Anyways, let's get this damn marathon started. I was up until 2:30am doing last minute packing and other dumb stuff, like updating my iPod playlists and finishing that post about the trip. Somehow I managed to fall asleep only to be awoken almost immediately by my dad who agreed to drop me off at the airport before his deliveries that morning. I got to the airport at about 6:30am for a 10:00am flight which is great because I don't ... move that early in the morning. I bought a coffee and muffin at the airport and for the next hour and a half, I parked myself in a seat right between two pokestops that some unknown person decided to continuously drop lures onto.
Eventually though, I needed to scout for an outlet closer to the terminal as PokemonGo tends to drain my battery quickly these days. In typical Alan-fashion, the one I found was sort-of broken as I couldn't move the cord too much or it would shift the plug and stop charging. I think I just spent the rest of the time either reading or trying to write a new story. Obviously that didn't go as planned or I would have more stories by now. I did, however, find a bunch of things wrong with the stories I was writing so I guess it wasn't a total loss. With a year to look back on that, yeah it was a loss as I hadn't gone back to fix any of them.
The plane ride was normal. You've been on a plane, you know how it goes. I sat down, they served some shitty food, I got up and walked around the aisle a couple times. I caught up on A.P. Bio and rewatched Ocean's 8. I planned on writing on the plane, but they turned off the lights and I couldn't find that mini flashlight I packed. I fought hard against taking a nap, stupidly thinking that this would throw off my sleep schedule, completely forgetting I was landing in the afternoon and, perhaps, it would be good to have some of that extra energy. Anyways, bad decision.
Once we landed in Narita, I wasn't sure where to go, but luckily I'm a very good sheep and followed the crowds until I retrieved my bag. I mooched off the free airport wifi to get caught up with my texts, Messenger, Line, and PokemonGo (I think I might hang out in airports just to play). Also, by this point I didn't realize my phone wasn't going to work as well as I hoped - that full realization would happen later that night at the worst possible time. So, I'm at the airport trying to figure how to get to Shibuya. I ultimately decided on the train, over-confidently thinking, "Yeah, I've ridden the train before, I know how this goes", though the airport bus looked really, really enticing. I bought a ticket onto the Local train (because I stood for 2 hours with my luggage when I did this ride 10 years ago) but when I found out it wouldn't arrive for another hour, I said fuck that, and upgraded to the Narita Express train. Plus, I remembered from 10 years ago how much I hated standing in the train while making sure my luggage didn't topple over. Luckily, I had yen to pay to change my ticket. Then I got on the train and stared out the window for an eternity (probably closer to an hour, hour and a half?) trying to remember what it was like when I was here 10 years ago.
I wandered around Shibuya station for a bit looking for the correct bus terminal, which isn't necessarily a problem except that I was still lugging my backpack and duffel bag. After a quick bus ride I made it to the Wise Owl Hostel. From the outside, the first floor had a bar with a couple tables, and a check-in counter. It looked more like a cafe than a hostel. The upper floors were the sleeping bunks: just giant rooms with about 50 bunks beds per floor, the beds separated with wooden boards and curtains to provide a sense of privacy for each bunk, each floor with showers and toilets and sinks. I'm also glad I didn't pack an actual suitcase or my larger duffel bag since I slept with all my stuff piled on my bed. Seriously, I need to learn to pack lighter. They set up Jacob and I across from each other on top bunks, and that's where I found Jacob who arrived in Japan the day before and Shibuya earlier that day. I feel like the next thing I did was take a nap, and a much needed shower.
With the hostel's free wifi, we managed to contact Chris who also happened to be in Japan at the same time, and we agreed to meet at the Hachiko statue and find someplace for dinner. Before heading over, I tried to play PokemonGo for a bit (either a tier one or two raid), but then as we got outside the hostel, I realized my phone wasn't connecting to ... well anything. Ugh, it was horrible. I guess it's also bad that I felt so disconnected, and wouldn't be able to contact anyone as quickly and on-demand as I was used to doing. But really, I was sad about not being able to play. Well, since I couldn't play, the two of us headed down to the Hachiko statue and met up with Chris. Then we wandered around Shibuya for a while until we found an izakaya to eat at. I felt like we walked for a while looking for a particular one, but I really can't remember too much about it. I also forgot to write down what we ate and obviously take pictures (people like pictures of food, right), I'm guessing chicken skewers, beef maybe, and a beer I guess (my notes are terrible).
We must've wandered around Shibuya for a while after that before saying goodbye to Chris and heading back to the hostel. We bought a beer at the ... Family Mart I guess since that's the closest konbini to the hostel ... and drank outside the hostel in the smoking area. That was a new thing for me, not the public drinking (I could do that 10 years ago) but the designated smoking areas. I mostly remember people smoking wherever but now they actually go to the areas. Or maybe I was more of an asshole 10 years ago. It says here that when we got back inside, I tried to read a bit of the Jack Reacher book I brought but then just ended up falling asleep. Oh, but I know for sure that I forgot to take pictures. Yeah, I'm not good at remembering that, as you'll see in the rest of these posts (hope you have a good imagination, or were there and just like reading about me describing things poorly and remembering them as if I've got early dementia).
The rest of this doesn't concern the trip, so you can skip it and wait until tomorrow when I'll have Day 2 posted. So, if you read the first Grand Adventure post until the end, are someone I bitch to about my writing problems (I'm sorry), or are an ardent follower of this blog (get a new hobby) you'll know that I've been having some problems writing. No, I'm not sure what it is. Maybe I'm just not writing what I want to write. Maybe I'm just lazy. It's probably one of those things that I have to find a way to work through or just give up on. Either way, it's a thing that's going on. Originally, I meant to write these as soon as I got back, but then it felt like I only wanted to write them because I knew people would read them, which is a stupid concern but a very real one I have (but that's an issue for another time). So, I decided that I would post at least one original story before heading into these. Then I couldn't finish anything that I liked and stalled out on a lot (I'm up to almost a half dozen or so unfinished stuff that I still feel have potential to be just a little worse than decent). By then it felt like it was too late to write these for this blog so I decided not to write them and keep trudging through the other stuff. But then I remembered my Grandma asking when I was going to write the stories from my trip because for some odd reason she likes reading these (I'm guessing because she gets to hear me tell a story without actually having to listen to my voice ... or see my face). And when Grandma asks you to do something, you really should do it. She's the closest in your family to becoming a vengeful spirit and haunting you for the rest of your life. As I write that, now I'm not sure if Grandma enjoys my jokes about death... either way it's fine as I'm definitely in the top 13 of her favorite grandchildren. And I know what some of you are thinking, "Alan, there's only 13 of you," and even more of you are thinking, "I still wouldn't rate you that high." Then I got into a discussion on writer's block and figured that maybe some of it was from keeping all of this stuck in my head so now here we are with all of these days written out. And now we are even further out since I just let them sit unpublished for months, 18 posts just sitting here. So I figured I might as well get them finished up and posted already. And now that we're 1 year to the day, well, now is as good a time as any to get these out of the way.
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