No school!
No classes!
No brats!
No way!
Not in Japan baby. You only get to take paid leave. Otherwise, if you're a miser like me and hording those precious vacation days, you're stuck in school from 8:00AM - 4:00PM with everyone else. However, even someone like myself needs a break sometimes. Sadly, I work in a city that holds an English Speech Contest in September so I spend the month of August traveling to various J.H.S. and give speech coaching. In order to stay sane, I managed to squeeze out a couple of vacation days to make it a long weekend in the ultimate playground, the BIGGEST city IN THE WORLD.
THE ONE.
THE ONLY.
TO-KI-YO!
(Tokyo, the capital of, Japan)
I decided to visit my friend Kanako who I met and befriended on the lovely island of Shikoku. Being as cheap as I am, I took the cheapest form of transportation, the night bus, which takes about 12 hours and costs about $110 one way. It's not a sleeper bus either so get comfy in that chair because you can't recline it past two centimeters. I rode the bus with Derry and we got into the city at about... 7:00AM? We made our way to Roppongi district with only one minor setback: I left my glasses on the bus. Derry managed to go back and we rescued them. That's my personal hero right there.
We were to stay the night in Derry's mate from college's apartment. We took a quick nap then headed out to view the Imperial gardens were I got eaten ALIVE by mosquitoes:
We took haven in a maid cafe, where young women dress up in costumes and would provide conversation and sometimes games to predominately male patrons.
The night was spent at Ageha, arguably the largest nightlife dance club in Japan. It's on the outskirts of Tokyo and there are free shuttle buses to take people to and from there between the hours of 11:00PM and 5:00AM. There was even an outdoor pool. Oi.
The next day I met up with Kanako and the rest of my time in Tokyo was spent shopping, shopping, eating, and shopping except for one day that was reserved for my childhood: Tokyo Disneyland. As I have never been to any of the theme parks in my youth, this was arguably my best memory thus far in Japan.
Factoring in travel time, I spent eight hours at this place, absolutely delighted. The sun was shinning and we rode on a few rides:
Ate pizza and cream puffs for lunch, did a little shopping...
...and stalked foreigners hired to impersonate Disney Characters:
However, missing from this collection is Woody from Toy Story. The actor was a complete jerk and ignored my SEVERAL polite inquires about a photograph and chose to pose only with cute Japanese young ladies. Pox on him!
