Oct
10
Tokyo Monogatari – 東京物語
Filed Under Newspost
Oretachi mo ikou!
Our Tokyo team consisted of two factions: The people who had bought tickets early on and chosen the slower and less comfortable although significantly cheaper night bus ride (Ashley, Erica, Eric, Mike, Pat and Christian) and the Finno-German alliance, Lasse, Henrik and me.
Waiting for the shinkansen
We had bought Puratto Kodama Plan tickets on the day before to enjoy the cheapest possible train ride to Tokyo. The total price amounted to ¥9800 for a ride with a train that we dubbed the “JR Slow Line With Fast Acceleration”. In all honesty, compared to the train velocity I’m used to, it was definitely fast enough as it still meant that Tokyo was only a 3h 40 min train ride away. Having reserved seats in a comfortable train with actual leg space as opposed to a night spent in a Japanese-sized bus was definitely the right choice. The only negative thing about the train was that it was fully booked so the only tickets we were able to get our hands on were for a smoking car. That and we forgot to use our free drink coupons that were included in the ticket price; only soft drinks, though, so nothing of value was lost.
Lasse might kill me for this but I recon it's worth it
Metropolis
We made it to Tokyo main station, took the Yamanote line to Shinjuku (about half an hour) and switched to the Toei Shinjuku line to go to Akebonobashi where our hostel was located. Henrik left us at Shibuya because he chose the cheaper option of staying at a friend’s house instead of paying for accommodation, something I would’ve gladly done as well if only I had had friends. Boohoo. We met up with the bus crew on the 10th floor of the Ace Inn at around 3 pm and immediately headed to downtown Shinjuku to do something relevant to our interests.
From left to right, Lasse, Ashley, Eric, Erica, Mike and Christian
Lasse and I hadn’t eaten anything since morning so we entered to closest Yoshinoya for some quick gyuudon while the others were involved in banking matters. The following hour was spent walking around Shinjuku trying to find some nice place to have a few beers. As expected, options as cheap as one would be bound to find in Hirakata were not available so we chose the next best alternative, expensive beer. After a few hours of joyful banter we eventually got out of the restaurant to find out that Shinjuku is actually brighter during the night than during the day due to the outrageous amount of city lights.
Japan, producing 78% of the world's weird shit since 1952. (feat. Pat)
We gathered at Shinjuku station to meet up with Eric’s friend who was living in Tokyo as well as a bunch of Japanese guys who kindly proceeded to take us drinking to a nearby Izakaya.
¥2500 for a nomihôdai and some food was acceptable, but as the rest of the party decided to move on to look for clubbing options, my day-long headache and I started wandering back to the hostel.
As I realized I was trying to find my way home alone trapped in the Tokyo metro system while in a semi-intoxicated state a huge grin took over my face. Luckily, my sense of direction was highly enhanced, so I found my way back easily, climbed to the 10th floor of the hostel, picked up a guitar and started playing random notes. I was drunk, so don’t expect any rational decision-making. Besides, I’m really pining for a guitar here. After I came to my senses I went to bed and was actually able to sleep around five hours before the drunken crew got back from clubbing and started filling the airspace with shitty jokes.
-Antti