Thoughts on my first two weeks in Tokyo

My first 2 weeks of living in Tokyo are about to come to an end. In two days I fly back to Atlanta, and then drive to NC for Christmas. I’m excited to go home, and to see family and eat casseroles (which haven’t made their way to Japan yet, by the way), and to sell my car and cancel cable and further simplify my life back in the States so that I can complicate my life here. And I’m excited to see friends back home for New Years – but I’m a little bummed that I have to again put my life in Tokyo on hold. I’m already having a great time meeting people and making friends, so I guess I’m in a great position, excited about seeing family and friends and keenly aware that I’ll also be eager to come back to Japan and pick right back up making new friends and exploring this place.

I’ve been traveling by subway a lot lately, and it’s incredibly convenient and cheap. It will take you to within 500 feet of just about any place in the city, and all for no more than 190 yen ($2, assuming the freakin’ yen doesn’t keep getting stronger). I’d love for the yen to strengthen, except that I’m paid in US Dollars, so my money just buys less and less. You could get 120 yen for 1 dollar a year ago, 110 yen for 1 dollar back in June when I started traveling here, and now you get 87 yen per dollar. Ouch…

I had my picture taken with some real estate people and Japan’s ex-Prime Minister Koizumi my first week here. That's me, fourth from the left standing up, and Koizumi front and center in the gray suit with the long, flowing mane of gray hair. It looks like I was walking by in the hall and managed to stick my head in the shot, which is more or less what I did, but it’s my first picture with a head-of-state. I also had a picture taken the next week with Great Britain’s Ambassador to Japan, but I haven’t gotten a copy of that one yet. I went to a Christmas party at his house, in the British Embassy compound, and had mulled wine and mince meat pies (no meat, only dried fruits) while confusing everyone there with my presence. “I say, what is the Yankee doing here? Jolly good.”

Walking back from the subway the other night I saw this advertisement at the entrance to a Lawson's convenience store. I have no idea what it is, or what it’s advertising, but it looks amazing and I want an entire box of it. It's a funny example of Japanese advertising -- goofy, and maybe a touch "alternative lifestyle"?

The view off the balcony of my apartment the other night was nice. The sky was clear, and the moon was apparently at apogee and full, so it was amazing. Behind and just to the right of the big building in the foreground is the illuminated Diet Building, Japan's equivalent to the Capitol Dome in Washington, DC. Their upper and lower house meets there. The big patch of dark space between that and the line of buildings in the distance is the Imperial Palace and its grounds, where the Emperor of Japan lives. He's my neighbor.

I looked out my window at the office several days ago and, to my surprise, sandwiched between two buildings was Mt. Fuji. Right there! See it? You can just see the snow-capped peak. The view out of this window 6 months ago must have been very nice, before that building went up. But I can still see it! Trust me, it looks a lot more imposing in person.

Mt. Fuji is amazing. It just looms on the edge of the city, visible from anywhere on a clear day and tantalizingly close. I can’t wait to climb it! I’ve got some people interested in climbing it with me, both from the US and here in Japan. And I’ve a friend who has generously offered to let us use her family’s condo near the base of Fuji-san as a base camp, but she’s adamant that she won’t be climbing again. She’s done it once already, and there’s a famous Japanese saying : “A wise man climbs Fuji-san, and a fool climbs Fuji-san twice.” She’s no fool.

My walk to work is easy. I leave my building at 8:30, grabbing a free Financial Times in the lobby, walk down a short street, make a right turn, a left turn, and then round the corner and SHAZAM! There's my office. Heck, I’m there by 8:35!

And I pass this car dealership on my way. Not Hondas, not Toyotas or Nissans, but McLaren F1s ($1,000,000), Ferrari 599s and F50s, Lamborghini Diablos, Panoz’s, Jaguar supercars. I’m not especially a car guy, but I can appreciate blatant excess as well as the next guy. Wow!

I also pass the entrance to a huge Shinto Shrine on my walk to work, and today at lunch I walked over to check it out. It’s a little island of tranquility in an ocean of concrete and glass. It’s beautiful and quiet, and it was a really good opportunity to take some pictures juxtaposing Japan’s love of nature and natural beauty (as exemplified by Shinto) and Japan’s love of capitalism and excess (enter Prudential Tower). Kind of cool I thought.

Okay. That's it. Tokyo Drew, over and out.

So I wanted to send something out to talk about what’s going on, just a little bit. I can’t communicate the excitement I’m feeling now through emails or anything less than a novel. But suffice to say that I'm full of things to say right now, and wondering if I'll have time (or the know-how) to write them all down on a blog. But it's something I really want to do. I really want to share these amazing experiences with everyone back in the U.S., and elsewhere, that I can count as friends now.

This last month has been hard to describe. I left Atlanta on November 15, and things have been moving at lightning speed every since. On November 15 I flew, with several friends, to Bangkok where I started a two week trip that ended up being one of the best experiences of my life so far. From Bangkok we went to Phuket, where we chartered our own speedboat to the Similan Islands. There, we snorkeled and swam and slept in bungalows that had nothing but a roof and screened windows that resembled Swiss cheese. And less-than-warm water to shower in for about 4 hours every day. But it was a bed, and we were exhausted, so it worked just fine.

Four of us got up early the next morning (5 AM) and hiked to a deserted beach, where we watched the sun rise over the ocean from our perch, neck deep in crystal-clear water. After a full day of lounging on beaches and swimming we took the speedboat back to Phuket, where we jumped in a bus to Khao Lak, a small town that was decimated by the tsunami a couple of years ago. There's a Thai Coastguard boat about a kilometer inland, sitting in a field, that was carried there that day. We took a small bus the next day to Khao Sak National Park. There we rode in canoes down a river, surrounded by limestone pinnacles 1,500 feet above us on either side. When we were done we ate a Thai lunch, and then rode Asian elephants through the jungle in the pouring rain. That night we slept in bungalows in the jungle, and ate more good food on tables under a roof with no walls. Afterward we sat by a bonfire, trying to dry our feet and shoes, and playing cards. Rummy, which apparently has different rules depending on who taught you, was played using a hybrid of Chicago and NC rules.

We took a van back to Phuket the next day, where we had an amazing dinner on Phuket Bay. For $100 we were treated like royalty, and we tipped nearly $20, so several days later I got an email from one of the waitresses telling me she missed me and that she’d wait on me -- seriously. We started the habit early of getting email addresses from those we met, and I'm glad we did, because if I ever go back to Phuket I've got a fiance.

Then we went "clubing" in Phuket, and saw the result of the systematic American rape of the world. Some poor little Thai guy was singing Maroon 5 in the style of Clay Aiken, with a huge mop of blonde hair. We were a group of 6 tall Americans, and we acted like we owned the place. I got on stage and danced with one of the girls in our group, and didn't even care that 50 pairs of little eyes were on me, judging me, envying me. It's odd how well you can be treated in Southeast Asia, just because you look completely different than 99% of the population and look eerily similar to 99% of the people they see on TV or in movies.

Then, we were off to Bangkok again for a night. That night we ate dinner at the top of the State Tower, the nicest restaurant in Bangkok, with 180 degree views of the city, and had a table to ourselves cantilevered over the edge, 56 stories up. The next day we flew out of Bangkok to Hanoi, only 24 hours before Thai protestors took over the airport. They'd have really put a damper on our trip if we had been slower to leave.

Hanoi was amazing. The airport was terribly dingy, and it felt like a Communist airport, but after an hour long cab ride into town ($30) we were amazed and surprised with Hanoi. It was like Europe, but full of Vietnamese!


We explored and shopped and ate, and after a night in Hanoi we took an overnight train to Sa Pa, in Northern Vietnam. It was a great experience. Uncomfortable, but great.

We slept in two sleeper cabs, with 4 beds each, with one extra bed to put our packs on. We arrived in Sa Pa at 5 AM the next day, and took a 2 hour bus ride up the mountain to town. Sa Pa is adjacent to an even tinier town called Kat Kat. We stayed at a great hotel, and hiked into Kat Kat during the day. We played with Vietnamese children, and walked home from school with them. Katie, one of the Atlanta crew, did some gymnastics in a mountain field, and braved the drainage ditch to play with the kids. They were skeptical of us at first, but we had them racing us on foot before too long. So many of them are so beautiful. Good teeth, healthy looking, and no one is fat. No one.

We hiked around for a long time, maybe 8 hours, then back to Sa Pa where we had lunch and explored the market. I saw butchered dog for the first time. It was delicious. Kidding. I didn't have the guts to try it. The dog had guts, though. I saw them.

We ended up spending the dark hours in the restaurant overlooking the valley at the hotel, and drank Vietnamese beer and told stories until the wee hours of 9 PM. Then we went to sleep and slept for 12 hours.

The next day we explored some more, and ended up renting scooters! We rode down the mountain, on scooters and dirtbikes, for about 30 kilometers. It was amazing, to drive in the lawless streets, and ride on the wide open, winding mountain roads. When we got back to town we ate Pho together (a hot-pot of soup), and drank Chone coffee.

Not sure if my spelling is correct, but Chone is a coffee that's made from coffee beans that have been eaten by a weasel and shit out. Afterward they're ground up and made into a very strong coffee. It's not as good as it sounds. And it does a number on your teeth...

On the way home, one of the guys in our group crashed his scooter at the entrance to the market. Luckily only 50 Vietnamese saw him do this. He limped back to the hotel, and someone else brought the scooter. He gave the guy $50 for the damage and walked away. We'd "rented" them by giving the guy $10 each, and riding them away. Nothing to sign, no collateral. So he'd have been okay to just leave it by the side of the road -- the rental guy was just happy he brought it back. It was his personal scooter.

The next day we rode the bus back to the train, and hopped on the overnight again back to Hanoi.

When we arrived at 5 AM, we needed to go to a tourist agency to start the next leg of the trip. But they didn't open for 3 hours, so we went in search of a place to get breakfast. It was dark, and we were 7 Americans walking the empty streets of Hanoi. We were targets, and about 10 minutes into our walk a guy on a black scooter rides out of the shadows and crosses the curb to get on the sidewalk. He passes between us, and heads toward the front of the line. He reaches down and grabs one of our cameras, which is in a case and being carried by someone's side in their hand. Luckily he held onto it, and the guy got away with nothing, and we experienced our first mugging attempt.

We went to Halong Bay later in the day, a 3 hour van ride. Halong Bay is a natural bay, 2,000 square miles, that is covered with limestone towers jutting out of the water. We got on a "junk boat" (appropriately named) and cruised around Halong for 3 days and 2 nights. This boat is an absolute piece of garbage, and it's surprising that it floats, but it's vintage Halong Bay and I'm so glad we did it. We spent the days swimming and kayaking (Chris and I were by far the fastest kayak, and me with a head cold and him with the street-food squirts. In this picture I'm trying to breathe, and he's trying not to soil himself),

we did some sightseeing, explored caves, ate good food and sang karaoke. For some reason it made perfect sense to sing "Fortunate Son" about 5 times, much to the delight of the 4 British and 2 French people on the boat with us. Where is Katie for this serenade, you ask? Well, Ross had accidentally locked her in their bedroom, and had no idea that she couldn't unlock it from the inside without the key. All night she sat in her room listening to us sing our hearts out and have the drunken time of our lives, while she sat locked in a dark cabin beneath our feet.

This was the last part of the trip, and although it was awesome we were exhausted and ready to go home when it was over. We flew out of Hanoi on December 30, for a 24-hour flight back to Atlanta (and Chicago and Texas and Denver). Once I got back to Atlanta, I had 36 hours to turn around and fly back to Japan, where my vacation was to end and "work" was to begin.