Tokyo Round 2

Last week I went to Tokyo for the second time. This was a much briefer trip with a lot less done. The main reason for the trip was a job interview on the 15th, which I have previously discussed, so I'll talk about the rest of what I did in Tokyo here.

I caught the night bus on Saturday night, and arrived in Tokyo at about 6:30 am on Sunday. My first order of business was to get some breakfast, which ended up being MacDonalds (I like their breakfast menu). I stayed in MacDonalds reading until about 8, at which time I went across the corridor to Starbucks, which had comfier chairs. I ended up staying in Starbucks until 1, in which time I read, watched some Futurama, updated my Japanese dictionary, and practiced writing Japanese sentences.

After I left Starbucks I went to Tokyo Tower (東京タワー) via Zojoji temple. It's a nice place with some gardens around it. I actually went into the main temple and sat for a little while, because some sort of ceremony was going on and there were some monks chanting, so I watched and listened. Then onto Tokyo Tower itself. I only went up to the main viewing platform, about 150m or so up. The view was not bad, but the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building has a much better view. Also nice was the trick art gallery, a collection of works by a guy in which all the pictures are optical illusion types of things. They were pretty interesting.

After that I met up with Tyrone, who quite kindly allowed me to stay at his place for the night, thus saving me the expense of a hostel. I got to sleep on a real bed for the first time since I went to Okinawa, and had a very good night sleep. He also knows a shop that sells TimTams, so when I ate my first TimTam for I don't know how many months, I was in heaven.

Monday was the day of the interview. The interview was at 10 in Ginza, and I got there with plenty of time. The interview lasted about 25 minutes, so at half past I was free for the day. Nearby was a kabuki theater, at which a show was starting at 11. After finding out prices and deciding it was cheap enough (700 yen) I got a ticket for the first act. My seat was in the very back row, but what do you expect for 700 yen. I couldn't really pay attention because I couldn't understand what they were saying and may have nodded off during the show. After the show finished I wandered around Ginza looking for the Godzilla statue that apparently exists. Unfortunately I didn't find it. I spent an hour or so in another Starbucks, and then headed back to Tyrone's place to collect my stuff.

Then began the long wait for the bus back, which left at 10pm. This was filled with some time in an internet cafe, a bookshop (I picked up starship troopers, and managed to read most of it on the bus), dinner at MacDonalds (noticing a trend here), then about 20 minutes waiting at the bus stop. Then on the bus and heading home.

A quick tiring trip that didn't get me a new job, but the rest of what happens made it a worthwhile trip.

End Post
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Current media: The Samurai Champloo soundtrack