First of all I can't believe that this is my last night in Tokyo! I have to say that I have completely fallen in love with this City. It's beautiful. Absolutely amazing and I have mixed feelings about leaving Japan to head to China. I know I'm going to come back here someday, and hopefully soon. I don't know exactly what it is - it could have been the food, the fashion, the adventure, or maybe the amazing people that I was with on this trip but Tokyo will always have a nice spot in my heart. I encourage anyone who "just can't see themselves in Asia" to come to Tokyo. It is a perfect mix of Asian culture with a westernized feel. I could be here for at least another month because I am not completely satisfied, I feel like I just haven't seen enough. In fact, I encourage everyone who is reading my blog to stop, get up, and go somewhere. I don't think I have ever been happier in my life than when I am traveling and experiencing something foreign and new.
I am not denying that there aren't some oddities here. It's just a part of the charm and experience!
So Yesterday: We got up pretty early to head the the Tokyo Fish Market, which is one of the largest in the world. As usual the boys rolled their eyes and complained that I took a whole whopping hour to shower and get ready (what? A girl's gotta look good in a fashion capital!) but then we grabbed our bags and grabbed the train to the market. We got on the train right at the high point of commute time. We were packed like sardines. As usual it was pretty quiet and despite our tight quarters no one was touching or pushing. We are the American Tourists so we had to take a couple pics. I was trying to get a picture of a girl CURLING HER EYELASHES on the train while standing up but unfortunately it didn't quite work out. Two things I have learned here: Everything comes in a vending machine and trains are used for catching up on sleep.
Before we could sneak in some shut eye we could smell the fish market. Mmmmm nothing like fresh fish at 7:00 AM! As per usual in Tokyo everyone was hustle and bustle. Instead of the fashionable slim fitting business suits and Italian made shoes the men were wearing some overalls and rainboot. They were riding around on these enormous scooters and I am quite certain I would have gotten ran over if I didn't move out of the way. They even had a conductor type guy to control the scooter traffic!
I wanted to sorority pose it soooo bad with this guy. I was real tempted but I could have caused accidents and Shoji would have for sure ninja star'd me.
The Market was as you would expect. Lots and lots of fish. Huge fish. Fish heads just hanging out on the floor, things oozing and moving everywhere. Half the stuff was alive, some were hacked to pieces and some were only halfway hacked to pieces. Yum. I was thankful for once that we skipped breakfast. I am sure my parents would have liked it a lot more than I did as both sets of my parents enjoy seafood. I enjoy sea creatures when they are alive. So naturally I was attracted to the lobster tank. I kept pretending to snap my claws at the lobsters as the Japanese salesman smiled at me nervously.
We spent as much time as we could handle at the market and then mobbed down the streets towards the Imperial Palace. I wasn't that excited to go because I just dad a strange feeling that The Japanese Prince was not gonna come out and invite me in. I did get excited, however, when we took a detour through a park and I saw not one but two Neko's!!!! They were both sleeping and one had his tongue hanging out like Hans, the Tougas's cat. Dan and I enjoyed ourselves taking some snap shots! But the good part didn't end there - we also found an awesome park with three little Japanese boys playing in it, and an old man warming up for a tennis match? I think this was the best part of the day it was beautiful weather. I know I seem to take a lot of pictures of Japanese children but they are so cute I can't help it. If I could go back to re-interview for the Japanese magazine I would definitely put down that a Japanese souvenir that I really want is a small child. Probably wouldn't have made it in the magazine though.
It was a short walk from there to the Imperial Palace. The Palace itself wasn't that cool..probably because you could only see a quarter of it! The garden surrounding it was pretty impressive and there was just a lot of space. I guess they had a pretty nice bridge as well. I could just be biased however as the Prince never invited me in and he knew I was in Tokyo. We did get there right in time to see the Changing of the Guards! That was cool...I guess. I saw it in London too it's not too long and they don't do that exciting of poses. I am sure my mom and Walt would have eaten it up cause they live for stuff like that. I live for completely different stuff, like the places that we visited next...
No camping or setting fire to the imperial palace!
We headed to Akihabara next, which Shoji called the Geek District. Anime upon anime upon anime. I was one of about ten females in 10,000 walking around the area. They didn't even have a girls bathroom in one of the huge malls...It was interesting to see everyone there. Definitely a different style of dress. The best part was heading into a 7 story sex shop...seriously it just kept going on and on and I was definitely the only female present. Mainly older businessmen. There were all sorts of oddities in there, most of it I am not quite sure what it would be used for! Many disturbing things as well and I would recommend not going there before eating! The Japanese seem to be pretty open about odd fetishes and the like but they have the least amount of sex of anyone! Interesting, no? We stopped at a somewhat normal mall and I bought some Japanese style patterned tights and some more knee socks. I love how they wear them here!
Finally it was time to go out and experience the Tokyo nightlife. I had no idea what to expect but I did know that I would be in for a long night. I was excited to finally get dressed up and I got my Japanese girl on! I wore a short leather skirt, my patterned tights, boots and a top. It was freezing and reminded me of walking around in Pullman! We all downed a Chu Hi (Sort of like a mix between smirnoff and four loko) and hit the road. We replaced Shoji with Andreas, our German roommate who we thought at the time was completely fluent in Japanese. We walked around with our open beers and drank loudly and openly on the train. Pullman was definitely brought to Tokyo last night! The first club we went to was slightly disappointing. I mean it was a Wednesday night but it just consisted of 8 Japanese guys bobbing their head to some semi-decent techno. We downed a couple drinks and got out of there. We were trying to get to some good bars and turns out Andreas really isn't fluent in Japanese. At all. He wasn't getting us anywhere that even remotely resembled a good time and it was at that point it dawned on me that if anyone was going to find the fun it was gonna be me. As if a sign from God, I looked to the right and three guys got out of a cab. One was a 6'11 black man, one was a carbon copy of P-Diddy and the other was a nice tall Asian guy in a sweater vest. Oh yeah, I thought. Party is here.
Andreas!
We got a couple stares..
The whole club.
I went right up to the tall guy (who I later found out was a 20 year old playing basketball in Japan who was from the states..his first name was Jeremy) and asked him where the clubs were and if they were going. Before I knew it we were mobbing through the streets of Tokyo with three ridiculously tall guys, a German, the three boys and me. They all started talking sports with the basketball players and I calculated what our next move would be: free drinks. (Hey..I go to school in Pullman and am used to plenty of booze a flowing even if it is busch light and monarch). I'm not going to go into all the dirty details of the night on here but let's just say my mission was accomplished. We got into all the clubs, found some good night life and got plenty of free drinks! At one point it became pretty clear that Jeremy was trying was trying to take a more private party back to his place on Takeshita so that was my cue to leave. With the help of Craig I executed a perfect drink and dash maneuver that made me nostalgic for ditching out on creepy dates on date dashes. We stumbled to the train and made it back in our beds by 6:00 AM. The best part of the night was Andreas stumbling around saying to me "Oh jah Taylor, you are ze key! you are ze key Taylor!" I'll say it again. Germans.
Me and a passed out Japanese businessman at the bar
Jeremy. 6'll.
Some Mongolian girl and the Diddy copy
It never felt so good to be in bed! And it never felt so bad to be woken up by Craig six hours later to say we had an hour to meet up with the girls and Shoji in Shibuya. The rest of the group finally arrived and it was fun to have some female companionship to go shopping! Audra, Mallory, Kara, Collette, Ana
and I all headed to 109 for some Japanese Digs! It was fine but we only ended up getting more knee high socks and funky patterned tights. I found a bunch of acid washed jeans that I wanted but there was no way they were going to fit. I tried on the LARGE and could barely get it buttoned and after I asked the sales lady if they possibly had a size larger. To that I got a giggle and a "not here!!" So embarrassing. All's well that end's well however because on our way to Harajuku we went shopping in the five story forever 21. This trip made me feel a lot better about myself because they sizes are universal and I ended up getting a lot of good finds, nothing too crazy though!
We had lots of funning mobbing through the streets 12 deep! We got a lot more stares and probably embarrassed Shoji-san a lot more! We headed to some boring Government building and looked out at the view. It was prettier than Tokyo Tower because it was sunset. The views were indescribable! I didn't last long however because all I could think about was that I hadn't yet eaten all day and I really wanted to wear my new threads! My first wish came true and we headed to a another all you can eat/drink restaurant. I tried to consume as much meat as possible as I am feeling very deprived of it still, but I tried to shy away from the all you can drink alcohol. The rest of the group didn't quite have the same idea and everyone got prettyyyy toasty. I must say we were every bit the ugly Americans, screaming, chanting, drinking, demanding more food and alcohol but the wait staff loved us! We would tell them we loved them and we loved pokemon and other nonsense in Japanese and they would smile and bring us more beer. I am really gonna miss Tokyo.
haha happiest moment of Brett's life
Kara Ana and Collete and our drannkks!
They sell inflatable boobs at the dollar store here in Tokyo. So naturally the best place to whip them out was the restaurant! The staff didn't seem to mind. Too much..
B double fisting!
Walking through the station causing a bit of a scene..
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