Tokyo - welcome to the future

Day 2: Tokyo

In NARITA airport, before going to town, we did following

1. Exchange voucher to Japan Rail Pass (you need to tell when you want to activate JRP, the exact date – so they will type with BIG letters on the pass when it expires). We will use JRP for 7 days, starting with 2nd of November till 8th (I mean this is what we thought in the beginning :-D

2. Buy NEX and SUICA card (a good offer available just for tourists, which includes Narita – Tokyo ticket for Narita express + 2000 yen credit on Suica card, for traveling in Tokyo area – JR and metro.

3. Rent a Japanese mobile phone with Japanese SIM card. The cheapest way to communicate within Japan using a mobile phone is mobile phone email. It’s not a normal email, like gmail for example, that you can access through cell phone, it’s special cell phone email address , for example Elena@vodafone.ne.jp – so you use it to send emails through your phone and its really cheap – approximately 19 euro cents /email, while un sms costs about 70 euro cents. Yeah, that expensive!!

Ok, after all that we take Narita Express and get to Shinjuku station. Our hosts, a gay couple and ambassadors of Tokyo, Heath and Jim, will be home at around 16:30, so we leave bags in coin lockers (Japanese word for it is : koin lokka – haha funny) in the train station and go have a look around the area.

Close to Shijuku station is situated skyscrapers district, with Tokyo Government Building, a huge and impressive construction where you can take a free tour around the building , offered by volunteers and end the route at the observatory on the 45th floor.

After dedicating around 1 hour listening about history of the building and taking pictures of the city on top of it, we decided to grab something to eat. Everywhere we saw big buildings and commercial centers but somehow in the middle of this modern district we found a tiny street with local simple open bars offering noodle soup. In the bar you could see only local and clearly the guy in the bar didn’t speak any English but somehow we understood each other and we had great portion of tasty soup for just 2 Euro/each :-D

If you want to smoke after dinner, like Juli did, be aware that in Shinjuku district due to its central location and business profile, it’s permitted to smoke on the street only in the indicated locations – the fact that Juli was continuously complaining about, of course! :-D

Fist things that impress you in Tokyo, besides skyscrapers and futurist architecture are:

1. Tokyo transport system – total chaos, it blows your mind of because of a huge amount of different subway lines, mixed with train lines – different companies own different lines, so I guess this makes it worse!

2. The way people dress here is surrealistic : girls dressed like little porno Lolita or other type – gothic Lolita. Impossible style combinations, short skirts, long boots, stockings, pink colors mixed with leopard bags and silver shiny shoes.

3. The way young working men dress – all same, like robots – black suit and white shirt, really , it’s a bit scary , you feel like in a clone world :-D

4. The price for the alcohol – even in a convenience store a can of beer is around 1.5 euro…this country definitely is not created for Spanish people :-D

We dropped our bags in Heath and Jim house and went to meet another friends, Naho – a girl we met in Barcelona during her travel and her boyfriend, Diego, originally half Brazilian (by mother) half Japanese. There was a home CS party that night, so even dead from jet lag we decided to go :-D

In the house there were several couchsurfers, Japanese, one French, one Turkish, English, two American girls – well normal CS cocktail I guess.

We had a couple of beers and a soup “Nabe” – which was basically a big pot with water where you put green Chinese cabbage, slices of meat, mushrooms, tofu cheese and some spices. It stays on fire, while people are taking some soup, and then putting some more new ingredients, so it can last for hours I guess :-D We left the house around 23.00 and had to run to the station since the last train was at 23. 15

Next day we had planned a trip to Kamakura. I saw in Tokyo group on Couchsurfing a guy, called Naoki, who was offering to some traveling couchsurfer to show around Kamakura. I wrote him and asked if he can show us too, when we arrive, within a week and he agreed. So we had to meet him at 11 am at Kita Kamakura station, which is 50 minutes away from Tokyo by train.

Again no sleep!!!

Expenses control:

- Nex & Suica package: 7000 yen (53,44€)
- Rented mobile phone with SIM card: 26€
- Coin lockers at Shinjuku station: 500 yen (3,5€) and 400 yen (3,05€) – we needed two for our bags
- Food (noodle soup): 700 yen (5,34€)
- Beers bought in the convenience store for the home party: 1600 yenes (12,21€)
- Contribution for the food at home party: 1000 yen (7,63€)