Today in Tokyo was the kind of day that makes you estactic to be alive. The warm sun bright on your face and the cool late spring breeze
blowing your hair about were a perfect counterpoint to each other. I felt as happy as I have felt in a long, long time. I felt so happy that
I wasn’t the least bit self concious about being the gaijin giant guy, like I usually do. One cannot walk through Tokyo or any Japanese city
without feeling as if many eyes are on you at all times, but today I did not care one whit.
It felt like I could almost hear the trees and plants of Tokyo were singing their joy at the beautiful sunny day. It was a great, great day to wander the city. Last night however was like… well, night and day 
Got into Tokyo late yesterday afternoon, around 6pm or so. Then went to the Imperial as always before going out to dinner with a Japanese friend of mine. I had mentioned to T that I was probably going to wander Shinjuku after dinner, and T had said that she was going to Shinjuku anyway to stay with her father, who lives there. So we agreed to have dinner and then head to Shinjuku.
After dinner at Maharaja (we were both tired of Japanese food), we hopped the Chuo line from Tokyo station across the city to Shinjuku. When we arrived at Shinjuku station though, it was raining. At first it was just a bit of mist, but that soon progressed to a light drizzle. T, being the smart Japan traveller she is, had remembered to bring an umbrella. Me, being the baka gaijin fool that I was, had not. The refreshing drizzle soon changed to a drenching shower, which meant that I had to find an umbrella, because T’s little folding one was not going to cut it for both of us. So, after walking for a few blocks in the downpour we found a 7-11 and I bought a 399yen clear plastic umbrella. This made things much more bearable, but of course, I was already drenched. We walked for about 10 or 15 minutes through west Shinjuku (and I learned that Nishi means West in Japanese and Higashi means
East), and we came to T’s dad’s condo building. It was quite nice. We dropped off T’s luggage and then wandered through Shinjuku looking for a place to have a quiet drink and chat, but the rain continued to POUR down and we finally gave it up and I hopped the train back to the Imperial. I felt like I had been swimming. Also realized that I hadn’t put any sealant stuff on my new leather shoes…. not sure if they will be ruined or not… they are still wet…
After a good nights sleep, Saturday (as I mentioned above) dawned bright and beautiful, so I decided to kill a few birds at once. I took the Yamanote line to Shibuya and wandered around taking photos, including a couple of the famous Shibuya station crosswalk that was in Lost in Translation. And of course found this VERY interesting store… I didn’t really have time to go in and look around though, and besides, I was laughing too hard. After a quick walk around Shibuya, I realized that Shinjuku was not that much further on. So I hopped back on the Yamanote line and rode it up to Shinjuku. In the DRY light of day, Shinjuku was much nicer than in the soggy, showering night. Some photos of both are up on flickr. Since I still had a hour and a bit left, I finished off with a trip to the Ginza and the Sony building. I was hoping for a glimpse of the PS3, but no such luck. Just a lot of publicity for “The DaVinci Code†and various other usual Sony stuff. No Aibo though… I guess the Aibo is dead.
Now I am at the airport, hogging the nice “PC Desk†in the waiting area all to myself, desperately charging my laptop and iPod for the 8.5hr flight back to the US. Well, gotta run…. they start boarding in 10 minutes…
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