#13 - returning from Tokyo

Tokyo was ... interesting. But not in the sense that there was a lot to do, because there was hardl anything. Nor was it due to the people, and there were hardly any there. In fact, Tokyo has severely disappointed me.

For the first night we got there (31st) we did not have a hotel room because everything was booked. We had planned to stay up all night until the afternoon of the first but we were so tired from not sleeping on the night bus that we had to sleep somewhere, and we decided to try a comic park. A comic park is a place to go to read manga and/or use the internet for a certain amount of time. Most people tend to sleep in them as well so most have showers and sometimes beds. So we slept fro a few hours in a chair in out own private booths. It wasn't immensly satisfying but it was better than nothing. For the rest of the night and day we walked around Shinjuku until the point that we began to hate it. Both us us felt that Tokyo was stupid and I just wanted to go home. There was nothing to do :/

The night of the 31st, New Years Eve, I texted some of my friends that were in Tokyo and tried to find out where the best place to go to celebrate was. So we agreed to meet in the temple near Tokyo Tower, where they release hundreds of balloons at midnight. My friends did not show up on time so I didn't see them. It was also freezing cold so we were not in the best of moods. Hundreds of people pushing and shoving you is not much fun either. When the baloons were let go I did record it on my camera, only to find my camera had actually decided it would record nothing. So th whole reason we went there was lost.

Our hotel was in Ikebukuro which is quite a good location especially for trains and the subway. It was part of the Sakura Hotel group and not too bad. I don't remember exactly the order of where we went in Tokyo, but we also went to Shibuya where I met up with a friend from home and walked around and had Starbuck's over the biggest zebra crossing in the world. Shibuya is far better than Shinjuku in my opinion. My friend disagreed.

I met up with the other uni friends who are currently studying in Tokyo and we had a small meal which was nice. The food was good too so I was happy. It was nice to see everyone again as I hadn't seen them since June or July! and won't see them again until September or October.

We also went around Ikebukuro where our hotel was which was a nice little walk. On the day we left, Sunday, we went to Harajuku wanting to see all the costumes and cosplay, only to find out that nothing - and I mean nothing - was happening at all because if New Year's. Which was disappointing. We didn't see anyone in any costume, so we ended up waling around the area shopping and buying things.

So if I had any advice about Tokyo - don't go for New Year's.