東京フレンズ Tokyo Friends
Posted At: Tue 20 Jun 2006	Posted By: Derek Nobuyuki信幸 Wallace
Categories:life

Of course Tokyo Friends 東京フレンズ is the name of a Drama Series from 2005 starring the singer Otsuka Ai and is currently (debut August 2006) a movie in theatres… I was thinking about seeing it… but theatres are so expensive… but hey… it’s hard to say know to stories about some girl (usually from inaka-countryside) who travels to the city and becomes a singer… like Tokyo Friends and Nana….

But that isn’t really what this post is about…..

I left Taiwan on June 11th, 2006 and Arrived in Japan on June 11th where I stayed in the Tokyo region until June 20th, 2006.

[Arrival Photo here when i get it from Craig]

It was of course really hot in the 30s in taipei… but when i arrived at Narita Airport in Eastern Japan (Tokyo Region) it was soooooo cold…. like 23C or something… although normally for back home (Vancouver, Canada) 23C is a nice warm day… but after being climatized to the may/june of taiwan… 23C felt super cold…

My best friend Craig and Mizue came to the airport to greet me =) Although it had only 3-4 months since i had seen Craig and 6 since I had seen Mizue, it was great to see them!

The 2nd or 3rd day in Tokyo, I tried to meet up with Craig at Shinjuku station!! of course it is the busiest, largest, most hectic station in all of japan!! Needless to say… Craig had Mizue’s mobile phone and I had only a phone card for the payphones…. it took us an hour to find each other =P

Craig and I at Shinjuku!

Omotesan Hills

Harajuku

Mizue, her Mom, and I went to see the sighs of yokohama =)

Got to see friends in Shinjuku like Vicky, Guy, Yongmi, and Craig =)

On a little adventure, Craig and I even found a secret little pathway running through and behind a university… nicely forested.. it headed down steep until i reached a back area where there were stables…

I don’t know why i decided to live in a city where I don’t know anybody while my friends in Japan are mostly in the Tokyo region…. but soon enough, it became time for me to leave Tokyo and make my way for Osaka…. some 600-700 kilometers away… and 3 to 3 1/2 on the nozomi shinkansen here… i believe that’s japan’s fastest bullet train… and certainly the fastest one between kanto (tokyo, etc) and kansai (osaka,etc)….

but the most difficult part of this trip between cities was carrying my super super heavy luggage from Saitama onto the train to ikebukuro… carry it all the way through ikebukuro, get my ticket, get my way across the city to tokyo station, then get to the shinkansen station, and get it onto the train… when I left vancouver, I had one 60L MEC backpack and my Arctryx notebook backpack… by this point, I had those two backpacks very heavy and full, another suitcase-like bag from TingWei, and a small messenger bag like “man purse” (if you will) from taiwan… needless to say, I could barely stand let alone walk…