Grand Adventure Day 6

I woke up the next morning to this message from Ben

The times are a different since I took the screenshot after I got back home

Obviously, finding out the rest of this story jumped to priority number one. Actually, deciding on something to do that day was the first priority, but then finding out the rest of the story was a very, very close second. We decided to meet over at the Ueno station Starbucks as that was the closest station for all of us to then make out way to the Sky Tree Jump store. After meeting up, it was story time:

Ben checked out of the Wise Owl Hostel the day before and checked into a capsule hotel. I've never been in one before, but the pictures outside the door made it look really nice. That night, he awoke to a loud thud right outside his capsule. Then came the sound of running water splashing on the floor outside, except that it's hitting the floor with some force, harder than it should if someone was just pouring it out of a bottle or a can. And it was going on longer than the amount typically found in a generic vending machine bottle. Like any sane person, and as I've personally done many nights back home, he sat in his bed listening to the commotion outside and hoped that whatever it was would just resolve itself and go away. Instead, after the water stopped and a brief moment passed, a head poked through his capsule's curtains. Then a neck. Then shoulders. Ben started yelling, but the guy just kept crawling into the capsule, drunk and oblivious. Ben began kicking at him: head, face, neck, shoulders, whatever his feet could connect with. The guy was apparently too drunk to feel anything though and kept crawling further and further inside. Once he was halfway into the capsule it became obvious that he wasn't going to stop. Fearing that he might get trapped there, Ben knew it was time to give up. Defeated but not beaten he gathered up his stuff and got out, making sure to punch and hit the other guy the entire way out. Avoiding the lake of piss that stretched almost from one side of the hallway to the other, he went to the receptionist desk who first stupidly asked if he wanted another capsule right next to the one he had just come from. I think in the end he ended up with a bed far away from the incident. Oh, and if you don't believe me

Relax, the censor is just there because I'm not sure of Blogger's nudity policy (no I'm not going to read it) but just in case there's something about buttcracks and ballsacks, I decided to cover it up rather than risk an awkward email.

Still in Ueno, we ate some cheap and delicious donburi at one of the food stalls in the swap meet-like area. All the food in the area was pretty cheap which was probably due to the small sizes of the stalls (meaning a lower rent, I assume). Each stall looked like it could only pack in about a dozen customers at a time, as long as they didn't mind bumping elbows a lot. The bowl I got was probably between 500-700 yen (~$5 to $7) with the three different types of fish. Plus, look, I remembered to take a picture of food!

The Jump Store in Sky Tree was a little underwhelming mostly because I hadn't been watching as much anime as I used to so I didn't know a lot of the merchandise they were selling. And the ones that I did recognize, I didn't like the things they were selling them on. Somewhere else in the mall, we found another store selling items related to anime and videogames so I ended up buying some toys from there.

We took pictures and hung out outside the Sky Tree, then headed to Asakusa for food. Walking down the street, there were a lot of good and tempting places to eat at. We chose a ramen place which was good because, even after all these days in Japan, I still hadn't eaten ramen yet. I got to watch Jacob and Ben talk and joke with to the two older Japanese women who ran the place. Of course the women laughed, impressed by their fluency. Once again, I tried to make a mental note that maybe I should try to learn/relearn another language (note: a year later, I've done none of that). After food, we went for another walk, this time around a shrine in the area (no, I didn't look up the name). I remembered to take some pictures though not a lot of them and none of any of us. We also pulled fortunes and, almost as if it knew the boring, plain, mundane person I am, I pulled a "Regular Fortune" with the most basic of consequences: things will happen to you. That's it.

From Asakusa, we took the train to Shinjuku and walked around the Golden Gai for a bit, looking to grab a drink. It's about the size of one city block just filled with different, tiny bars and narrow alleyways. Literally, every single doorway was the entrance to another, different bar. There was even a map at the entrance to help people find a particular bar. With all the regulations back home, I don't think I'd ever see anything like that anywhere else. Just that many different, independent establishments, most of which were just a bar and some stools, operating, competing for business in the same area. Instead of grabbing a drink there, we headed to Gusto's Family Restaurant and hung out in a booth for an hour and a half (because there's a time limit). Also, I learned that there is a reason a drink is only 300 yen (or was it 100 yen), those didn't go down too well, in terms of taste. We found a cheap place in the area to do karaoke before heading home. It was the perfect way to end my trip, by doing the ONE thing I honestly planned to do this trip: hang out with people ... in places ... with alcohol.

Once I got back to the hostel, I started to panic seeing all my stuff strewn on my bed, knowing that I would be leaving for Korea tomorrow morning. I tried to ease some of my panic by packing as much as I could. Then I realized how loud I was being, especially on a bunk bed, so I set an alarm early for the next day. Then I ended up lying awake, thinking about how to stuff all that stuff back into my bags. So, in the end, I decided to get my things at least partially sorted before I just gave up and went to sleep.