tokyo v1.0

the greater metropolitan area of tokyo has a population of 33.4 million people. plus 2 - for our visit. getting to tokyo was worthy of an indiana jones map graphic - auckland to sydney to hong kong to tokyo. it was a blow in and blow out visit, planned on the fly with multiple agents not in our original trip plans. i had wanted to see tokyo ever since i was a pup hanging on my dad's stories about his journey there as a young man. i have come a long way baby from a kid looking at places on a map.

we bunked the night in hong kong before our late afternoon flight to narita airport. we didn't have a reservation, but figured it was worth a try for a hotel. sometimes we sleep in airports, and sometimes we don't. this was one of the latter times. we did however get a great last minute deal on an airport close to the city - the novotel. it was the perfect decompression capsle from our flights. in the morning we ate at a buffet for father's day. sorry the guest of honour couldn't be there.

once we had landed in japan we turned our attention to getting a place to stay. as always - no reservations. after spending sometime online trying to secure a room, and going to the point of having a japanese woman make a phone call on our behalf for a ryokan, we again rolled the dice with the airport hotel deal counter. again we rolled lucky sevens.

our hotel was located in ikebukuro, a 2 hour train ride from narita and on the main jr line. geographically it was perfect, just north of shinjuku and shibuya. once we exited the ikebukuro station we were assulted with sensory overload: masses of people; upbeat music; copious advertising. to our surprise we foud our hotel with great ease. to our greater surprise, once past the chandeliers we were led to our room on the 37th floor - their top floor. we had a view of the entire city, and at night you could sit there and watch the flashing red lights forever.

after we had checked in it was already getting on to early evening. dusk had settled in, and the lights had begun to glow. i knew what i wanted our first tokyo experience to be - shibuya at night. we took the train to shibuya station and followed the crowds to the hachiko's (the dog) exit. then it was before me. the tokyo of my dreams. the tokyo of film. nearly a million people in its bounds. neon, crowds, music and conversations. a buzzing in the air. we had reached the most electric crossing in the world. to experience this is to feel that you have reached the very centre of the world. jules verne had the direction wrong. we kept walking across the square time and time again, marvelling at everything. our heads cocked upwards towards the neon glow, our eyes dodging back to check our course through the masses. later, we made our way to the very starbucks overlooking the crossing from which sofia coppola stole some shots for lost in translation. needing some fuel we stopped at a small restaurant up the street. a sapporo beer tickled down my throat.

after dinner we made our way back to the transit system and to shinjuku - where bill murray got his first jet lagged sight of tokyo in lost in translation. highrise after highrise. countless neon ads that blink and form and change colours. 2 million people pass through shinjuku station a day. plus two. we wandered again round and up different streets and alleys searching for a citibank (note: atms do not work in japan for plus cards. you need citibank atms). somehow we wandered into kabukicho - the sleezy of yakuza, red lights, and shows of an adult nature. businessmen were out on the town, as were police making us feel completely safe. as lyds went into a store a gay businessman came onto me (it apparently is one of the most active homosexual neighbourhoods in asia). but any ugliness was masked in the glory of the neon light. and we found our citibank.

we made it back to our hotel around 2am. slipping into our kimonos we fell fast asleep with the curtains open to the red flashing lights of tokyo's skyline. acutally being in tokyo was a wierd feeling. achieving a dream always is. all that was missing was having my dad at my side.

mav wins.

"our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. we live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. what they dreamed, we live, and they lived, we dream."
- t.k. whipple