Grand Adventure Day 5

So the reunion was from Friday to Sunday but of course, it's Japan so I'm definitely staying for a couple more days. Jacob, Ben and I hung out at the hostel for most of the morning which is good since I used that time to catch up with all of this journaling (how else would I even remember what I've been doing for the last several days). For the first time for me during this trip, we ate Sukiya which is amazing since I assumed I would've eaten it more often from just how cheap it is. I got the Unagi-don with some sort of white paste/sauce which I think was pureed radish (as well as gross). I ended up scrapping it off and just eating the eel. We waited on Ben C. by playing video games at several different arcades. I once again learned I really, really suck at fighting games. The three of us had a Pong tournament that I believe Ben won. And we found this complex dual-gun game that if you hold the guns in a certain configuration it changes the firing mode, from single fire to rapid fire to a rocket launcher to a sword.

Sometime in the afternoon, we took the train to the other end of the Yamanote-sen to Ueno. Ben and Jacob would also be staying about a week longer in Japan but were moving to different hostels. As Ben and Jacob checked into their hostels, Ben C. and I wandered around the shopping stalls near Ueno station. It reminded me a little of the swap meets back home, though in more permanent structures. A bunch of stalls selling sweaters and jackets and bags and food and all sorts of other things that I failed to take pictures of. As much as I don't buy a lot of things, I did take a quick look through the jackets, having only brought my uncle's jacket and anticipating that one day, with the traveling I like to do, I should really have my own heavy jacket.

Now, I didn't have a huge list a list of things I wanted to do in Japan, mostly I just wanted to hang out with the people I hadn't seen for awhile, some of them for almost 10 years, preferably with alcohol which, if you've been paying attention, is a goal I'd fulfilled everyday so far. One thing though that I did want to do was go to a sento, or bath house. Seriously, if you've never gone, well, you need to go. At least once, or everyday. It really is one of the greatest things ever. Jacob found one in Ueno close by that we could walk to.

The water though, it felt so good to soak my legs in after all the walking I've been doing for the last several days. In one of the baths with water jets, I just sat with my feet pressed to one of the jets. I chickened out on the freezing cold bath. It was standing at the side of the pool slowly dipping a toe in, trying to work up the courage to jump in when this Japanese guy came in, dumped a bucket of the water on himself and jumped in without any hesitation. At that point, I just said "fuck this" and walked away. The other pool was just a pool filled with hot water that you just sat and soaked in which was relaxing as well. It was also interesting to just sit there, outside, naked, and staring up toward the sky to see the high-rises looming above you and just wonder if those people up there are looking down at you.

I took the train back to Shibuya, doing my best to stay awake after the most relaxing thing I've done all trip (I really should've jumped into the cold bath). I don't know why I did it, maybe I got lost and couldn't find the right bus stop, maybe I'm just dumb. Either way, I ended up walking back from Shibuya station to Wise Owl Hostel instead of jumping on the bus. I put in my headphones and pulled a "Weekend at Bernie's II", the music being the the only thing keeping my feet moving one step in front of the other. I was so relaxed, so tired I almost didn't notice the lady at my side, following me, asking "Handjob? Blowjob?" Oh, huh, I guess I forgot to mention that for a couple blocks on the trek between the station and the hostel were several massage parlors and every night there would be women lined up outside, beckoning. Obviously, they would ask in Japanese first, but once they figured out that I had no idea what they were saying, they'd switch to English, just repeating those two words over and over. I assume she must've been trying to entice me in Japanese before she yanked my sleeve and I probably said something in English, causing her to switch the "Handjob? Blowjob?" repetition sales tactic.

When I got back to the hostel, Ben's bunk (the one under mine) was already taken and that guy was passed out, and snoring. "A challenger for the crown," I thought before falling asleep, already anticipating telling Jacob and Ben tomorrow about this amateur challenging me to a snoring contest.