This city is insane
Trip Start
Dec 10, 2007
1
8
27
Trip End
Nov 27, 2008
Tokyo,
Japan
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Aaron is so excited to be in Japan. Me? I'm less enthusiastic.
1. It's daunting not being able to read any signs. At least in Amsterdam, I could attempt to say that my hostel was on "Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal" but here, all I can say is that I'm on the street spelled with stick figures of "house with three lines on left side, girl with no right leg and a triagle antenna, and half-number-sign-half-and-sign."
2. It's expensive. I can have a house in Thailand for a month for what it costs to have a hotel for a night in Tokyo.
But here we are in Tokyo and I'm certainly impressed. We stayed in a populated but mellow neighborhood and noticed that nobody locks their bikes. I like this. It feels good to be in a safe place, especially coming from Hawaii where theft is a big problem. (In Kauai, some meth-head stole the gas out of our rental car by cutting the gas line to siphon it out of the tank!)
Our first temple experience was nice when we stumbled on one of Tokyo's biggest and best. The smell of incese shifted our mindstate and the huge red temple and intricate artistry showed us the ancient, artistic, spiritual side of Japan in the midst of the crazy modern city.
