tokyo go go

Tokyo was exactly how I imagined it. Insane! I can't compare the energy I felt just from riding in, bright eyed and jaw dropped to thousands of neon lights and sounds. The stereotype that goes against every Japanese tourist I will rightly defend after having been there. Everything is so radically different that I found myself taking pictures of toilets, hand driers, grocery stores, sick people (they wear face masks if they have the flu to be courteous to their fellow healthy citizens!)... it's understandable why they make their once in a lifetime pilgrimage to Times Square, heads up, cameras out. I always hate on Times Square, but I basically went to a few major intersections in Tokyo just to experience the bright lights, thousands of people, and smells that you would crave after a film like Lost in Translation and the rush you get when you remember that you're on a completely different part of the world.

We trekked to our hotel which was a painful ¥5200 ($52) cab ride from our ideal night spots. After a long day of travel, Mike jumped on his bed only to make a loud thud noise from the thin futon that lay upon a hard surface of sorts. I followed suit, only to find that my pillow was a combination of thin cotton stuffing and beads! It was like sleeping on a bean bag. literally.

anyway, the sleep part didn't really happen that night since we went out on the town. We took the red line to SHIBUYA and found ourselves here



We were famished from the long day and stumbled upon a melt in your mouth standing sushi bar. The fish was fresh, chilled, and literally melted into our taste buds. We had three adorable sushi chefs waiting tentatively for anything on display that we pointed to. We washed everything down with a couple Kirins and trotted out on the town. Entertainment in Tokyo is out of this world, and it's common to see signs for bars and clubs stacked on top of one another - you eyeball a sign on floor 8, for example, and have to take an elevator that opens right into your destination. We mistakenly got off on the wrong floor while we were there and were ushered to the bar where we ended up having a drink anyway. Saturday evening was charming though, as we sat at the bar of a highrise bar, looking out over Shabuya square. We sipped on a couple glasses of Suntori and Makers Mark whiskeys and taught the bartender, Fumi, how to make an "Ireeesh cah bom".
We even invited him to do it with us, an offer he couldn't refuse. Even better, Fumi was a break dancer on the side and gave us some good tips on where to party in the area. The evening ended with some dancing and a long cab ride back to our hotel (Villa Fontaine).