Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Shinjuku

Tonight, I went to Shinjuku with a couple of friends from work.  Shinjuku is about 2 train stops away from Shibuya, and it was quite an interesting train ride during rush hour.  If you think traffic gets bad on the free way after work in the US, pedestrian traffic gets really bad on the JR train in Tokyo.  Everyone is very orderly though, and they stand in line at the doors of the train prior to them opening.  People get off quickly, and then people cram on.  A hell of a lot of people cram on the train more specifically.  They jam the train so full that people are spilling out of it and then some random train station attendants with their white gloves help push people into the train cars just a little bit tighter.  Inside, you basically pray that the train doesn't make an abrupt stop or go because people just all shift inside and it's easy to get squished.

Also amazingly, nobody worries about pick pockets or anything sketchy around here.  The crime rate is really low and people walk around without worry.  They take money out of the ATMs and count the money even late at night and when all alone.  It's almost comforting to walk around as a tourist and know that people aren't going to target you.

In Shinjuku, we found a very nice restaurant where you cook your own meat.  It was the most upscale restaurant I have been to, and was a welcomed relief from the other restaurants that I had been previously trying to figure out.  Also, being there with friends made it fun.  The waiters tied bibs around our necks for the crab that we were going to eat as a harp player played Disney tunes, Phantom of the Opera, and Elvis music.  Though I know all the songs it was really hard to recognize them because the pacing was a bit different than normal:  slower for the fast songs, and faster for the slow songs.  It was elevator music for the dining room.

After dinner, we headed around town a bit.  There was a red-light district in Shinjuku that was sort of a spectacle, and a lot of people on the streets.  There were a lot of non Japanese people here that spoke English pretty well... I guess you get some positives with the negatives.  We also found a little pet shop that had practically new born puppies and kittens on sale for thousands of dollars.  I really couldn't believe how expensive they were.  I didn't know how much pure breading was worth.  We hung out for a bit at one bar and then called it a night.  It's always hard to figure out what to do when you don't really know what's going on.  Exploring is pretty overwhelming at times, but still fun.

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