Tokyo raises your blood pressure. There are so many endless
possibilities that you always feel as if you are running out of time. By the
time I left, I felt like I wanted another week in the city to get to grips with
it. When I was 21, I went to Barcelona for a week. It was my first time in what
subsequently became my favourite European city. That was the only time I have
stayed in a foreign city on holiday for anything more than 3-4 days. It makes
such a difference to have a big block of time that you can put aside to see
everything and mix in some time idling in cafes. I haven’t seen a fraction of
what Tokyo has to offer.
It’s absurd that, after living in Japan for a year and
having travelled extensively, I will leave the country sick that there wasn’t
time to do all the things I wanted to do. I’m starting to see why people freak
out on return to their home lives and end up running away abroad again. It will
be very strange to go back to my UK day-job less than a week after finishing my
contract in Okayama. To suddenly not have the possibility of visiting Tokyo for
the weekend will feel very odd indeed.
So we had one day left in Tokyo. I felt slightly sick on the
Sunday morning as I had made the bold decision to mix meishu, sake and beer
with karupis and shochu. A schoolboy error. Nonetheless, after stuffing a pastry
down my neck I felt a little better and we headed to Akihabara. Akihabara is a
sort of playground for all your most childish impulses. Some of them not
healthy. We headed to the arcades and quickly tracked down the retro-gaming
section, my favourite part. I love the simplicity of some of those older games
and their relative cheapness.
My friend and I got slightly addicted to Bomberman and an
epic tournament began. It was much like being 14 but with marginally more
facial hair and a new range of TV comedy in-jokes. After a while, I started
getting quite competitive. We almost had to be dragged away from the machines.
So next was purikura. It was fun to show it to our friends
and let them design the photos themselves. It’s novelty Japan, but in a good
way. Spending so much time with K’s friends from the UK made me wish that my
best mate and his wife from back home had been able to visit Japan whilst we
were over here. Unfortunately (well maybe unfortunately isn't the right word) he happened to have a kid not long after I
arrived, so he never made it out here and I will always be a bit sad about
that. The kid’s pretty cool though-he’s only 9 months old but he likes Idlewild
and everything.
We took the slow train back to Okayama and I was excited to
get my first ever glimpse of Mt. Fuji, which was shockingly beautiful. It’s
sometimes called “Fuji-san” here as mountains are often referred to in this
way. That means that the direct translation is Mr. Fuji. As in, “don’t the
clouds about Mr. Fuji look beautiful today.” This strange non-translation
always makes me smile.
The tiger umbrella was lost. Somewhere on the Japan public
transport system someone picked up a bright orange umbrella that makes growling
noises at uncontrollable intervals. It was truly a sad day. I used my last 1000
yen note to get a taxi home, safe in the knowledge that I could survive on rice
for the rest of the week. I spent almost all this month’s pay-check in Tokyo.
It was worth it though.
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