2012/06/13

Gero - Tokyo, Japan

Last tracks:



Photos: 
Pictures from facebook

Blog:

After the police left us, Rocky and Ikumi invited me in to the local community house where they work. We chatted a bit and then went for the local onsen. After a long weekend, it was good to go to bed early. Rocky works with local tourism and the next day a Japanese couple wanted to do some canyoneering. I came along as his Norwegian assistant and we brought them safely up a small creek and back again. We had a good dinner together at the center before Ikumi and I went to the Onsen. This mountain town is very nice and relaxing and it felt good to have some rest. The next day would be very slow and I didn't do much. I made another Perl script that compresses my GPS coordinate files. I also went to the onsen hehe.

Third day in mountains would be pretty sweet. A local school class with kids was coming and I was the assistant again. The kids were very cute and polite and it was a joy taking them through the course. They were always laughing and smiling and some of them were climbing better than monkeys. And they were all nice to each other; they even held hands with the weird ones and stuff. After we were done we had lunch together and took the bus back. At the center they lined up and greeted us and then sang us a song. It was like a different world from a screaming school class of thirty kids at home.

For the fourth time in four days I went to the onsen. This time I went with the kids and teachers.

After a last good night sleep in Maze, Rocky sent me off with lunch from Ikumi, who fed me well every dayJ. On my trip to Tokyo I had no less than seven rides, not counting Rocky. One guy was nidan in karate and one crew from Nagoya was really cool and got four in the backseat to make room for me in their massive Toyota Tundra. Two funny guys got me to a service area where a guy picked me up in a Mercedes S550. Why not arrive in Tokyo with style? I got to my first host Mika in Oyama area of Tokyo. She was working in the evening so I met up with my friend Keigo that I met in Fukuoka and we had some family mart beers and watched football.

Unfortunately my host got sick during the second night, but I invited myself to Keigo and he let me stay at his place. After a trip to the museum the following day, I waited for him at Roppongi. There, a student called Shota approached me with some ramen questions since he saw I was eating my daily instant noodles. He was a cool guy and I invited him to join us for the bar. Soon Keigo came with his friends Izumi, who smells remarkably good, Sayaka, Yasutaka, Mutsumi and Kenta, or Tokugawa as I call him. At the bar Shota was too young, but we got him in and everybody had a great time with “drink as much as you want for 1000 yen”. I appreciate the help I got from Sayaka and Keigo on the way home.

The next days in Tokyo were very relaxing. Keigo, Izumi and I went walking around downtown on Sunday. Monday we added Sayaka and went on a daytrip to Kamakura. We had a great time and Keigo took us walking forever. We also saw a big Buddha and played a lot of shogi, Japanese chess which Keigo has taught me. When Keigo was busy looking for work, Izumi and I went to Akihabara to celebrate that she got a job. In the evening we met up with Keigo to watch the football match between Japan and Australia. It was cool to see all the enthusiastic Japanese in a crowded pub.

That’s it from Tokyo now!

No comments:

Post a Comment