東京 Part 2: 東京の人と経験

Tokyo Part 2: Tokyo People and Experiences

I dedicated my last post entirely to art around Tokyo, makes sense granted I am an artist. So this one I will dedicate solely to the amazing people I met and the fantastic experiences that usually followed; or just some really great experiences where I didn't meet anyone haha. I think it would be most sensible to just go chronologically, so without further ado...

第１日：ハローウエイン

My first day in Tokyo was Halloween. Whew! What a crazy night. Let me just start by saying if you ever plan to experience Halloween in Tokyo (which I strongly reccommend) DO NOT go to Shibuya Crossing. It was ridiculously packed, people were getting pushed and pulled, falling over, dropping phones, losing shoes, yeah it was intense. Anyways... I made my way out to Shibuya and Harajuku area to meet up with a good friend currently living in Tokyo, Jada. We met in Atlanta through a mutual friend because we both love art, music and Japan. So after meeting up with Jada and her friends we made our way to a couple places where Jada had friends playing DJ sets (Jada is a DJ). I saw countless One Piece characters, nurses and doctors, Luigis and Marios, Naruto characters, and just about any other costume you would assume to see, of course there were some really outstanding costumes too. Well at some point in the night we ended up passing a live radio show where they were interviewing passing Halloween-ers and asking about their nights and their costumes. So we stopped and talked, mainly Jada and Aimi, the more proficient Japanese speakers, but I chimed in when I could. Being that Jada herself is a DJ, they invited us into the station with them as guests. I thought that was so awesome! 

Used this picture for one, just to show the tentacles changed colors which was really cool, and also for the banana costume.

Here's one of Jada's friends who played an awesome DJ set.

Inside the radio station with some Sailor Moons, a witch, and a horse DJ

Also forgot to mention I went to a concert. I must say it was honestly my first time enjoying J-Pop.

第２日：カプセルホテル

My second day in Tokyo was not so exciting. Unfortunately it was extremely rainy. So for this day I'll talk about the experience of staying in a capsule hotel. I remember looking up places and ultimately booking a capsule hotel and having people say, "are you sure you want to stay in a capsule hotel, they're kind of cramped" and many things along those lines. I feel my capsule hotel experience was great. I think they are such a smart idea. It is literally all the space you need in my opinion, or maybe I should say all the space I need. For those who don't know, capsule hotels are basically just little niches, I guess would be the best word, with just a mattress, shelf, outlet and TV. It wasn't noticibely uncomfortable mattresses, I personally didn't even use the TV, and thankfully to falling in love with onsens on past IES Abroad trips, didn't feel at all uncomfortable with the public bath. This specific capsule hotel also had a floor specifically designated to the lounge area which I thought was really nice. All in all the only one thing that bugged me a little bit was that guests had to leave the hotel between 10 am and 4 pm; granted I completely understand because they had to clean each room and reassign keys and what not.

第３日：原宿の人

Next up is a place that I talked entirely about in my last post, Harajuku. I met some really cool people out here, had some deep conversations, and most of all, had a ton of fun. I guess I'll start with passing by and seeing a New Balance turf area set up. Here they were promoting Beta which I still have absolutely no clue about what it is, but they had a fun game set up and were giving away free shirts to people so I really only had one option. The game was they had a prop set up which represented a strike zone, filled with 9 square tiles, and you had 9 baseball resembling balls; not quite as a hard as a baseball but it was close to, I don't know the term for these kind of balls although they are used often so baseball resembling balls is the description you'll get. I didn't quite finish the explanation but I assume you understand. If you ended your round with 2 or less tiles left you won a t-shirt. I did not win a t-shirt haha. I had 3 left though! So I got a nice consolation pack of stickers. Still really fun.

Also met these cool guys who looked so cool I had to ask for a pic. They ended up being really nice and even showed me around to some cool places to shop and also a few good spots to eat.

Last cool thing I found on this day was a random park that was stemmed from an overpass I just randomly decided to take. I luckily stumbled upon a pick-up soccer game that was equally as exciting as it was a spectacular photo-op. In between the two soccer fields there was also a flat concrete space where I found some people I could really relate to, art people! Well maybe not art people, but artsy people, dancers. If you'll dance in public without much regard for what others think, 10 times out of 10 me and you will get along (I am very often bopping and grooving while I walk practically anywhere). But yea, they were cool people and I even met a guy who is going to L.A. early 2016 for 2 years to live and dance professionally.

Ok well this post seems to be getting pretty long, so I'll talk about my last day of experiences in Tokyo in a seperate post. Have to save the best for last, right? I actually spent two more days in Tokyo after this one, but my last day was primarily sitting in the bus station because I wanted to make 100% sure I didn't miss the bus home (I missed the one to Tokyo and had to pay for a ticket on the next bus). Stay tuned!