Meditations on Tokyo

Ok,

Forgive me, because everything in this window is in Japanese, and I´m not that good yet. So this is the second day here, and it was a nutty one. Up and showered at 8AM, first job of the day was to try and get tickets to a sumo tournament for next week. Unsuccessful, because the tickets are sold out of vending machines in convenience stores, which have no English on them. So the lady at my hostel wrote the information down, and it was subsequently rejected by the machine, with someone Japanese working it.

Not to be outdone, I went to the stadium, where I realized that it was 8.30, and the box office didn´t open until 10. Oh well, saw a cool park, took some money out from a Post office ATM, and continued my wanderings. Went to a famous temple complex, with the biggest paper lantern in the world (probably the dirtiest as well), a whole line of touristy markets, learned how to approach a shinto temple (it involves spitting water), and met a ton of little kids (friendliest people in all of Tokyo, half of them screamed hi at me as soon as I looked at them).

Wandered over a bridge, found the Asahi beer headquarters. Those of you picturing a typical beer place, think again. The complex has a few buildings, the most striking one being a black trapezoid with a giant golden turd on top (I have a picture). No windows, and everyone is in a suit. Wandering in, I totally fit in, because I was dressed up as nice as I usually am. =)

I did a lot more walking, found more greenery than I did yesterday, and its interesting, because of the juxtaposition of the green and the buildings. It´s similar to New York, but waay more jarring since 75% of Tokyo looks like Times Square. It´s the same with temples in the middle of the city.

Saw Kabuki, which was interesting, because it was the place I saw the most amount of Tourists on my travels. It´s interesting, if you think about it, since there are alot of tourists here, but I haven´t seen many at all, except where they are in high concentration (hostel, Kabuki). Two asides on that... The Japanese people come in all sorts of different shapes and colors. I do a pretty good job telling Koreans and Chinese, but over here, everyone looks so different, and I´ve been trying to profile them... really! Secondly, what the hell is up with all the Aussies. They´re everywhere. This whole hostel is filled with people from Australia, and they all know each other, and seem to travel like it´s going out of style. A bit jealous, and a bit annoyed I am. Oh well, they are friendly.

Which leads me to the Japanese people. Friendliest people on the planet. Bar none. Everyone goes out of their way to help you out and make you feel at home, in a place where happy pop music screams at you in a different language, and your eyes hurt from all the neon.

The computer will kick me off.. more later