Tokyo Tokyo Tokyo. Sprawling metropolis of my imagination. Its just a two hour bus ride from Tomioka to Ikebukaro station in Tokyo. For only $20 you can go from a tiny city in the rice paddies to the biggest/ densest/ baddest city on the planet. I did just that.
I got off the bus in Ikebukaro. Ikebukaro is famous for having two of the most gigantic department stores in the country of gigantic department stores. I wandered around in the streets for a bit and was tempted to take a look inside some of these shopping meccas, but the big red backpack I was carrying (which always seemed to be in danger of whapping some poor commuter in the face) and my laptop bag made me think twice. I was already pretty tired of schlepping these bags around and I really wasn't ready to risk leaving a wake of overturned mannequin carnage behind me. I decided to head to my hostel and wait for the check in time. Then I could be rid of my stuff and merrily on my way.
I very easily got to Iidabashi station. Even i was surprised at this. Feeling a bit hungry, I found a grocery store inside the train station, bought some tea, and headed to the tables outside to eat the peanut butter pod sandwiches I had brought with me. I don't know if fate decided to be cruel to me just then or if it was random irony. I hadn't really seen it as I left the grocery store to sit down, but right next to the tables set out for your casual lunch was a series of displays (photos and captions) on the Nagasaki atomic bombing. It was a whole wall of blown-up historical photos. The other tables were occupied by old Japanese couples. There was an old man who was looking at the photos and he kept shaking his hands in the air. I imagined it was a why, why whhyyyy gesture. I was too scared to look over and see if he was giving me dirty looks as did this. As one might might imagine I was feeling a little awkward about this situation, being from the big, bad atomic bomb dropping country and all. Also, I don't particularly enjoy looking at photos of seared flesh as I eat my peanut butter pods. I ran out the door and found a bench outside that was free of any extraordinary japanese-american tensions.
After the delicious pods, i was ready to get to the hostel. I had a map to find the hostel already drawn in my notebook, I braced myself for the final stretch. As i was in the middle of bracing, it started pouring. In Japan, in summer, it never rains a little. It rains like it will never rain again and no umbrella is going to save you. Even though the hostel looked close, there was no way I was going to tramp around in all that rain looking for it. I had to wait it out. I went back in the train station... had a snack... looked at some shops... it was still raining, so I looked at some more shops. Then as the rain died down to an acceptable level I looked in my guidebook to find a more detailed map of where it was. I read the description of the hostel and it said, located above Iidabashi station, Tokyo International hostel is.... I thought, this can't be right. My hand drawn map had me leaving the station. But sure enough, I walked through some doors and there was an elevator with my hostel on the 18th floor. All that waiting and rain avoiding and the hostel was in the same building that i was in. On the upside, all that stalling mean that It was check-in time by the time I got there. The hostel is big- 2 floors of a skyscraper. The room i stay in has 8 people in it. one of them is a middle-aged Japanese woman. I am pretty sure she is crazy. Also she never leaves the room.
It was after afternoon by the time I got settled. I walked along what appeared to be a popular street in Iidabashi. There were some cute shops and a lot of promising restaurants. Then I went back to the train station and headed towards Akihabara. I decided to go to Akihabara because its one of those places that everyone who goes to Tokyo must go. The part of interest is called Electric Town. Its full of big, 5-story buildings selling discount electronics- computers, cameras, televisions, air conditioners, rice makers, etc etc. The streets are lined with these places. And of course they all have big neon lights and people shouting/ inviting you in on the street and television screens on the outsides of buildings. I don't have much of an interest in discount electronics. The electronics I want, ironically cost more in japan than in the U.S., where usually every other kind of electronic is super cheap in Japan. But anyways, I decided to go and see what there was to be seen. it was still kind of a rainy/ crappy day so I didn't want to try and do something I was excited about and then have it rain on my. Akihabara seemed like a good place to waste a rainy afternoon on.
I got to the station and as you come out there are girls dressed in maid costumes handing out fliers to something. They are japanese gothic, anime style maids. There was a small collection of them as I was both coming and leaving. Apparently its some sort of tradition, because you can always expect them to be there. I even saw souvenir cookies with maids on them. Basically, there were just electronics everywhere. And Pachinko parlors too. I was drawn into a 5 floor pachinko parlor by the promise of a big hundred yen shop on the top floor. There was no hundred yen store, but there were hundreds of people leaning over flashing, whirring pachinko machines, furiously smoking cigarettes. Girls in slutted-up sailor moon costumes wandered the rows of machines. Also keeping an eye on the scene was a buff guy with dyed silver hair, a leaf garland, a furry silver loin cloth and some silver fur boots. I tried in vain to snap a picture of him.
After a few hours of this amusement I headed back to Iiadabashi. I was tired and not in the mood to fuss much over food. So I went to the Japanese version of fast food. I love these little restaurants, they are pretty ingenious. The kind that I went to i set up like a bar with lots of stools all lined up. You walk in and there is a little vending machine looking thing in the corner. On the vending machines are buttons, usually with pictures, of everything on the menu. You put your money in, press the button of your choosing, and out pops a ticket. You sit down at the bar, the guy takes your ticket, and about three minutes later your food is brought to you. I had rice with sauteed meat, kimche and some seaweed ribbons. Its ridiculously efficient and also requires no Japanese language skills. Its an interesting place. The food is good, but I have pretty much only seen men eating there, always by themselves, who leave immediately after eating. It must be some kind of bachelor haven.
Full of rice, I went back to the hostel for bath time. The hostel has its own sento, or public bath. Its a lot like the onsens, except without the atmosphere and the spring water. You go up there, take a shower, wash yourself over and over. Then there is a mall pool full of hot water. I soaked in there for a tiny bit. It was nice. You could almost see all the lights from the city from the window while you sat in the tub, if the glass wasn't fogged up. There was a dinosaur of an old japanese woman in the sento as well. She was possibly less than 4 feet tall and had scraggly little beard.
The day finished with me closing the curtains around my little sleeping pod.
No comments:
Post a Comment