Tokyo Part Two

(My apologies for it not being very well-written. It was written in a hurry.)

So I was in Tokyo for two days. Day One I have already described up to the point where we ate at some creepy restaurant, which reminded me of a Disneyland experience. To enter the place, you go up an elevator to the fifth floor. When it stops, you exit into a dark hallway, where you have to put your wrist into a tiny guillotine in order to open the door (it uses infrared, though, not a blade). You’re guided through a dark room into the actual restaurant part, where you wait until the waitress, dressed like a sexy jailkeeper, snaps a handcuff to your wrist and leads you on a chain down into the dungeon that is the eating area. You dine in an actual cell (not locked though), looking at pictures of dead things on the walls and listening to blaring hard rock music. In the middle of dinner, a large whistle sounds and someone screams in Japanese, “There’s a monster on the loose! Everyone get in your cells!” All the lights go out. Then a few come back on again. Suddenly the Ghostbusters theme music comes on and for 10 minutes, the restaurant/cell/dungeon is alive with Jason (as in, Halloween Jason), Freddy Krueger, and a bunch of unknown but scary-looking creatures howling, jerking on the cells (that you are inside of), and running around. One scary thing snuck into our cage and scared the [--] out of L, who was taken off guard. It was pretty scary, but funny, too, because who can be really scared when Ghostbusters is playing? The skit ended with the sexy police woman shooting the monster, and all was restored to its rightful order (except that our entire order hadn’t gotten delivered yet . . . ) That was Night One.

Stephen and I took a train back to Omiya, went to sleep, and got up the next morning to have brunch at a restaurant that served hamburger steak, which will do in a pinch. Then we got back on a train to Omiya to meet L and M at the Shinjuku train station in Tokyo, which we were able to do after much confused entering and exiting of the station.

That day was fun: we saw another shrine (The Meiji Shrine), and washed our hands and mouth before entering (you have to be clean before coming in the presence of God). Then we threw a 5-yen coin into a slotted something, clapped three times, and bowed, so hopefully our wishes will come true. Afterwards, we went shopping in a terribly crowded shopping district (and why is Forever 21 popular in Tokyo?!), for a few hours before going to a cool izikaya for dinner. That night we left Tokyo around 8:30 and I went back to Takasaki on the 9:50 a.m. train.

When the train stopped in Takasaki, I had the truest sensation of coming home. I passed through the gate with my suitcase in my hand (well, wheeling it behind me actually. . . ) and thinking, “I’m back in my city.” Omiya was cool, and Toyko was cool, but neither one of them are home. And Takasaki, for all intents and purposes, is.

I felt a confidence that had been lacking all weekend. Here, at last, I knew what I was doing: how to catch the bus to the mall, how to get change at the little change station, how to walk back to my house. It was all familiar and sweet, even in its unfamiliarity. I guess a few days away makes even a new place feel more like home.

I have so much more to say about the week, this past weekend, and my Japanese class tonight, but it will have to wait. Oyasuminasai, friends.