Adventures in Tokyo

We arrived in Japan on Tuesday, Feb. 9^th at the port in Yokohama.  As soon as we got off the ship, my friends and I headed for Tokyo, where we decided we would stay for the first two nights.  I was traveling with my friends Mike, Jane, and Dani.  Here is where our adventure begins…

First we bought a ticket for Shibuya, a section of downtown Tokyo.  We thought we bought the all day pass for that line but when we got off at Yokohama station and tried to get back on we realized that pass was only good for one ride.  Knowing we had to buy another ticket, we decided to go to Shinjuku, another popular section in Tokyo. After lots of confusion and running around train stations, we finally made it to Shinjuku.  At this point our shoulders were hurting from carrying our bags (my friend Jane and I made the mistake of bringing duffle bags without wheels) and all we wanted to do was get to where we were staying to put our stuff down.  We learned that all the hostels in the area were booked or didn’t allow women so we took a cab to a hotel. 

The hotel was way too expensive and we realized most of the others would probably be the same.  However, the hotel was nice enough to let us use their internet and we were able to contact the Sakura hotel/hostel in Jimboco, where some of our friends were staying.  Luckily, they still had space.  All we needed to do was get there—another adventure since it is located in yet another section of Tokyo.  Let’s just say that with the help of a very nice lady that spoke some English and another couple of train rides, we finally made it to Jimboco.  Our hotel was perfect—clean, inexpensive, and the people spoke English.  Not to mention they had free wireless internet.

At the hostel we met a lesbian woman from Oregon named Erica who was on her way back from her 3-week trip in Thailand, after what sounded like a pretty bad breakup.  She ended up coming to dinner with us that night and the five of us had an awesome time eating sushi and drinking sake.  After dinner we were so exhausted, we came back and passed out.

Well, that about sums up my first day and night in Japan.  Despite all the craziness, I feel like we got to see a lot of Tokyo and interact with a lot of the locals so I’d say it was a pretty good start to what would be an amazing 5 days in Japan.