Tokyo Mega Post!

Tokyo is exhausting. With my limited knowledge of strictly American cities, I would say that Tokyo = (New York X 3) + Las Vegas, although I'm sure if you've been to Hong Kong or anceint Egypt or the like, you could come up with a more accurate equation.

Anyway, Tokyo is exhausting. The days have been just packed.

We arrived Wednesday night after a long day of train riding and went for an expensive whiskey at the Park Hyatt's New York Bar, which was featured prominently in Lost in Translation (we are not original!). There were other Americans at a table next to us, one even a fellow University of Arizona student, and we overheard them make a joke about the red-headed lounge singer having the night off. We judged them harshly, although I had made a similar barb to Nicole on the elevator ride up (ironically, I swear). The bar's amazing view from the 52nd floor provided a nice introduction to the vastness of Tokyo, as well as a reminder of how difficult it would be to explore it in a few short days and nights.

Our first full day got off to a rocky start as we got lost in Shibuya (one of Tokyo's 23 neighborhoods) on our way to the Parasite Museum. (Overall, we got lost a good number of times, although not as many as a glimpse at the insanity of the subway map might insinuate.) We then window shopped around Shibuya (a main shopping district) and would up in the famed fashion centre, Harajuku. We grabbed a couple drinks at Office, a supposedly happenin' but suspiciously empty bar that was lightly decorated in the style of your typical white-collar office. As far as I could tell, the decor consisted of a broken fax machine.

Friday, we traveled to Nakano Mall for more window shopping, this time of the manga/anime variety. Five floors of toys, comics and oddities. Nicole liked the creepy dolls. We decided to go back to Harajuku for lunch and some more afternoon shopping, though. We checked out the cool Design Festa art gallery, I got a sweatshirt and Nicole bought four dresses at the Wonder Rocket boutique. Then, we went to get dinner in the seedy underbelly known as Korea Town, but ended up being dissatisfied with the offerings and got drunk back in Shinjuku.

The next morning, we hit up the nerd hub of Akihabara, known affectionately by said nerds as "Electric Town", to find a cool Maid Cafe, and we did, although they wouldn't let us take pictures, so, "what is the point of doing anything if we can't post the pictures of it on our blog?" we asked, but, alas, they didn't speak English... We shopped for electronics before heading to Tokyo's biggest public park in Ueno (Ueno Park = (Central Park/fun) - 4).

Today, we got up early to take full advantage and went with our new Swiss friends on our third trip to Harajuku. Apparently, the cosplayers parade in the early afternoon, but the weather was unfavorable and we had to leave a bit too early, so we didn't see too many eccentrics. Luckily, the weather was perfect in the Tokyo Dome! Yes, there was baseball happening in Tokyo. Yes, of course, we had to go.

Luckily, today was the championship game of the Asia Series, which pits the winners of the Chinese, Chinese-Taipei, Korean and Japanese professional leagues against each other. The Japanese were represented by the Seibu Lions, who we had watched on TV during the previous couple weeks win the Nippon Series over the Tokyo Giants. They, along with the Uni-President 7-11 Lions (from Korea), rolled through the previous rounds over the weak Chinese teams.

So this was it. Lions v. Lions. For Asian bragging rights, and possibly a thorn pulled from a metaphorical paw.

The winner? Lions. Loser? Lions. What up? Shut up. Go JAPAN! I shaved!

We are back at our hostel now. Some things have been thrown away. Some sent back to America. We washed our clothes and stuffed our packs. We travel to the airport in five hours.

We will soon be in Bangkok and that's about all we know. Expect blogging to continue, no matter what. It is our first priority, obvs.

(Please note that I didn't really write about food in this post. That's because the Tokyo dining experiences deserve their own separate post, coming up ASAP. Suffice it to say...things have been yumm-O.)