Sayonara Tokyo

Before we left the ryokan, Hagi's parents made us a traditional japanese breakfast. A whole fish, cabbage, spiderweb beans, and other goodies. It was exactly what you weren't craving after a night of drinking, but it was still good in its own way.  Hagi dropped us off at our final hotel in Shibuya. As soon as we pulled up, he laughed to himself. Apparently Tyler had booked us a hotel in the gay district of Shibuya. Not only that, but it was an infamous love hotel where people can come and rent a room for a few hours with a significant other for, well, "sleeping". And our hotel, called the New Urban Time and Space hotel, had a convenient acronym. We were staying in a gay love hotel called Nuts. This is the last time I ever trust with reservations.

Fortunately, there were some other gaijin staying here that apparently also didn't get the memo, so our stay wasn't too bad. We rested up a bit and got ready to meet another one of Tyler's connections. For somebody who had never been to Japan, he sure did know a lot of people.

We met up with a lady named Naoko. She's related to the Sony family. You might have heard if them. We went to an Italian restaurant of all places, which was actually pretty good. Naoko ordered for all of us since the menu was in Japanese. We had some pesto mussels, foix gra ( however you spell it), and carpaccio. Horse carpaccio. I can't escape from it. I really can't...

Accompanying us were some sort of politician from the southern prefectures (who thought I was fluent in Japanese because my accent is so impeccable, no joke), and the former foosball champion of Japan, ranked 31st in the world in his heyday.

This guy was crazy good. We found a foosball bar after dinner, which in pretty sure he owned, and played a few rounds together. He does things on a foosball table I've never seen, and his shots are so fast you can't even see them. He introduced the sport to Japan many years ago, and since then he's been involved in international foosball organizations and charity work. Nice guy. And now I've played foosball with the former champion of Japan, and I even scored a goal on him once (just once). I can scratch that off my bucket list.

For our last day in Tokyo Tyler and I saw some more sightseeing at the imperial palace, met some locals to karaoke with, and Ian flew into town. Ian is taking my place for Tyler once I leave. They head south while I head North. Right now I'm sitting in Tokyo station waiting for my bullet train to arrive so I can finally get to the heart of my journey.

I'm not quite sure which train is mine, and once I get to Murayama I'm not too sure what to do. I'm supposed to ask people where the gaijin farmer is and make my way there. I'm almost certain there will be a few stumbles along the way.