Preview of San Francisco

I have, since I got here, couch surfed for the first time, slept on top of an art car called the bass bed, spent a night homeless on the streets, and learned a whole lot from an extremely intelligent and wise 20 year old girl who lives a completely different life from mine.

San Francisco is the most beautiful city I have ever been in. Especially at night.

Return to Tokyo

I arrived at my hole in the wall capsule hotel in Asakusa around midnight. I understand that most capsule hotels have cool space age capsules with controls and cool stuff inside. That was not my capsule hotel. In my room there were basically a bunch of horizontal cubbies with a curtain to cover the sides. There was a broken TV inside, and also a snake lamp the end of which was also broken so you couldn't actually make it point where you wanted it to. I guess there was a radio but... why would you listen to Japanese radio? I didn't even try it so it might've been broken too for all I know. The bed was actually quite comfortable, which I was happy about, but as it turns out there were a bunch of German frat d-bags (that's just how I would characterize them, I have no idea if they even have fraternities in Germany) who always came home at 6:00 in the morning after partying all night and made a ton of noise for an hour or two, and then later at 9:00 there was usually a bunch of noise from people, and really just at any time there would be some prick making noise. I especially hated crunchy chips guy, who at 1:30 in the morning was eating chips really loudly for like an entire hour. Or there was one morning where this Italian guy I guess was really drunk (which I heard later) and had to catch his plane (which he missed), but hadn't packed his stuff, so he just kept walking in and out of the room and unzipping and zipping his bag up over and over again for hours early in the morning. Basically, in spite of the fact that my bed was comfy, I don't think I ever really got a full night of sleep. Oh yeah and sometimes the buff German who was in the "capsule" above me would just stand naked in front of my capsule after he took a shower and walked in and out of the room (whose door was really loud by the way), which once gave me a nice surprise view of his junk.

Other than the sleeping issue the people were all really nice though. I was kind of done partying, but they invited me to go out with them if I had so desired. There was one really strange funny incident that happened while I was in the common room practicing the LSAT though. I was just listening to music and minding my own business, and there were Germans over in the opposite corner watching TV. This Asian guy sits down in the table in front of me and makes ramen for a little while. Then all of the sudden I hear him through my headphones just screaming at the top of his lungs for no reason. The other people look confused and ask him why he's screaming, and he just starts shouting like "fuck you! I hate you!" and such at them. He keeps screaming for awhile, which is really confusing, and then the people who own the place come up and ask him what's going on, and he acts all calm and says some really weird stuff about how nobody understands why he had to talk to someone or something. That was a little worrisome from my perspective - having some really crazy kid somewhere around where I sleep. Afterward the buff German guy talked to me about the incident a little bit and was talking about how Asian people are under a lot of stress and sometimes they just snap. At the end of the conversation he was like "watch your back," which was... strange? Not necessarily out of place for him to say, but strange that I was in that situation.

While I was there I usually just did LSAT stuff all day. I went over and saw sensoji again a couple of times, once in the day and once at night. I looked around the touristy shopping street for a couple of last gifts, but in the end decided to just walk back over to kappabashi (the kitchen and restaurant supply street) to get stuff because I figured it would be cheaper due to the absence of tons of gaijin, and I was right. Also on that walk I found an awesome 250 yen bento box place, which was amazing. After whatever I did in the day, I would grab a strong or two and sit out on the street, maybe smoke a couple of cigarettes and watch Japanese people at night. I saw a pretty incident in which a young guy and girl were walking across a sidewalk and the guy was so drunk that he fell over in the middle of the street. Somehow the girl had also lost one or both of her sandal/shoes. The girl was asking him to get up and come meet her across the street, but he kept laying there as a joke and started like pounding or kicking the ground in a kind of baby-like fashion, then threw one of her shoes over at her. Then cars started honking at him and he got up and crossed over and apologized to all the cars. It was pretty funny.

On my last night Akemi met up with me, and although I told her I just wanted to go somewhere cheap she of course took me to this really fancy place, which was apparently the first Western style restaurant in Tokyo. It was really great seeing her again, and just seeing anyone I could talk to again frankly. She was of course insistent on paying and bought a few really nice dishes that were really delicious. The place was really crowded, and you basically just sat anywhere you could fit, including next to other people. A ways into the dinner, this interesting guy showed up. If I understood correctly, some Chinese people had beaten him into a coma a few months before, and he had just woken up the day before. Akemi told me afterward that he was a weird guy because he only wanted to talk about himself all the time, which is true. It was also funny because while she was in the bathroom he told me that Japanese people always say he's a strange guy. I guess I didn't find him extremely strange, but I did want to talk more to Akemi than he really allowed. He kept showing Akemi like old blog posts of his and a newspaper article he was in and stuff, which she initially I think found interesting, but in the end was kind of bored of. However, the guy was pretty interesting. He had worked for Sony for like 23 or 27 years, and given away a patent he created for some kind of information collection and distribution system. He had really nice stuff, and I saw him take out a huge clip of bills that were of such a high denomination I had never seen them before. He let us eat his food, and also bought us a bunch of this drink that is famous for that area called "electric brown." It was really pretty good, but also really strong, and comes in a really small pitcher for that reason. So I got fairly drunk off that stuff. Afterward Akemi and I went over to a small bar for awhile, and I bought us a round of beers because I felt bad about her paying for all that stuff. She managed to barely make her train back, but said she wanted to meet me in the morning.

So I met her the next morning, and she insistently took me to this really awesome sushi place, maybe tsukiji sushi sen or zen. Definitely the best sushi I have ever eaten. The guy made me this really amazing tuna hand roll because it was my last day in Japan, and also had us try this weird Japanese pudding-like substance that rather than being sweet was, as Akemi put it "Japanese flavor." To be honest I don't usually like things with "Japanese flavor." It was okay and weird and hot, but with the consistency of pudding. I didn't get too much because I didn't want Akemi to have to pay a lot, but what I got was all amazing and it was plenty for my brunch. It was pouring rain outside, so in order to walk around I went to get a cheap umbrella. Amusingly about 1 minute after I started using it the wind blew it inside out and broke it. So in the end we went over to an arcade and did purikura, which was very amusing and girly. She helped me find the train back to the airport and we said our fairwells. She definitely made my last couple of days in Tokyo way better than they would have been and I'm really grateful for that. So that was the end of my Japanese adventure. Well, almost I guess. There was a Japanese guy sitting next to me on the plane who was going to go to Arizona, and I talked to him for a long while. He was surprised that I spoke Japanese and we talked about a wide variety of topics. Interestingly enough, he actually knew where Fukui is and really likes that place. That's where my friend John did his JET service and most people don't know about it.

I arrived in San Francisco a few hours before I left.

Oda

After we visited Nara, we took the train down to Oda, or actually we accidentally took the train to Ooda, which led to Kyle having to drive a little ways from the other, nearly identically named station, to our station. Meeting up with Kyle again was fantastic! I was madly hung over from drinking with Tomoko and Errol all night though, and had a pretty excruciating headache. The Shimabe area in general is really beautiful; roughly as beautiful as Hokkaido, actually, although in different ways. There are lots of mountains and the plant-life is very lush and jungly. The first day we were there Kyle took us to a small delicious Indian place where I was able to eat and drink enough to make my headache subside, then we went to meet up with Kyle's JET friends at Jusco, which is the biggest and best supermaket I have seen in Japan. We all gaijin-smashed the place (a term used by gaijin when a large group of us all converge on an area, which is usually a crazy strange sight to Japanese people). The meeting and shopping took far longer than planned, but it was okay. Kyle's friends are all really nice and seemingly great people, and I'm glad he's got such a great community around him there. It was a little intimidating being the person no one knew out of, in the end, like 20 people, and having to remember all their names and not mix them up and whatnot. Although I found that to not be as hard as I was expecting, perhaps because they were all worth remembering.

After stocking up at Jusco we all went back to Kyle's place, which is a really nice Japanese style house in a small neighbourhood of really nice houses. He has a tatami room, as well as a pretty decent kitchen, a living room, his room, a bathroom and a laundry room at least that I remember. We all organized slowly and headed out to the beach near Kyle's house, but only after we all got crazy worried because a girl whose name I knew at the time tried to use Kyle's key in her car and we all thought the steering block was locked and we wouldn't be able to move the car out of the street where it was parked. Down at the beach more people showed up to the party, including a South African guy who gave us a really funny retelling of the history of South Africa, and a Japanese guy named Keishin who was into electronic music. We all got pretty drunk, set off fireworks, ate food, and generally had a great time hanging out and being young at the beach long into the night. We couldn't really swim though because the people who tried got stung by jellyfish like 2 seconds after starting. After that we walked back to Kyle's place to continue the drinking and hanging out. We played some beer pong, during which Kyle and I won a big Europe vs. America match, which was a lot of fun. We also learned a bunch of Irish slang, which is truly hilarious stuff. I wish I had an Irish accent. I made it well into the night, after most people had passed out, which I'm pretty proud of since I was pretty much ready to go to bed by the time Kyle picked us up at the train station. Probably over the course of my night in Osaka and my first night in Oda I had over 20 drinks. Not to mention the night before we went to Osaka in Kyoto, where I probably had like 7 drinks at Karaoke with Kenji and his friend. So those were definitely my drunkest days in Japan, I think with Osaka taking the cake thanks to the fancy Shabu Shabu restaurant.

Next day at Kyle's was largely spent resting, doing laundry, and not doing stuff for once. In the morning we gaijin smashed "Joyful," which, other than actual Denny's, is the Denny's of Japan. They have basically a lot of really unhealthy food there, out of which I picked a cheeseburger (no bread) with the cheese on the inside. It was delicious... and yet kind of disgusting in its own way. That way had nothing to do with the flavor though. They also had unlimited drinks for 200 yen. It was kind of weird - they had a machine for cold drinks, but they all came out hot so you just had to fill your glass with ice and wait for them to cool. There was also a really disgusting drink that Keishin showed us, which was green and hot and tasted like salt-water but more disgusting. At night we went over to Erin's house, who is another JET from Maine that lives really close to Kyle and who we met at the birthday party. I liked Erin a lot and we all had a lot of fun going to Yakinikku that night. Yakinikku is basically raw beef and vegetables that you cook on a heating thing in the center of your table. It may have been the most delicious thing I ate in Japan; not sure. Afterward we went back to Erin's for a bit and drank and played Poker with yen as chips.

Then the next day was already time to leave, which was unreal. I had left my wallet at Erin's, and Garrett had a lot of packing to do before we left, so I was a couple of minutes from missing my train, and since my JR pass ran out that day, if I had missed it I would not have had enough money for tickets back to Tokyo to get home. That was a very tense car ride for me. But I made it, and road the trains for like 9 hours to get back to Tokyo and found my hotel at about midnight.

Thanks for an awesome time Kyle!

Nara

After Kyoto we took the train over to Nara. The hostel wasn't open until 4:00pm, which was a little disappointing, but we were able to leave our stuff by the door in a small room. From the outside we were afraid it was going to be kind of a hole in the wall place, as it was on the 4th floor of some random building and didn't necessarily leave an impression on the outside. As we found out though it was actually quite nice; the proprietor spoke really good English with very little Japanese accent. The room was nice, with bunks for everyone and a small computer with internet.

First thing we did was take the train into the main area of Nara, where there are tons of deer just wandering around and which are so domesticated that you can just walk up and pet them. You can also buy deer crackers there to feed them, or frankly just feed them paper, although you're not supposed to for obvious reasons. It's kind of weird - the people sell deer crackers right out in the open, and they're just sitting right out where the deer could take them, but they never do. They will chase people around who have them, but apparently the deer also do not believe in stealing here. Nara is like elementary school and middle school field trip paradise, so there were tons of kids there, who loved getting chased around by the deer. I think we went to a place called Daishokuji, whichwas a big temple and a big pagoda. I guess on the inside there's a big 6 armed buddha or something, but I didn't go in because you have to pay. Afterward we walked over to what I guess was the biggest wooden building in Japan, or maybe just the biggest wooden temple, which you could see from a long way away. There are even more deer on the way up there, and progressively more souvenier shops. I paid the 500 yen to go into it - I don't remember the name but it undoubtedly starts with dai and probably ends with ji - and there is a really huge awesome buddha, as well as some other pretty impressive statues. There are also impressively large souvenier shops, of course. Then we got caught for a little while in a torrential downpour under a huge gate with hundreds of Japanese middle and elementary schoolers.

Then we went back to the hostel and met the proprietor and everything. Garrett made some yakisoba, and I made some ramen for myself. We met an Italian buddhist who was really cool and fun to talk to. Then after getting a little strong we stood out on the balcony and talked to the guy who owned the place for awhile. He told me I have really good pronunciation in Japanese, which was actually probably a legitimate compliment, rather than the usual "jyozu desu ne" that they give you here. I swear even if you only spoke English you would think your name is Jyozu from how often you get that meaningless compliment. Anyways I asked him whatI should do to improve my skillz, and he said I should read children's books and watch children's TV, which is probably good advice. Next morning we were going to go visit some more stuff in central Nara - actually just climb this hill up to a shrine overlooking the city, which was really pretty. The hostel owner actually drove us over there which was really nice of him. After the shrine we walked over to a "great" shrine, maybe taisenji or something like that. It was basically a bazillion stone lanterns and some gates, but I guess it's on the international list of human cultural artifacts. We were getting a little tired of walking after that, so we went and got our stuff back and took the train to Osaka.

Overall I would say Nara was one of my favorite places in Japan so far, although it is quite touristy. But it was very beautiful and I loved the atmosphere and the deer. The temples were also quite impressive and didn't take too much legwork to get to.

Long awaited update

First of all, I am typing on a Japanese keyboard at a Capsule Hotel and it is not easy to do contractions, so this will be awkwardly contraction free so I can hurry things up a little. So I guess I left off at Kyoto. We rented a fairly nice hotel there for a couple of days (for cheap, because of the internets). Amusingly without manually entering a channel number you could only get previews of mosaic filtered (pixelated genitalia) porn. There was an upskirt channel also that was pixelated even though all the girls had panties on, which was pretty funny. Actually I do not think there is anything in Japanese TV which is not pretty funny. The feeling I usually get out of any given Japanese show is total confusion, or confused bemusement.

The first day we were there we went to Inarimaebashou, or something similarly named that you can find on Collin`s blog, which is basically a shitload of Tori gates up some paths in a nature area of Kyoto. It was cool, although we didn`t go that far because Collin was still in a lot of pain and I did not want to leave him sitting there while I did a hike even though I am sure he would not have had complaints if I had (but we all know Collin does not complain about many things). I actually kind of like that they do not try to hide the fact that you have to pay gods here. In Christianity I feel like they try to thinly veil paying God because it is kind of silly, but here it is just a normal idea. I think nowadays most of that money goes toward restoring and maintaining the monuments. But the gate place basically had a gate from every company in Japan donated to it, which was many thousands. It was kind of funny because a lot of them are like, used car companies, or similarly silly things to be at a big historical monument. But I thought it was neat, and it was neat that it was in the middle (not totally literally although literally enough) of a city.

That night we tried to go check out the Gion district. Apparently it is a place where you can go to try and catch a glimpse of geisha as they go somewhere from early evening engagements. There is also a really pretty river there at night. But actually on the way Garrett wanted to find an Izakaya he knew of, and when we asked a group of young Japanese guys where it was we happened to be right next to it and they were like ''yeah let's go get drunk together!!!!'' so we went and did that. It was 300 yen for anything, which is awesome. You could get some huge beers for 300 yen there. Their names were Daisuke, who spoke the best English, Kenji, who was cool and had a place kind of nearby, and Masa, who was illegally drunk at 19, and man was he drunk. He just kept telling us how much he love American, and asking us where we were from. Daisuke was a little embarassed on his behalf I think. Anyway we spent the night drinking with them and talking and exchanging contact info (damn I've met a lot of people and gotten their info here). They invited us to go play wii games with them, but we wanted to go sleep at our hotel because we paid for it and there were beds.

The next day Garrett and Collin went out to the Philosophers' trail and did some sight-seeing. I had my freak-out about money and did not want to go, which probably turned out to be an okay, although depressing, decision. I had spend 1200 yen on a train/bus pass the day before, and that would definitely be necessary again, along with the money for getting into temples, and the money for buses if Garrett and Collin (who actually are in much worse physical condition than me now for some reason) if they wanted, and random trains that were not included, and gifts, and blah blah blah money bleeding. So that day I hung out and talked over Skype to my high school friend Lauren for awhile, which was fun, and did not do much, and then went and wandered the area around our hotel, which had like 3 cool little temples and the museum of Kyoto, as it turned out.

That night we went to a yakisoba place we tried the first night, which was cheap and delicious, although I did not get anything for the aforementioned responsibility-mode reasons. We met Kenji and a friend of his there, then went to a karaoke place. Actually we went and got some cheap liquor to sneak into the karaoke place and then went there. That was probably the first time those Japanese people have ever broken any rule in their lives, and they giggled about it and called it Secret Sake. I thought that was pretty funny. Karaoke was actually very fun just like everyone says it is here. You get a small room with couches, and you can smoke and drink in there and you get as many drinks as you want, although I do not think the alcoholic drinks we got there were very alcoholic. I think that was about all we did that night. We talked to them for a little while in our hotel room before leaving, and then I watched soccer until I fell asleep. Next day was Nara time, and I'll pick up with a post about that tomorrow hopefully. Hope you all are doing well. At the moment I am staying in a capsule. Yep. It is a little lonely now that Garrett and Collin are gone, but now they do not have to keep being around me which I am sure becomes grating, and I can do whatever I want. Which is probably going to be studying the LSAT. Actually on the 8 hour train ride over here I wrote half of a song which is cool. Looking forward to making music with Tom when I get back. The end.

Kyoto

Having fun in Kyoto so far in spite of monetary woes. As a preview of the post to come, we met some random young people here last night and got drunk with them at a cheap izakaya, and they invited us to go play wii games with them later tonight. So I'm soon off to do that.

The Downward Spiral

My good friend Tom offered to lend me 10,000 yen, and this is what I felt I had to say to him, aside from that I was very grateful and touched:

I don't really know what to do. Collin and Garrett went to the philosophers' trail today, which is something I really wanted to do, but I feel like I can't really afford all the train and bus fares, and all the constant expenses that occur whenever you leave your hotel here. Seems like everywhere I go I'm just bleeding money. I've already racked up more debt than I wanted on this trip, and spent more of my cash than I had hoped, and I feel like it needs to stop somewhere and it won't if I just keep asking people for money. I already had to ask my dad if he would loan me money just so I can apply to law school. I don't have a job and I don't know when I'm going to have any money. I don't know where I'm going to live when I get back; probably I will have to live with my parents, which in itself is not that bad, but then I would have to get a job in the middle of nowhere and I would be unable to move into my own place somewhere else where I could actually do the things I want to do that my parents probably wouldn't be okay with or be around my friends while I'm still in Colorado.

I really want to take you up on your offer, but then I will just keep spending and spending and spending and it's not a realistic way for me to live right now. I feel like if I'm given the means I will just keep accumulating more debt, the weight of which is already starting to crush me. Like, if I don't stop now, when will I? Where will I draw the line if not right now? I can just keep on justifying the money I spend with "I'm only in Japan now" forever, but that justification doesn't mean anything with respect to my actual financial situation. I've gotten myself into this mess and I feel like the only thing I can do about it right now is stop digging the hole deeper and deeper.

Right now I have like 7000 yen left probably, maybe a little more, and I'm just trying to save enough of it to do something with my friends who are living in Japan on the 17th and then Kyle after that, any hopefully get a gift or two for my parents and Cheri and maybe a couple of other people.

So yeah, I desperately want to take your money, and it would be used to party like a rockstar I'm sure, but basically I am too depressed right now to do so.


Fuck.
I wouldn't say I regret anything about what I've done here so far, but you can still find yourself in a dark place walking a path that was entirely well lit.

Anyways I'm not in trouble or anything; I still have enough money and I could withdraw more if I so chose. It's more that I need to be a little more responsible by maybe doing less of the things I had hoped to do to save some money instead of feeding myself irrelevant justifications for spending.

The rest of Hokkaido

We got back from Rebun and walked to the Rider House, which took a long time and kind of sucked. When we got there no one was there so we used a big sink upstairs to shower (there was no shower there) and devoured a bunch of ramen before getting on the train. We stayed at a really cool rider house in Furano I think, which was right by Yamabe, where we were planning to go hiking. It was kind of a cabin in the woods, but it had laundry machines and there were maybe 6 other Japanese people there who actually were "riders" meaning either that the were biking aroud Hokkaido or their job was somehow riding motorcycles around doing something about "communications." Anyways they were nice but had basically no interest at all in talking to us, which was kind of nice. It was nice to feel like "just some guy" there and not be singled out for being white.

Next day we took the train to Yamabe and geared up for our two day hike up Ashibetsudake. I got a knee brace, which helped me immensely, as did Collin (it was his wise idea), and we all got basically a bunch of bread and 2 liters each of water. It's a 3km walk up to the trail head from Yamabe, and carrying all our stuff that really sucked, so we managed to hitch-hike with a cool mom in a minivan who had been to America and so didn't think we were scary. We went into a house/eating establishment to ask if they had coin lockers for us to use to keep our non-essential stuff, and the nice old lady who ran the place said we didn't have to pay anything and she would keep our stuff. She also warned us to take enough water.

The first day of hiking was really awesome; it was basically a trail through a lush jungle and up to a set of 3 pretty spectacular waterfalls. The trail itself was pretty intense; it was usually only the width of both my feet together, and sometimes more narrow. They had big rocks with chains at the top you had to repel down and chasms you had to jump over. In general it was kind of a roller-coaster but the first day was only like 4.5 or 5 km so it wasn't that bad. However, it was and would continue to be pretty dangerous; the path was frequently really dangerously narrow, with one or both sides leading down into a rocky river or down a mountainside. Collin also lost his water trying to do one of the repels with it under his arm, so that left us with just my 2-liter and Garrett's camelbak. At the end of the first day there was a cabin where we stayed for the night. We gathered some wood and used rocks to make a fire pit by the side of the river. It was kind of hard to get going because everything there is wet obviously, but it worked and it was a nice night. A group of 4 Japanese hikers came before sunset but they weren't really interested in us and just made food in the cabin all night.

The next day we thought would be around 11 km, but I think it was more like 12-15km. It was a difficult and dangerous hike to say the least. The first part was literally hiking up a steep waterfall, which was wet, muddy, and at times scary. There was one part where you had to basically sidle around a steep gravel wall with maybe a 20 degree incline with no path whatsoever and just a rocky falls below you, and I almost lost my footing and fell. Luckily I grabbed a root that was sturdy enough to hold me, but if it hadn't I could easily have died. In general on the hike I got the feeling that I could easily die, so I was taking it pretty slow. Well, not that slow, because we still passed all the Japanese hikers on the trail except an intense grandpa and a young guy or two who were doing it all in one day by themselves, which amazes me. After the climb up the waterfall, which was pretty tiring, I think was the long part of the trail where it was so overgrown that you couldn't really see the trail and the plant life cut up my arms and legs pretty well. You could see that the path was cleared if you could see down to it, but from above it literally was just a sea of plants. Then was several kilometers of going up and down every peak (maybe 6 or more) on a ridge of shark tooth-like mountains, before reaching the very tallest one which was like 1700km. That was pretty trying, and there were no clouds so it was hot. The summit is also about where we ran out of water. Collin and Garrett also have a different philosophy about hiking than me which was basically that if you're faster than someone you should race ahead of them until they're out of sight and eventually wait for them to catch up with you. Well, I am out of shape and have shorter legs and a heavier pack which was just a school backpack and I'm obviously weaker, and I was afraid of dying, so I was mostly going slower than them, and that meant I never really saw or heard from them except sometimes when they would stop for me to catch up, and then sometimes just keep moving on anyway. Personally when I go hiking with people I would rather slow down for them by being close enough that I can talk to them or at least see how they're doing the trail and make sure they don't fall. I'm not saying they're bad people or that they did anything wrong, but it resulted in me doing a large proportion of the hike basically by myself, which kind of sucked for me. And to be fair, when I'm annoyed I usually just don't say anything about it, and I didn't want to slow them down if they wanted to go faster, so they had no real way of knowing what I wanted anyway. The hike was still really great and fun though and I'm glad Garrett found it. The way down was actually one of the worst parts, because it was a really steep incline entirely paved in sharp rocks which really hurt my feet. By the end my legs were so weak I wasn't sure if they were going to make it. Basically in my head I was saying "I know I have to make it the rest of the way but I'm not sure how I'm going to yet" just when we finally reached the end. So that was definitely the most difficult hike I've ever done. But it was quite beautiful and I have some great pictures.

When we got back to the white house to get our stuff, the lady was really nice, and gave us slices of cantaloupe and ice water. Collin gave her one of our Colorado tea set gifts in return and we headed over to Seico-mart to devour bowls of ramen like hungry hungry hobos. We definitely took a taxi back to town rather than walk the 3km or even risk hitch-hiking, as we had a train to catch back to Sapporo. We checked into a tiny hotel room, had a couple of strongs and showers and went to bed. I discovered in the shower that I picked up a couple of small ticks along the way, which was pretty nasty. We're all pretty beaten up from the hike; Garrett's calves and knee I guess hurt, Collin's feet are covered in blisters, and my whole body is just in general very sore. I might have a blister or two as well. Also my arms and legs are covered in cuts and scratches and the back of my right knee where my brace was got rubbed off on one of the hamstrings. Fortunately the next day (now yesterday) was pretty much entirely spent on trains down here to Kyoto, where we're staying in a pretty cheap hotel for a few days. We slept until about noon today. I'm not sure what we're going to do here in Kyoto but I don't have a ton of money left and I somehow used more of my credit than I had thought possible, so I'm not going to be doing much if it involves spending money. We did get some cheap yakisoba last night which was super delicious though... the end.

Hokkaido part 1

We left Sapporo and took a pretty long, slow train up to Wakkanai, and managed to find a rider house called Midoryu. Rider houses are basically small hostels run by a family, where bike riders and hikers stay on their way to do outdoorsy things. When we got there there were like 10 people all sitting around a table and it was a very family-like feel. We were told to introduce ourselves, which we did, then a bunch of Japanese people introduced themselves, and we all sat around for a bit talking about our plans and whatnot. The proprietor, Iwasaki, was extremely nice, and he was literally just eating a raw fish off the bone when we were there. We told him we wanted to go to Rebun the next morning, and he made sure we had lodging plans and we were ready. Then he told us that oba-san (the old lady who I don't think was actually married to him but helped run the place) had a husband who would drive us to the ferry in the morning, which was extremely kind. We also met a German named Klauss who said he would come with us to Rebun. We were pretty exhausted, so after eating a little, including some gross fish-paste cakes they offered us, we went to bed.

In the morning Klauss said he would come with us, but that he was feeling too tired to do the 8-hour hike we were planning on. Iwasaki went with us to the ferry terminal and showed us where to buy a ticket and explained the timetable for us, and gave us his number in case anything happened. He also let us leave most of our stuff at the rider house while we were there for free. We took the ferry over, which was beautiful. There weren't chairs in the second class area, so everyone was sitting on the floor. After some spending some time on the deck and talking to Klauss, I went in and fell asleep on the floor. When I woke up and went to leave the ferry, a middle aged lady asked if I was travelling alone and where I was from, and then said I was cool (in Japanese). I think it was because I just went and slept on the floor like everyone else. In general everyone in Hokkaido has been extremely nice - much moreso than the people in Tokyo. And they're more interested in talking to us because I think it's rarer for white people to go up to Hokkaido. Rebun has a beautiful view of Rishiri, which is a perfect looking volcano rising out of the sea. Rebun itself is called the isle of flowers, because there are a lot of alpine flowers that grow there and some are unique to the island. However, when we got there we discovered that the campsite we were planning on staying at was on the other side of the island, and the ferry we had to take back to keep our schedule was at like 8 in the morning. The bus schedule there is weirdly out of sync with the ferries as far as convenience, too. We told them we would just hike across the island, which they said would be like 11 hours, and take thue bus back, but they said it was dangerous and we would die. Oh well, we started going for it anyway because time wasn't on our side. The terminal info lady ran outside once she realized we were actually going to do it and told us we could als try renting a bike. Honestly it ended up being as expensive as taking a bus both ways, but we rented bikes.

We road our bikes on the sea-side road toward our campsite, and it was awesome and beautiful. About 2/3 of the way we stopped and did the 4km Rebundakeyama hike, which leads to the highest point on the island. It was pretty intense, especially since I'm not in the best of shape, but it was really cool. My knee is and was pretty messed up though so it was pretty painful for me. I was lucky that the biking motion didn't really hurt my knee that much. Anyways it was pretty exhausting. The peak of Rebun was awesome and extremely windy. You can see grassy hills and trees everywhere that move like waves in the wind. It kind of reminded me of Hayao Miyazaki movies. After the hike we biked up the road a bit more and I iced my knee in the ocean, then we road the rest of the way to our campsite by a lake. I was pretty close to my physical limit I think. But the campsite was immaculately kept and we met Klauss there. Together we rented a little cabin for cheap, then cooked some instant ramen with his camping stove. Instant ramen is delicious here by the way. Anyways we got some sake and fanta to make some chyuhai, because they didn't have strong at the convenience stores around there. We also met a guy who was on Rebun fishing and in the cabin next to us. He looooved talking. We couldn't get him to shut up in fact. But he came over to our abin and gave us some cooked salmon he caught which was delicious. Then later in the night when Garrett and I were brushing our teeth he came to talk our ears off, but also gave us some octopus sashimi (never frozen) which you can only get in Hokkaido. It was actually pretty good, although chewing it was totally futile so you pretty much just swallowed it whole. Sleeping in the cabin was pretty difficult though because hardwood is not comfortable and both Klauss and Collin snore. Plus the night before we didn't sleep much because we had to catch the ferry. And then we wanted to watch the sunrise, which meant getting up at 4am. So we got up while it was still dark and biked over and up a hill we had ridden down to get there to take pictures. The wind was against us the whole way back, so it was a pretty difficult ride. Our little 3 speed bikes were... amusing to say the least. But we made it back to the first ferry with plenty of time to spare and slept at the terminal and on the ferry. Then we had to walk like 45 minutes back to the rider house to get our stuff, then over to the station for another 5 hour ride here to Furano. Tomorrow we're starting a 2 day hike which should be awesome. But damn I'm tired.

I also forgot to mention what we did in Sapporo itself. We walked around a bit and saw a miniature (still pretty big) version of Tokyo tower with, amusingly, a digital clock on it. Sapporo itself is really nice and I like it a lot. Definitely will put it down as my number 1 wanted place for JET as I continue applying. It's a bit bigger than Boulder, but not as big as Denver. We also went to the Sapporo beer museum, which was pretty neat. They had a whole history of the factory and everything, as well as all their old advertisements, TV and poster-wise. I got something you'll like from there if you're reading this, Akemi. They had a beer tasting floor where you can get a pretty decent size of 3 beers for like 400 yen. They were pretty tasty. There are I guess several drinks there, mostly sodas but also beer, that you can only get in Hokkaido. Sorry I don't go into more detail about a lot of the stuff here but it will all be better to explain when I can put pictures up. Tomorrow morning I'll write about all the other stuff we did in Hokkaido. Right now we're staying in Kyoto for a few days before heading over to Osaka for a day to meet Tomoko and hopefully Errol.

On a more personal note, I've been getting a little homesick, mostly for friends and stuff. I've been spending virtually every moment of every day with Collin and Garrett, and we're certainly not having any problems or anything, but it's nice to think of home. It's hard not to think of Colleen and how at one time she was trying to save money so we could go on a trip to Japan together. Not only is that one of the nicest thoughts or intentions anyone has probably ever had toward me, but I wish I could share this with her because I think she would really like it. I've been having a lot of crazy dreams since I got here, and usually my friends are in them. So I miss all of you and I'm excited to see you again. Not that I'm in a hurry to leave; I'm really enjoying it here. But I wish I could enjoy it with all of you. Maybe if I make it as an attorney someday I'll be rich enough to take my friends with me on these adventures. I'll probably talk more about it later, but I had my first real lucid dream in Wakkanai the other day, and that was really cool. Anyways you're all in my thoughts. I have very little money left to make it through this last week so I don't know what kind of gifts I can get you, but I'm thinking of you anyway. If I can't get some of you cool stuff I'm sorry, but it's not personal. I just have some kind of voice in the back of my head telling me to be a little more responsible here and not spend too much.

Finally, you may not have notice, but back on my post about the concert in Tokyo I posted a video.

Update

We've been in Hokkaido without any internet access for awhile but I don't have time to make a real update. Possibly later tonight or tomorrow night.

I'm glad so many people are reading this and I hope you are enjoying it.

September 8

Yesterday we decided to get up here to Sapporo and stay, which meant we had to skip Nikko for the moment. I'm a little disappointed about that but there's nothing to be done about it. Hopefully we'll get to see it on the way back down. So basically all we did yesterday was say goodbye to Taka-san, who was endlessly helpful and kind to the last, and then ride bullet trains all the way up here for about 12 hours. The trains are really pretty nice and comfortable, and there were some beautiful views of the countryside and various towns along the way. We managed to get an actual room in a hotel for 9000 yen with 3 beds, so we're staying in a really nice place right now.

All the showers here in Japan so far have been really nice. They basically just have a small high pressure shower head that you can take out and use all over your body. Here in the hotel there's a dispenser that has soap, shampoo, and conditioner at the push of the button.

Today we're going to apparently go try to buy sleeping bags and then stay in cabins and Rider Inns throughout Hokkaido. The plan is to make it up to Wakkanai, which is a 5 or 6 hour train ride, and then tomorrow morning take the ferry over to Rebun to do some hiking. The temperature difference between here and Tokyo is crazy; it was actually kind of cold when we got off the train around 11:00. I suspect it's still going to be warm when we go outside today though.

My right knee has been in pretty bad shape since we overexerted ourselves the first few days in Tokyo; the tendons are in a lot of pain when I put my weight on it. I've been trying to rest a lot the past few days so I'm hoping it's better doday =/

September 6

Day 6

Yesterday we started off by taking it easy for awhile. Frank was staying here at Asakusa Smile with us for an extra night and we all woke up and sat around for a bit. I had slept basically the entire day and night before because I was so exhausted from being up all night at the concerts and in Tsukiji. I did some logic games to practice for the LSAT and Collin helped me out with some Kaplan wisdom, which was nice and hopefully will prove useful because I am doing really poorly at the games right now.

After that we went to check out a kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi) place that Frank and Collin found while I was asleep, which apparently is the cheapest one in Tokyo according to the receptionist here. It was super delicious and I got away with spending less than like 5 or 6 bucks. Frank and Garrett were feeling a bit sick in the morning which was too bad, but we all kept on trucking, so to speak, and went over to the Sony building in Ginza, which is evidently where all the rich people go to shop. The Sony building was pretty cool, and full of products to try and demonstrations and cool modern stuff. 3D tvs are pretty cool. Also they had this really awesome HD TV on which they were showing Resident Evil Apocalypse, which was funny because the TV was so good that it made the movie look like an even lamer B-movie with crappy special effects. Every time they showed Nemesis it just looked too much like a dude in a silly costume to suspend disbelief about the movie.

After Sony we went over to a department store to figure out what else to do, and then did a little bit of wandering around in there. Men's fashion here is super awesome, and if I could I would totally fill my wardrobe with crazy designer clothes from the 6th-8th floors of that place, but most of the stuff, even T-shirts or whatever, was between 50 and 400 dollars. Frank went home to rest because he was feeling pretty sick. After that, we headed over to the Yebisu beer factory, which was sweet. They had some delicious beers there to try, although I only got 2 because they were 400 yen each. Kohaku Yebisu is definitely one of the most delicious beers I've had.

Then we headed over to Shinjuku to check out the lights. I really liked Shinjuku; in general the people seemed nicer than in Shibuya, and it was super beautiful at night because almost all the stores have huge neon signs or the buildings' walls are giant TVs. It also has the biggest train station in Tokyo. We ate at a cheap curry place for 600 yen, and it was okay. I wish I had gotten cheese curry like Collin because that stuff was delicious compared to mine. We wandered around Shinjuku having a few convenience store Chyuhai Strongs, and then sat around talking for awhile. We were feeling a bit too tired to really want to wander around forever.

Unfortunately, while we were talking, we forgot about the last train until 5 minutes after it left, and we were stuck in Shinjuku for the night! Wow was that careless of us. So we first sat around at a place where we got harassed by various Africans trying to get us to go to strip clubs and karaoke bars. Basically they just wander around from person to person giving you "deals" and really selling hard to try to get you to show up wherever they're going. You can't believe anything they say. Basically we all just stood there and fucked with them for awhile while they lied to us, until they realized that they were, in Collin's words, getting tooled more than they were tooling us. We told some of them that we didn't speak English very well, that Collin was French, that the last guy offered us some crazy deal, etc. Haggling with Africans on the street is actually pretty fun. We also met a white guy hustler who at first said that he had lived here for 2 years and spoke good Japanese, but then he said he couldn't understand our dialect, which is Tokyo dialect, which is where he said he was staying, which was hilarious. Then he had only been here for 2 months. I'm not sure exactly what he was hoping to get from us in the end but it was funny to fuck with him. Eventually they started telling each other that we weren't retarded enough to fall for their silly tricks. Then we wandered over and sat outside a convenience store accosting any Japanese person who would talk to us. We chatted with a couple of dudes who actually seemed to be having fun talking to us. No one here really speaks English honestly. I mean, here in Tokyo you can find them, but if you're just out on the streets at night you'd better know Japanese if you want to talk to people. When they left we met a tall lanky young dude, or what looked like a young dude but was actually a 33 year old or something. We talked to him for a little bit about basketball and picking up girls or something (it's entertaining to talk to Japanese guys about picking up girls) and then another group of rowdy young Japanese came and smoked with us, and generally we laughed and had a confusing hilarious time. They seemed maybe to be trying to get us in a situation where they could take advantage of us, but maybe not, I can't be sure. So we left them and the first guy took us over to this small bar in an alley, where he bought us all whiskey. After awhile the bartender gave us some little egg sushi-roll-like things which were actually pretty tasty. We offered to buy that guy his next drink. Somehow I ended up paying like 1000 yen though which was really annoying and confusing. Oh well that's what you get when you miss your train and stay out all night. The dude left for awhile (I didn't know why or when really), and then eventually reappeared with little boxes of froxen chocolate and vanilla ice cream desserts for all of us, which was super nice of him. I think he was trying to get us laid with this random girl who was there, but she wasn't that attractive and also I think she may have been like 15 or something. I don't really know. But all in all that was a funny way to spend a night.

However, I was really damn drunk and exhausted by 4:30 am when we decided to head back to the train to get home. Fortunately Collin navigated the trains and I just followed him and Garrett around, mostly with my eyes closed and falling asleeep. I had a really fucking bad headache and I could barely keep my eyes open, and it seemed like we had to take a million trains to get back here. In the end we got back here around 6, and our check out time was between 9 and 10. So we made ready to check out when Frank woke us up at 9:30 or something, and went downstairs to figure out what to do. We had planned on taking the train to Nikko today, but we were way too tired to go sight-seeing all day, and the only hostel there is like $50 a night. We considered taking the train to Sapporo a day early, but we'd have to activate our JR pass a day early and that would mess with our schedules a lot. So in the end we decided to just stay here again and sleep all day and night, and then hopefully tomorrow we're going to stop by Nikko in the morning, and then head up toward Sapporo.

I woke up around 5 or something and started doing this. Taka-san evidently is staying here now and he showed up here to say hi. Actually, he just came in and said he is cooking Sukiyaki tonight and wanted to know if we would join him, which is really nice of him. So I'm about to go do that, and then probably go back to bed until tomorrow morning.

...Homemade sukiyaki is delicious!

Crazy Party All Day and Night

So yesterday we woke up and went with Taka-san to Harajuku, which is a shopping district where young people hang out, and met our Japanese friend Shota. So we assembled quite the crew of tourists (6 of us in all) and explored more of Tokyo. First we went and got ramen at a place Taka recommended. Taka has a little book full of pages and pages of notes on what foods are best in various places in Japan and around the world, and he said konkatsu (pork) ramen was best there. It was super delicious, although Japanese people I've noticed love fatty meat, which kind of grosses me out sometimes. Shota surreptitiously paid for all our food, which was really nice of him. Also, he's been working out and he got huge, which was crazy. Anyways Shota is like Japanese Bryan - just crazy nice. He kept buying our shit, or trying to, wherever we went; we typically had to fight or trick him into letting us pay for things. He hardly speaks any English but we were still able to have a good time with him and communicate, which is heartening. Also, when you have a Japanese person it's way easier to get around and people are less racist toward you in that they'll let you do stuff the otherwise would not because you're a gaijin.

Harajuku in general was alright. Lots of shopping which we didn't really have that much time to do. Lots of cute girls and crazy fashion as well. Quite packed.

Then we went over to the Meiji shrine, which was huge and really pretty. Definitely the prettiest stuff we've seen so far n my opinion. There's jungle, then a huge comples of temples and shrines and stuff, then you walk a bit further and you're in the middle of a huge city again. Lots of pictures exist but I haven't had time to start uploading that stuff yet.

After that we walked through yoyogi park, which was huge and also pretty. Taka had to leave to go see a friend in the hospital but Shota came with Frank, Collin, Garrett and I. There was some Brazil festival going on or really about to happen as there weren't many people there. My stomach kinda felt weird and painful for awhile after the ramen. I think it was just being super full and walking so much. Walking from Harajuku through Meiji and yoyogi is not a joke, and although I felt pretty recovered from the previous day of walking around all day, I was starting to get tired again. We got through the park and made it to Shibuya, which is a big shopping district and home to the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world. Every light cycle a 4 way intersection completely packed with people crosses every direction. We got a lot of cool pictures of that. Also checked out a department store, which was alright. Shota helped us immensely in Shibuya guiding us around and asking people where to go and whatnot. We found a skyscraper with a great view where you're actually not allowed to take pictures, but because Shota was with us the hotel attendant girls at the top allowed it, which was really nice. Other than that, I noticed that even with an ocean of people traversing the escalators, every single person stays on the left to allow people to walk up on the right, which is very Japanese. Very orderly. Then we made our way over to Club Asia where the concerts we were going to were. We didn't realize that it was actually 2 concerts, each of which was 3500 yen, which I was not prepared for. Collin kindly bought one of my tickets as a birthday present. Frank was feeling kind of sick so he left before the concerts started.

We hung out with Shota until the last possible moment, going to Japanese wal-mart (it's not wal-mart and it doesn't look like one but it's totally packed with cheap random stuff... claustrophobically so actually. In fact from the outside it looked small and Shota and I were just in there for cheap drinks while Collin Garrett and still Frank were at a starbucks enjoying air conditioning, but it turned out to be huge and labyrinthine), eating and sitting around in air conditioning. We're pretty damn tired by this point honestly, but we've got a full night of partying ahead. On a random note, it is damn hot here, but not as hot as I expected. Everyone is still always drenched in sweat though. I think that might actually be why Japanese people live forever - constant sweating. But I'd say I'm mostly used to it surprisingly. So we go into the first concert after saying goodbye to Shota, and the club is pretty cool. The first act is amazing; it's a band we've never heard of called Recorider. Closest thing to Billy Talent (not in musical style but in energy and size) I've seen since Billy Talent, which is a good thing in my book. People in Japan are a little too shy to dance I guess and only the front 2 rows of people were really dancing. We heard from the lead singer later (in the bar room where the bands actually went and personally sold their CDs and shirts) that she saw us dancing and thought it was great. The first concert in general was not very full, which as I'll get around to pointing out is a little ironic. Also I think there was only 1 other white person there, which was interesting. Then the second band is this grim looking silent guy who makes sweet electro, and eventually put on night vision goggles with a microphone that distorted his voice a lot. He also had one of the hottest Japanese girls I've ever seen, and she came out to do vocals that I didn't personally love that much but were alright. She swung a sword around and it was all very Japanese. Then was Aural Vampire, which I was okay. Another guy/girl act. I got a balloon off the floor that they used as a souvenier. Then I think LIL came on, which was the highlight of my night. They were just awesome. Then was the headliner Gekkan Probowler, who I had not previously heard but who were also amazing. It was just two dudes who looked almost identical, but they were really nice. The singer gave a couple of beers he was drinking to people in the crowd. The bands would always high five rows of people in the front and put the microphone up to someone and sing with them or whatever, which was cool. Anyways the whole concert was amazing. We were drinking pretty steadily throughout the night to stay awake also. Oh, and holy shit it was loud in there.

Then we had an hour and a half until the next show, about which we only really knew that the producer of Capsule and Perfume was headlining. We met some Japanese girls asking them for help on behalf of a guy who turned out ot just be a dumbass trying to find something legal to get high on in Japan. But anyways we went over to where they were eating and hit on them for awhile, which was fun. After that the racism got progressively worse throughout the night. We were sitting on a curb drinking in the area of the club waiting for Capsule, and some random guy came and told us to leave, which we said we would but then didn't. Then he went and complained to some bouncers from a different club and one of them came over and told us to leave. So we asked him if he wanted to drink with us and were generally just pretending to be stupid gaijin who didn't understand. So he took Collin's Chyuhai Strong and poured the rest of it out. Zing. We asked him if he wanted to smoke too but he didn't want to for some reason. Anyways Collin had the right idea with this whole becoming obstinate and calling them out on the fact that they're too polite to really do anything, and they don't have any right to anyway. But after he walked away we got up and walked a few feet away and just stood around drinking instead of sitting, which is something Japanese people love harassing gaijin about (sitting just about anywhere. I think it might be in some cases because you're scaring away their business because other Japanese people are too racist to go somewhere with white people in it. But there's also just the thugs on a power trip). Then we saw some young guys walking buy and asked them to smoke with us (we smoke cigarettes here sometimes because it's easy and fun, and now because we know it's a great way to hang out with Japanese people). We had an awesome honest conversation with them about lots of stuff, like how we know we aren't actually good at Japanese, and music, and hitting on girls, and what to do in Shibuya. Plus, when you're talking to Japanese people other Japanese people won't harass you. After that some other white people asked Garrett and I for help finding some other club. I told them I'd go ask some Japanese people, and I had to try to ask 5 different groups of Japanese people to get one to actually not just ignore me. Oh well. I got tons of gaijin dames (dame means impermissible and that's what they come up and tell you to harass you) that day in general.

Then we finally went to Capsule, and initially it was cool. The music was just lame music by no-names or something all night, seemingly endlessly, which sucked. But initially I went in and sat down and asked a random dude for music recommendations, and he was surprised and impressed when I knew like all the music he knew. Got some good recommendations though. Then went and met some of his friends, female and male, on the dance floor. I guess the girls thought my dancing was awesome and wanted me to teach them, so that was fun. But eventually the music just wore on and on with no Capsule, and it was packed. And we were damn exhausted by this point. So we just stood in the bar room for an unknown period of time zoning out. Finally at 3:00 am or something Yasutaka Nakata started, and although he was better than the earlier shit, it was not amazing and he just stood there basically working an equalizer as far as I could tell. Garrett got kicked out for taking a picture, and Collin and I left fairly quickly. Then we had to walk for another eternity trying to get to a station that would get us to the Tsukiji fish market.

But all the stations were closed. So we sat on a bench waiting for the station to open, falling asleep. Got on the train hoping to meet Frank at Tsukiji, but the stations don't open early enough to get there by the 4:30 deadline to get in on food action. Really damn exhausted. And in lots of pain. I'm still in pain. My feet were in like unimagineable pain for most of today. Legs too. And I still haven't slept. We somehow wandered around Tsukiji, which was cool and unique, but didn't really get anything to eat. I don't have too much to say about it because I was too tired to really care that much. Then we walked to our hostel in a lot of pain, only to discover that you can't check in until 3, so no sleep. I'm finally now approaching 3:00pm here so I can maybe go to bed. At the moment we're chilling at the first hostel we stayed at with Frank, as he was checking out of there and rooming with us today. So yeah. This has been new highs and lows for the trip. But I think it's almost over now.

Morning of September 3

Okay, so a little bit of an update.

Yesterday, other than temples and Akiba we went to the kitchen district, which I think is called kappabashi or something. I remembered a few minutes ago when Collin asked me but now it's a little fuzzy. Frankly I'm still a little drunk from last night. Here in Tokyo we've been largely living out of conbini (Japanese convenience stores like am/pm or 7/11), where they have extremely cheap food, drink, and alcoholic drink. You can get a large can of chyuhai "strong" (8% alcohol) for 201 yen. I'm glad we have Garrett around to tell us the cheapest and best ways to drink. Anyways so far we've been having 3 or 4 of those a night and that gets me fucking wasted. But in a good way. As I was telling our new friend Taka-san last night, it's ironic that America is all about freedom, but you cannot drink anywhere! Here in Japan, we can go buy drinks at a convenience store, start drinking (or do any intermediary part of the drinking) in the cobini, then wander the streets wasted and still drinking! Then you can go pee in an alley. I know it sounds crude, but seriously Japanese people do not care. Japanese people seemingly do it all the time, as I've seen it happen and it's only been 2 days. Actually, yesterday when we first ventured out there was a homeless dude (maybe?) who just walked over to some plants by the street, facing the street, and just started peeing right there on a major road! It was hilarious and awesome. Anyways that pretty well convinced me that we can do no wrong.

So the kitchen district was actually pretty cool; I wish we had more money because I saw a lot of stuff I wanted to get for the girls (Akemi, Lindsay, and May) but that I really just can't afford in good conscience. But I picked up a little something if y'all are reading this =) There were huge crazy knives, stores full of awesome dishes and serving things and crap the name of which I do not know because I am very inadequate in the kitchen. There were also some funny stores full of signs you can use for your restaurant and cash registers for like thousands of dollars. Actually we have noticed that Japanese will eave out tons of shit that is worth hundreds of dollars each with absolutely no on watching. I swear to god people here would probably go put their money in the cash register if no one was around to take their money! It's crazy! Even here in Tokyo, which kind of surprises me.

What else was cool yesterday... like I said we walked all the way over to Akihabara, which was about an hour, and we got to see lots of neat stuff. We went to a depaato (Japanese department store) which was 6 or 7 floors of women's clothing, and 1 floor in the basement full of cheap amazing looking food. Then on the roof there was a kids' amusement park and pet store! Hilarious.

Had my first ramen, which was alright.

People in general have been fairly nice to us. There was a crazy lady at the sensou temple yesterday who tried to trip Collin and was babbling inanely either at us or to herself. But more commonly people have been very happy that we speak some Japanese. You can definitely feel the racism: dudes in the basement of the Akiba electronics store wouldn't ride the elevator with us, people avert their eyes or try to ignore us or whatever. But it's not that bad (probably because we're men and Collin and Garrett are big enough that they're afraid to be mean).

Speaking or racism, I left off last night when we were about to go over to an onsen with Frank. Well we grabbed a chyuhai strong on the way and we were still drinking them when we got there. Well the guy who was working there didn't like that (although Garrett tells us that at a lot of onsen they will even sell you alcohol) and made us leave, then we came back after finishing and he wouldn't let us in because it's dame to be drunk there, although we obviously weren't and we told him so. Basically he was just being a racist fuck and didn't want us there. So that was a little annoying. But on the plus side the night turned out great regardless.

We wandered around drinking for awhile, and went to a cool arcade in a department store. They had a cool, really difficult looking competitive game for which there was a tournament when we went, which was pretty sweet. There were a bunch of salarymen gathered around watching and playing, and one of them looked back and smiled at us when we spoke Japanese and clapped for the winner with them. Then we came back here and sat around talking to some Germans and a couple of pretentious fashion designer girls from Hawaii. Collin and Frank met this cool guy named Taka who I mentioned earlier, who speaks great English, and they introduced me. So then we wandered out onto the streets and drank more, then went to a random bar where we made friends with the girl who worked there (kind of... it's hard to tell if people here are being polite or if they actually like you). We had a pretty amusing conversation basically about sex tourism, and just generally had a good time there. Taka has been all over the world evidently and had some funny advice about getting laid in foreign countries. I think he might come with us tonight to go drinking but I'm not really sure and I'm not really sure where he is. Drinking all the time is exhausting but it's so cheap and fun here it's hard to resist. In any case then Collin and I came back here (Frank was staying at K's still) and took showers and passed out.

So yeah, we're making friends and adventuring and having a great fucking time. Tonight hopefully we'll actually get to go to an onsen or something. Oh wait we're going to see Capsule at Club Asia tonight! There's no nightlife here in Asakusa, but today we're heading over to Shibuya and Harujuku and partying all night so that should be cool. Then it's Tsukiji fish market for the most amazing fish breakfast we'll ever have at 5:00am. We'd better get going!

September 2

Today we stayed in Asakusa and went to a big temple complex which I think was called Sensou. It was pretty huge and neat. It's funny how Japanese people go and throw money into a big bucket for God, or gods, or whatever. Anyway it was pretty touristy, but our first taste of traditional Japan stuff. Cool architecture but honestly not the best thing ever. Then we walked to Akihabara, the electronics district, which was a long way and we're really exhausted. But we went to the coolest 8 floor electronics shop ever and then decided to take the train back here rather than make that gruelling walk again.

It's really hot here but not as bad as I thought it would be. We're definitely drenched in sweat like all the time. We're going to go to an onsen with Frank now and I don't want to hold people up so maybe I'll write more about today later.

Day 1

I got to Japan today. I slept for most of the flight and then watched Iron Man 2. Narita airport was a little confusing, but not that bad. Then I met Collin and Garrett and we decided to go to Asakusa to stay at the K's Hostel here. On the way we met this cool Asian computer science grad. student named Frank who has been travelling around but doesn't know any Japanese. While we were looking on the map to get up here, a couple of Japanese people came to see what we were up to, and tried to help us figure out how to get where we were going. Amusingly, when they looked at the train map they couldn't really figure out what trains we were supposed to take, and one of them even went to ask the ticket seller. They told us to go to the wrong station (this was before Frank) and then we met Frank, who asked us how to figure out where to go and who was coincidentally going to the same place as us. So we all talked and road the train for around an hour, then figured out we were in the wrong place and had to back-track and then take another train to our actual location. Then we had to ask people how to get to where we were going, but luckily that's not too bad if you speak Japanese. Anyways Frank is great, a Stanford computer science students, and we got really lucky and got a room here (tomorrow there's not enough room for all of us and the next day they're booked up). After that long ordeal (it was already dark here) we decided to go get drunk and wander the streets here. I didn't really imagine and cannot express in words how cool it is to be able to just wander the streets and get drunk and get great food for less than 5 dollars. Anyways the 4 of us had a surprisingly great time the first day going from convenience store to convenience store buying beers and food and speaking Japanese. My camera was out of battery so I won't have any pictures until at least tomorrow, but the pictures do exist with Collin.

Also, we didn't even escape the trains until it was night time (I got in at around 3 and had to wait for Collin and Garrett until a little before $:00), but it's still fucking hot here. I'm sure tomorrow is going to take "hell on earth" to a whole new level heat-wise. But even what I assume to be our worst day here - what with our confusion on the trains and the wandering and the plane ride - was amazing and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the trip. Frank's going to be around for a few days so we'll do stuff with him. And having Garrett around is invaluable since he's been here before and c an help us navigate the transportation system.

So far, looking good!