I love Tokyo!

Rambly post describing my weekend...recently I've realized that I've never actually gone to Tokyo just to hang out for a weekend. With the coolest city in the world just a hop away, that's a travesty! So I decided to skip down to Tokyo on the bus for the first time, for a solo night out on Saturday and then to meet up with my college buddy Aubrey on Sunday (in town from Taiwan for the weekend).

Got the afternoon bus, just by driving over the pass to Muikamachi, parking my car at the interchange of the expressway, and asking the dude if he had any open seats. $35 and 3.5 hours later, I'm in the heart of Tokyo in Ikebukuro. Found a bar in the Lonely Planet and headed there (they serve Kilkenny's on tap!) for some city fun. Sat next to a Canadian teacher guy and an obnoxious Kiwi, then the teacher guy's school's secretary lady showed up for drinks too. The bar had the Japanese version of the Blues Brothers playing...people were friendly, dancing, and enjoying a Saturday night.

in the Ikebukuro bar, grooved to the Japanese Blues Brothers

After that wore down my next option was to decide which part of Tokyo I should finish my night in. I chose Shibuya because I'm partially familiar with it, wanted to check out a couple places, and knew there would be some cheap and interesting lodging there. Rode the subway around (much easier now than it used to be) and went hunting for another bar from the book. I got kinda lost, and ended up just enjoying people-watching and the colorful visual stimulation from the lights of the city (felt like a raccoon transfixed by some shiny silver or something). 1.5 hours later and lots of confusing and completely contradicting answers from Japanese people about the location of the bar, I gave up, hopped into a club for a $10 beer or two, and then went in search of my very first Capsule Hotel experience.

Crowds and lights of Shibuya at night...

Capsule hotels are officially rad. I found "Capsule Land" on a main corner in Shibuya and checked in. For those of you that don't know what a Capsule Hotel is, it's essentially the most Japanese contribution to the world of hotels that you could imagine. Japanese cities, pressed for space, have to get creative in how they house their travelling, drunken businessmen (no women allowed in capsule hotels). So they made these huge vertical towers of space-saving rows of capsules, which are essentially futuristic robot coffin tubes that you call home for an evening.

I checked in by buying my ticket from a vending machine, put my shoes in a special locker, took the tiny elevator up to the "Rocker Room" (so it said in the elevator), and found my very very tiny locker where I put whatever I could stuff into it. Kaori was right when she told me to pack light for capsule hotels...anyway I put on the free yukata robe and headed in search of the bath area.

Japanese-style public bath


I was really pretty impressed by the bath/sauna/shower area...it was big and tidy and not stinky or grimy. Enjoyed that before I ventured up for a night's rest...

Next I went up to the 9th floor to find my "room", which was exactly what I imagined it to be...a big plastic tube. You crawl in (luckily there is just enough space to turn around if necessary), put your wallet and phone on the 'shelf', and essentially just turn on your TV and fall asleep - after putting down the shade which seperates you from the dozens of surrounding salarymen encased just feet away.


my capsule!

It was comfortable, but I'm also not clausterophobic so that helps. It was barely long enough for my western self, and the paper thin futon was acceptably comfortable. The TV had everything a drunken salaryman needs, from weird Japanese sports, to free Japanese adult channels. There are little headphones instead of speakers, and radio stations and a tiny a/c too. Promptly fell asleep in my cozy little space rocket hotel room.

Who needs space to sleep anyway?

Next morning woke up with random guys crawling out of their coccoons just in time for the 10 am checkout. After another bath and then some jostling to get in position for the elevator, i handed my locker key to the front desk and was on my way out. Total cost...about $35!

Headed to Tokyo Station to meet with Aubrey who came to Tokyo for a trade show he was working in (he works with dealing bicycles and components). He brought along a japanese dude who bought a bike frame with him, and the three of us trudged around the city for a day before picking up another old Lewis and Clark kid, a Japanese guy named Maru (but we called him Fred in college).

I really wanted to see the kids in the Harajuku/Yoyogi area so thats where we headed first. This area is the center of the latest crazy trends and fashions that mostly young Japanese girls are into...really wild costumes, goth stuff, characters, dresses, leather body suits, you name it, on Sundays these kids come out of the woodwork to show everyone how freaky they can dress.

one of the bands we grooved to. this guy's got doo-doo on his head!

some of the Yoyogi kids. Aubrey especially liked paper-on-the-nose girl.

one of these freaks is not like the other!


Maybe if it were on sale...

We gawked and snapped photos before heading across the road in Yoyogi to the Meiji Jingu which is a shrine deep in a beautiful forest (very peaceful in the middle of the metropolis). It was a great walk into the shrine and you could see a lot of people dressed for weddings and the shichi-go-san blessing ceremony that little girls do at the age of 7, 5 and 3. Watched a couple weddings (a white guy marrying a japanese girl, interesting to watch the families try to coordinate things in the procession) and enjoyed the peace for a while. Cruised around Yoyogi park and grooved to some really great street bands before realizing my time was running short to get back to Ikebukuro and catch my bus.


Meiji Jingu gate

girl and mother preparing for the shichi-g0-san ceremony

me and aubrey at the wooden torii

Subwayed there and went out for a huge sirloin garlic steak (gotta get that city food) before jumping on the bus, and was back in my apartment by 9 PM! I gotta get to Tokyo more...

the boys...Kokubo, Maru, Me and Aubrey

Most of all it was really great to see Aubrey. Nobody other than Aunt Susie, Mia and Take have come to visit me so it was fun to see another familiar face. Aubrey and I always get along (he was my ski buddy in college, within two weeks of our freshman year, he and I hitchiked 80 miles up to Mt. Hood from Portland, then hiked up and skied down Palmer Glacier twice. We did this all cuz some guy bet us a pizza that we couldn't). I really enjoyed hanging out with him and his Japanese is great, and I made a couple new Japanese friends in the process.

Go Tokyo!