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08/15/2006: "Japan Day 1"

Wake up at 4 am, and drink some coffee-coke. It tastes like crap just like I thought and was enough to wake me up. At 5 I get a taxi to the airport and pay 10 bucks for the hour and some minutes drive. At the airport we get news that some idiots tried to send some kind of liquid bomb on the airplanes in england the day before and we had to go through extra security to throw away our drinks, deoderant, cologne and even pills. Once through the security we board the plane and it had a TV built into every seat with video games. The plane ride went very smooth. Upon arriving in japan, me and my friends had a competition to see who would see the first school girl. We were all nervous about getting through customs and finally seeing some japanese people. However, once we get through customs, everyone looks just like chinese except for the way they talk. At the main airport terminal I had to take a piss and went to the toilet. Arriving at the toilet looked like I was entering a space ship. I pressed a button and the door opened by itself and I entered. There was a space toilet with a space urinal and a space drinking fountain with a spacey looking wash basin. Freaking weird i tell you.

Leaving the airport we get on a bus called the Airport Limosine and ride two hours to downtown tokyo. The whole car ride looked like I was in Washington again and traveling around Seattle. It was an enjoyable ride. The trees here look just like washington trees.

Pulling up to the bus stop in Shinjuku, I heard cries from my friend Dan. "Look look! LOOK! A real live school girl!!!" And boy did I look. It was made of dreams, that girl. She was wearing a perfect outfit and was so cute and had knock-knees and everything. And to make it better, the bus stopped right next to her and let us off at the station. Excellent. We take our bags and walk up to the girl and stare a few minutes then find our hotel.

The hotel was about a 10 minute walk from the bus station and very easy to find. On our way there we almost get hit by cars because we didnt realize that japanese people wait at every single crosswalk. I was used to china where it is Dog Eat Dog and everyone crosses the streets at any time. A bus almost hit us.

At the hotel, the staff was very super friendly and gave us excellent service. At that point in time I had an epiphany: "There is service in japan!", unlike china.

The toilet in the hotel room has buttons and shoots warm water at you when you finish. My friend andy wrote a haiku about the toilets:

Japanese Toilet
Really you are a robot
I love Tokyo

In the hotel, I hooked to the internet and checked my email and stuff then at 10pm explored the city. We got nowhere and returned by 11:30pm. My dad called me at midnight and said, "You know, you are in the skyscraper part of Tokyo, if you go down the street and cross the train tracks, you will be in the sleaziest part of tokyo." Upon hearing these magical words, I got up, called my friends and we all went exploring again but this time with a purpose.

We quickly crossed the train tracks and ended up in an area with no people. Eventually we saw some people and went towards them. It was a bunch of guys who looked like they were all having fun. Upon approaching them, we realized that they were all gay. We were in fag-town, tokyo. After hightailing it out of there, we quickly lost all bearing of where we were.

About 5 hours of wandering later, we come across the party town. We made it to Kobukicho! But it was 6 in the morning and we were tired as rabbits because of walking for 6 hours. We tried to get back to the hotel but realized that we had no information about where the hotel was. GREAT. No one spoke english. We walked into a convenient store and the guy spoke chinese. EXCELLENT! I asked directions in chinese and we made it back to the hotel by 6:30am. My chinese paid off.

End of day 1.