Where's Scott?

We spend a day sorting hotels and flights (never ending when your traveling!), and eventually bid Mabel goodbye at Manila airport (where’s she’s also flying out to Cebu), and step out of the 32C sun of the Philippines and into the 7C wind of downtown Tokyo. Neither Seb nor I have cold weather gear (Seb’s just bought a fleece, under which is about 4 t-shirts, I’m about the same) and when we leave the train station near our hotel, we realize we’re in a spot of bother. We’ve booked a capsule inn in Electric City for the first night, and we have a rough map to get there with. However, we realize we can’t actually read any of the street signs (in Japanese), or compare with our map (in English). In addition, the late night streets are dark and deserted, the wind biting, and we have no cash. Well, we agree, at least it’s not raining!

We finally find several ATMs as we pop into some late night groceries to warm up, but despite having about 50 networks listed on them, they happily spit out all our cards, and come just short of laughing at us! Looks like the ATMs aren’t really for non-Japanese. We circle the station once, getting colder by the minute (Seb esp. so!) and finally guess at our bearings, and make a bee-line for our hotel. We almost walk right past it, but fortunately Seb, in a desperate attempt to prevent permanent limb loss, ducks in the door to escape a total freeze – he’s been in 26C plus for 2 years, his blood is a bit thin!

The inn is very small and narrow, and the proprietor quickly gestures that we should remove our shoes, and shown where the shoe lockers are! We’re expected (thank god!), and we swap our shoe key for a locker key. Guys and girls, different floors, 11 floors in all (it’s narrow, but tall!), and we head to the guys locker floor and manage, somehow, to cram our bags in the tiny lockers.

This trip is all about the food, and we’re starved! We corner a fellow round eye, and learn that we can only get cash at a post office, and you can find them on helpful “info” maps scattered about. We steel ourselves, and brave the cold again. We find a map, but can’t see a post office, but do find a nice walk-in sushi bar that takes visa (we’re saved!). We pull up a couple stools, and have some absolutely fantastic tuna belly, eel, and scallops, capped with a nice beer and some miso. We’re in heaven, and savor every bite, chewing ever so slowly! The trip’s already worth it, and we just got here!

After eating as much as it seemed polite to (and then a bit more), we head back to our capsules. We watch a very drunk Japanese man ahead of us whose absolutely perfected the drunken stagger. We follow him straight to our capsule inn, where he’s turned away (full, or too drunk? We don’t know). We head up and hit the showers. Wow! The shower has 4 spray heads plus a shower that gives you a fantastic overall hot wash; the shower alone is worth the $40 for the room ;). We head into the capsule area (quietly) to the slight smell of beer and stinky feet, and the snoring of many a drunken Japanese man. The capsules themselves are 1 meter square and about 8ft deep (closed with a roll screen), has a small TV, radio, alarm, and a thin futon and covered blanket – but that’s it. This is basic, and perfect.