Tokyo, Japan #2

A story is made of appendages. Let me tell you about our arms. They are flapping their way to Tokyo.

As you can see, Sogee is in constant fashionista status. Here we are going through the gate and she's got the perfect little outfit - black boots and all.

I am donning my usual black tee and jeans. I would like to wear other clothes, but I just can't seem to get off the habit. I expect someone from a reality show to stop me soon. It's already happened in Brooklyn. Some kids yelled at Sogee and I last year asking what she was doing with me. I was going to tell them that it took money, patience, and other skills. They beat me to it though.

"Does he have money? A big dick?" one boy screamed out the car window. "Please tell me! I want to know. How does this happen?"

Sogee laughed at the situation. I took it as an insult on my fashion and body image. I told her to stand up for me next time. She said she would. It didn't really matter though. I did the same thing when I was 16, so what are you going to do?

Anyway, back to Tokyo...

We spent most of our time trying to figure out the subway system of Japan. That was fairly difficult. There are multiple lines. Some maps list only a particular line, so you have to make sure you have a complete map. We had to learn this the hard way. It took me about four maps and two days of getting off at wrong stops to figure it out. Here is Sogee taking a break from her usual pose with maps. I had to sort of look for other photos to take, since we spent most of our time in the belly of Tokyo's subways our first day.

One thing I could tell about Tokyo right away was its cleanliness. The streets were not covered with gum or trash like in Seoul or New York. In fact, I couldn't find any trash cans in the subway or on the streets my whole trip. I figure that is to make people carry their trash with them, until they find a proper receptacle, and therefore, cut down on littering. That a pretty ingenious idea if you ask me. I might try it out in my house. "Trash? Oh, sure. We don't have any. You better rock that empty bag of chips with you."

Our hotel was in Gotanda. It was about seven stops from Tokyo Station. I dug the room. It was just like my space apartment in Seoul. Everything was compact and ready for micro-living. Check out the entire kitchen and laundry appliances behind Sogee's excitement.

Let's take a closer look at Sogee's excitement. Apparently, she was really gung-ho about the snacks at the local 7-11 and grocery stores of Japan.

I tried something that I thought was mul mandoo - a Korean dim sum (think boiled egg roll). I was wrong though. This was some kind of raw meat wrapped in dough. I was not a fan. Can you tell?

Sogee was tired from all the travel and our early rise in the morning, so I decided to walk the streets of Tokyo by myself. I didn't know how safe it was to walk in the middle of the night, but I figured I'd risk it. Besides, I wasn't too worried. I can look menacing when I want to. At least I thought. I walked only a couple blocks before I was accosted by four different sex walkers. Each offered a variation on this dialogue: "Massage? Sexy massage?"

The first couple prostitutes were women. Then I must have hit the male streets, where the inquiries were a bit more polite.

"May I service you, sir?" a young man with a lopsided mohawk asked.

"No, thank you," I responded in kind.

He bowed and left. I kept on my adventure. It wasn't long before I found some tire advertisements at the gas stations that caught my attention. It was my friend, Leonardo, selling tires. I was surprised at first. Tires? Well, they pay well in Japan from what I've heard, or at least from what Sogee has told me.

"You can get a million or five million dollars for a couple days of work."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Brad Pitt does commercials here all the time."\

"I'd like to see those."

"Just look on YouTube."

"Okay."

Leonardo loves tires and Suzuki.

It started raining during my walk. I did manage to catch this pic of a Denny's and 7-11 in Tokyo. It made me feel like I was in Little Tokyo or a side street in New York. Tokyo definitely didn't feel like a foreign city. I walked back to the hotel and got a ticket stub from a vending machine out in the lobby to watch a film on the computer monitor on the desk in our room. Sogee was asleep. I watched the whole film. I looked at the city from our balcony. I thought about what we would the next day. I didn't have a clue. I tried out the bidet and warming toilet seat. I went to bed.

More to come...