked post of the last trip; the crazy day.

Anyway we drank some drinks here and then a second coincidence was discovered, and one pretty amazing one at that. We were talking about that we had met two guys named Daniel and Oskar during the karaoke and we were trying to guess each others age as usual. Then one of the two British guys with us named Rob were my age. I then asked which month his birthday was, and he said February… I then asked the day and he said the fourth…

Most of you should realize by now that it’s my birthday as well. What are the odds of meeting one person that has birthday on the same day only 20 minutes apart from each other in such a small city as Tokyo? I would say pretty slim. Especially if we limit it to only foreigners as in this case. We found this pretty amazing and had to check our ids to confirm it wasn’t just a joke or a big misunderstanding but it was true we really was born on the same day.

After this we went to a second place, but at this time we were only four, Rob and the Japanese girl named Nami had left and only me, Drak, Aya and Tim were left. We drank some Saké and then afterwards we started to return home. A little bit drunk one could say. Even so it had been a very pleasant and unexpected turn of events for just a casual visit to Shibuya so we were happy.

Best Regards,
Herid Fel

1. Not to mention that Miiko actually wanted us to get up at 05:00 and clean the Train Station for spiritual enlightenment! ↩