There are many blogs out there about Tokyo, and about what to do and where to eat and how to move around the city. So I thought I would do something a little bit different. I want to write about how I fell in love with the city and why, and in the process with the country itself.
I can’t remember exactly when I became obsessed with one day flying there. Maybe it was all the anime I saw as a kid; Mazinger Z, War of the Worlds (known as Gatchaman in Japan), Robotech, etc. Or maybe it was watching Shogun on TV, a mini series about an English sailor stranded in Japan. What I’m sure of is that by the time anime was more accessible to western audiences in the mid 90s, my obsession with learning more about this culture only grew as I discovered anime like Vampire Hunter D, Akira and Bubblegum Crisis. But I can go into detail about that some other time. Let’s talk about Tokyo.
I finally got to travel there. The day arrived in late April, 1999. Me and my brother packed our bags and took the long flight. We had made some friends there online (and today they’re like family to us), and they waited for us at the airport. We had booked a hotel in Shibuya, so they took us to the hotel, and we left our bags and headed into town.
My first feeling, heading to the streets of Shibuya was excitement, but also fear. I had never been around so many people. Not only that, Shibuya is one of the centers of pop culture in Tokyo, and at that time, fashion there was… interesting. It was nighttime and young people with blue, gray and pink hair roamed the streets. Girls had boots with soles so big and tall you would think they would die if they fell and hit their head. Neon lights everywhere. It was literally like walking into a cyberpunk anime but in real life. There’s a picture book by Masahiro Nogami and Masami Takahashi called Shibuya1999 that has a picture record of Shibuya that same year, and to me it’s like traveling back in time. https://www.shashasha.co/jp/book/shibuya1999
I don’t remember a whole lot of what we did that night. We were jet lagged and tired, but excited at the same time. We just walked around and had dinner at a local place. That night I woke up at 2:00 am and was unable to sleep; so was my brother. We started roaming the TV channels and saw the original Transformers anime was playing. We walked to a 7Eleven across the street from our hotel at around 5:00 am and had breakfast there.
I won’t get into every single detail of the trip, but let’s just say that day we had dinner with a family who owned a sort of ryokan. Ryokans are traditional inns with tatami-matted rooms. They asked us to stay with them for a night, which we obliged. We got along so well that they actually asked us to cancel the rest of our hotel nights and stay with them. Not only that, they asked us to go with them to Nagano for the weekend. We drove there and spent 2 nights at this hotel in which me and my brother were the only westerners there. The day after we arrived, we took part on a tour in which we would go looking for a certain plant and bring it back to the hotel. All hotel guests took part on this. We took our findings back to the hotel, and that night the chef prepared dinner with it for all guests. It was a very unusual and interesting activity, and everyone was so welcoming to me and my brother. We had a lot of fun to say the least.
We went back to Tokyo and spent the next days doing all the touristy stuff. Visited Shinjuku, Asakusa, Akihabara and all the famous neighborhoods. We bought way too many souvenirs to take back to our family, some of which we still keep at the house. But I won’t go into detail, as you can find a thousand blogs out there that detail these. Here is a blog post from Girl Eat World I saw that contains great information on traveling to Tokyo and what to do. It is very extensive and contains great useful information for newbies and returning travelers that need a refresher. Make sure you take a look at it:
After a week there it was time to leave our new friends behind and take the long trip home. We were sad to leave, but happy that our dream trip had just taken place. I ended up going back many times throughout the years and for a while it became a yearly trip for me. Just last year, I was finally able to visit Tokyo again with my brother and reminisce on that trip back in 1999. We’re already planning our next trip there together and I for one can’t wait to be back again!
