22 May 2007- living this day again

Thanks to my friend the International Date Line, I get to do May 22 twice! Talk about time warps.

Oh, last night was interesting. I ended up going back to the To-ji temple, and exploring the grounds not being used as a market. To-ji has the tallest five-story pagoda in Japan, but I couldn't go inside to see the view from the top. Oh well. I found the Kyoto Tower right across from the train station (when I went back), but didn't feel like paying 1400 yen just to visit the observatory. Seemed like a ripoff.

I had more conveyor belt sushi at the train station- sat next to a guy from Switzerland who must have eaten ten plates MINIMUM. He had the world's smallest camera with him, and was pretty friendly. He was also the first European guy I've met who didn't like soccer. Hm.

By the time I was on the train back to Tokyo, I had decided I'd be spending the night in a manga cafe. Lonely Planet recommended a few in Shibuya, so I figured I'd try to find one of those. The subway to Shibuya from TYO station was the last one that night...good luck for me, which was nice, because after that I was not feeling the luck for about 4 hours.

Thank you, thank you, taxi driver who found me a cafe after I had spent way, way, too long wandering lost through Shibuya, laden down with Stuff. I am horrible with directions, which was only compounded by it being dark and me dragging my backpack, tote, duffel bag, and camera case around. I wish I'd thought to grab a taxi sooner.

There's a lot more to this story, but I can't even begin to get into all the details. Suffice to say that Citibank is my best friend, and it's absolutely shocking that I could be in this situation (that is, walking around lost in a huge city between 1 and 3am) in the first place withOUT feeling too sketched out or threatened. It says quite a bit about Japanese society. I could never have done that in New York.

Manga cafes are a strange thing. A great deal for people like me who can't find hotels late at night, but do people actually spend hours there just watching anime DVDs in their little cubicles? I guess they must, or there would be no business. I wish I had a better picture of the inside of the place....