Tokyo!

So we made the genius decision to take a 13 hour bus ride to Tokyo. Despite booking our overnight bus tickets within a minute of each other, Steffanie, the other JET in Hofu was placed on a different bus from both me and Kris, another Yamaguchi JET. This would go on to cause many problems... especially when Steff's phone died halfway through the ride.

But anyway, on to Tokyo. We spent nearly half of the first day trying to find our ridiculous first hostel. I wish I was lying when I call it the sketchiest experience of my life. After nearly an hour of wandering around with a nice lawyer who's been living and working in Roppongi, Tokyo for 3 years, we found the building. It looked decent enough until they told us to go to the 6th floor. Upon exiting the elevator, we find a door with a sign that reads "KNOCK! BEWARE OF DOG!"... complete with the shadow of a GIANT dog barking and jumping against the door. At this point I was imagining my imminent death while racing through my head were thoughts such as "Why is there a dog in the hostel?" and "Will I ever see my family again?" The "check-in" area turned out to be some guy's living room littered with empty alcohol bottles and the entire idea of splitting the bill 4 ways seemed completely alien to him. We made it through the incredibly off-putting experience (with the giant black poodle in another room at this point) only to be led to our hostel... a two minute walk away. Despite requesting a 4-person private room, we were given 2 private doubles... in an apartment... with another bedroom... in which lived some guy who'd been there "for a few years." Other fun discoveries involved finding out the bathroom CURTAIN didn't lock, the toilet light was out, and the toilet didn't quite flush. We barely spent any time there, and for good reason.

On to the fun stuff! We wandered around for a while, first happening upon some kind of kid's festival where we met the Japanese version of the Power Rangers (I know, I know, the Power Rangers WERE Japanese...)

After that, I think we made our way over to Shibuya, the shopping center of Tokyo (okay, all of Tokyo is the shopping center compared to Hofu, but that's beside the point). Fashion in Tokyo is on another PLANET compared to NY. I felt really in place with my awesome gym sneakers amid the sea of stiletto heels.

Anyway, we ended the night with a visit to Alcatraz, a themed prison hospital restaurant. The entire set up is designed to look like a prison hospital and the menu is themed as well. It was all you can drink AND eat for 3000 yen for an hour or two. I will include a picture of the dessert which was pretty incredible so you can all be jealous.


That's all for day one in Tokyo... we survived the night in our sketchy hostel and went to another one for days 2-4... still to come.