I received this text message from my friend Reardon, a couple hours after arriving home this morning:

“u cannot promise many pictures of japanese girls thn pull “down time” bs.” 

Okay, okay, here they are:

View the entire album here.  I’ve talked to a couple guys and they say Korean girls are better looking, while Japanese girls have the nicer bodies.  You be the judge.

I’m finally back home after being gone for over a week.  It feels nice to come back to a comfortable and familiar place.  As promised, pictures are coming.  This coming week will be REALLY busy for me.  After this week, I won’t have constant internet access for two months.  Therefore, I have to get as many pictures uploaded as I can.  A major change for my blog will also be happening in the coming weeks.

Here’s the first installment of photos.  It’s a collection of Harajuku fashion from Tokyo.  The Harajuku girls (and boys) are known around the world for their wild and crazy styles.  Their way of dress is also labeled "cosplay," or "costume play".  I think a lot of the tourist who took pictures of the cosplayers thought they were weird and freaky, and I overheard some making fun of them.  When I heard the ridicule, I’d think, "That’s laughable coming from someone wearing a sweat soaked t-shirt, khaki zip-off shorts, and Jesus cruisers (Birkenstocks).  You wish you had as much style as them."  I think the whole scene is really cool.  I admired their different outfits and would think, "Wow, I never would have thought to put those pieces of clothing together, but it looks great."  My favorite style was the "gothic lolita" look.  If you’d like to learn more, check this out:  "Behind the Scenes - Cosplay in Tokyo".

I spent the last two days in Seoul with Allison.  We did a lot of eating, drinking, but no dancing.  I was falling asleep from being too drunk. 

I’m going to be out of town for the next week and don’t know if I’ll have access to the internet.  In the meantime, I’ll be prepping my Japan photos and they’ll be available to viewing as soon as I have internet access.  Later!

I had some great food in Japan, but it is more expensive there.  I’m sure you could get by on $15 a day in Tokyo, but you’d be ordering the cheapest items at diners (meaning small portions) or eating ramen at AM/PM.  I probably spent around $20-$30 a day, but that’s eating whatever caught my eye.  A typical day for me included a couple drinks from a convenient store, a pastry or two, maybe coffee, and my meals.  The most I spent for a meal was $30 for at fancy eel and rice restaurant.  I had the "Princess Box", and chose it because of the name!

One thing I have to warn others about, are the bars that have a table charge.  On the first night I got into Tokyo, we went out for drink with two people Raswan knew.  There was so much to choose from in Shinjuku, so we randomly picked a place and had drinks there.  After sitting down, we were given a small bowl of green beans.  We thought, "Cool, it’s a free side dish."  A drink for each of us and two side dishes later, the bill comes to $80.  (Yeah, it’s Tokyo.)  We look at the bill and wondered what the $16 charge was.  The waitress tells us it’s for the green beans!

The four of us tried to argue that we didn’t order them.  The waitress, in her broken English, said it was part of the "table set".  What?!?  We didn’t like it one bit, but what could we do?  We were in a foreign land, didn’t speak the language, and weren’t aware of the "rules".  Then another day, Raswan and I walked into a bar for an afternoon drink.  The waitress brought us each a small bowl of boiled bean sprouts.  Oh, oh.  WARNING, WARNING!  Ras asked how much it was.  "350 yen".  "Oh no, we don’t want this."  "Sorry, table charge."  He then tried to ask whether the dish was 350 each or for the two bowls.  "Umm, two."  "Oh well.  We’ll just sit, have a drink, and leave."  When we finally went to pay the bill, the 1/4 cup of tasteless sprouts were 350 yen each!  It wasn’t about the money, but that fact that we didn’t want it, it didn’t taste good, and it was forced upon us. 

This also happened when a group of us walked into an establishment that looked like a restaurant.  Once we sat down and were served a small dish, we immediately asked how much it was.  "400 yen."  We stood up and walked out.  The staff were befuddled, but we weren’t falling for another "table charge".  After those incidents, we only went to bars that advertised "No cover charge" on their signs outside.

Click below to see more pictures of what I ate.

Tokyo is hot and humid in the summer.  These are items that I thought were useful to bring.

*** A bandanna - or small hand towel or handkerchief.  It’s hot, and you’ll be sweating a lot.

*** Plug adapter - If you’re coming from Korea, you can buy an adapter at a hardware store for 500 won.  The plugs in Japan are North American style.  If you buy it in Japan, it’s $4-$6.

*** Cash - All the money I brought with me was in yen.  I found it much easier this way.  There was no need to look for a bank or wait in long lines to cash traveler’s checks.  I had one instance when I ran out of money and had to look for a ATM at Shinjuku Station.  You’d think it’s be easy to find one because it’s such a large station.  There were not many, and the two I tried wouldn’t accept my MasterCard - only Japanese cards.  After 45 minutes of running around in the heat, I finally found one.  What a hassle.

*** Cotton clothing - very breathable and the best kind of clothes to bring.  Another alternative would be quick drying clothes, like workout tops.  If you plan on going out to some nicer clubs, some don’t let you in with very casual clothing.  If you want to have options for a night out, leave your Birkenstocks at home.

*** A coin purse - Most of my daily transactions were with change.  You’ll get a lot of it, in dollar and $5 coins.

Other tips:

There are many lockers in the subway stations.  Normal sized lockers are 300 yen for the day.  If luggage is left overnight, it’s another 300 charge.  Lockers are emptied out by station staff after 3 days.  I was able to put my large backpack in the largest locker at Shinjuku Station for 700 yen.  It was expensive, but convenient for me.  The large lockers are usually gone by the middle of the day.

I was surprised that there wasn’t more English in the subway stations.  The Korean subway system is more user friendly for foreigners.  In Japan, you would look on the subway map to see where you’re going (most of the time it was in Japanese).  The map will tell you what price ticket you should purchase.  We couldn’t read Japanese, so for 70% of the time, we would ask Japanese people around the station how much a ticket to a particular stop was.  Japanese people always helped us when asked.  There were also times when they would offer to help because we looked so confused.  There was one man who walked us to the place we were looking for, and another woman who called a hotel to get directions for us.  I was really impressed by how nice people were.

Photocopy the maps from your guide books prior to leaving for your trip.  At night, we’d map out places we wanted to eat at, or attractions we wanted to see the next day.  We’d write and make notes on our photocopied maps and take those with us instead of hauling around a book.  Ras would just carry around money, a bandanna, camera, and water bottle.  I’d take my purse, camera, and copies of the maps.  It worked out well for us.

Everything else I missed is just common sense for backpacking and traveling, but the above were things I noticed about my week in Tokyo.

This is a map of all the trains and subway lines in Tokyo.It’s just like a bowl of spaghetti, isn’t it?Shinjuku Station had 8 lines that you could transfer to.  I wonder what the most number of transfers at a station is.