In the morning, we went to Ikebukuro first. We were kind of addicted to the Closet Child CD stores so we went to their store in Ikebukuro. After lunch, we went over to Takadanobaba. In the evening, I would go to a concert there, and so we went to find the venue already and hang around.

For some reason I was nervous for the concert, probably because I had to go by myself because my friend wasn’t interested in the bands. I got introduced to the customs of visual kei concerts there… First of all was the drink ticket, which is a common thing for Japan but not in Europe. You have to pay 500 yen at the door, and in return you get a ticket for a free drink. Apparently the 500 yen goes to the livehouse.

The fans attending the concert weren’t what I was expecting either, I was expecting visual kei looks with punk-like clothes and bright colored hair, but instead the girls were all made up like pretty dolls, the gyaru look. The girls wore lolita dresses with flower patterns and lots of frills, perfectly made hair, loads of make-up and high heeled sandals. Not quite what one would expect for a rock concert! At some point I noticed a girl walking around with a notebook, on which she had a little map of the stage and was telling the fans where they were allowed to stand today…

The band I came for was Gechena, a very new band but I was very interested in the vocalist because he used to be in one of my favorite bands. It was their second concert ever, and while I was like “woah, this band is great!” the audience stood totally still, and even refrained from applauding between the songs… With the next band, Billy, it turned out that the girls were able to move after all, but only the famous furitsuke, the choreographed dances. Because the venue was rather small, the vocalist pointed me out as I stood there watching, trying to make me jump along with the fans, which I refused 8D

Another funny thing was that the concert was over pretty soon. In the Netherlands it’s always a bit of a problem with public transportation, because you don’t want to miss your last train, but you also don’t want to leave earlier. In Japan, they finished around 10 pm, and I was back in the hotel around 11!

In the morning we went to find an ATM. It turned out that we could only use our cards (mastercard) at the ATMs at the post office (and in stores, of course). The weather was really hot, and we went to get some food at a supermarket, which we ate in front of it… People looked at us like we had lost our mind and at first I thought that was because we were white tourists, but we soon learned that it’s pretty weird for Japanese people to eat on the streets, while it’s normal over here.

These were my first observations after a few days in Japan:

• It’s not that expensive as everybody says, I had dinner + drink for about 600 yen (5 euro).
• The humidity in July sucks
• The visual kei scene is an illusion
• There are no trashcans, (except in front of Mac Donald’s!) but unlike here, the streets are VERY clean.
• There are the most useless jobs, like someone taking care of the traffic while there are traffic lights.
• When you have a problem, a Japanese person will appear magically to help you
• Guys carry the handbag of their girlfriend (I want a boyfriend like that too!)

In Shibuya, we did some more CD shopping at cheap second hand stores, and met up with my friend who had bought concert tickets for us. At the intersection near the Shibuya station (apparently one of the busiest in the world?) I behaved like a silly tourist and took some pictures. It was interesting for me to see the GLAY and KAT-TUN advertisements on the buildings.

The first ‘real’ day in Japan. We went to Shinjuku first, to take a look at the area and to shop. We found a few CD stores where we spend a lot of money, but fortunately a lot of it was second hand, and very cheap. Though we were a little surprised at the sizes of the stores. There was a store in Meguro, Third Stage, from which I used to order online, and the actual shop turned out to be really tiny.

We also found out about the wonders of the vending machines which are on pretty much every street corner, and sell bottled drinks cheap. Very useful in the hot summer!

We also went to Harajuku, the place to be for trendy or alternatively dressed people. It had lots of small, cozy shops, and also the shops that seemed like big fashion brands online, turned out to be very small shops tucked away in some back streets.

In the evening we had dinner at a restaurant, I had very watery pasta. Then we went to an internet cafe to check our email and such, because the one computer at the hotel was very old and there were always people waiting for you to finish. I was used to internet cafe’s that have one long table with various computers on them, but in Japan you have your own booth with a luxurious chair. Apparently it’s also very normal to spend the night there if you have missed your train, and some of them even have showers.

Fiiiiinally we arrived at Tokyo Narita at 10 AM. Because of the time difference, our night had been taken away from us and I was feeling pretty dead. So, after we got our luggage, I exchanged my voucher for my Japan Rail Pass for the next week, and we went to figure out how to leave the airport. We found the trains pretty quick, but it was confusing to us at first how to pay for them. It turned out to be pretty simple: you take a look at the map to see how much the trip to your destination costs. Let’s say it’s 200 yen, so you insert your money, press the 200 yen button that will light up when you’ve inserted enough money, and get your ticket.

We had to change trains a few times, and almost every time a nice person was there to help us :) In the end, we arrived at our “economy backpackers hotel,” New Koyo. The hotel is situated in Minami-senju, which is North-East of the Yamanote line/central Tokyo. It takes quite some time to get to the Shinjuku/Harajuku area, but when you’re staying there for about a week, it’s doable, but when you’re staying longer, it gets annoying.

The hotel was pretty cheap, less than 20 euro per night but it was obvious why. First of all, the hotel was tiny, just like most youth hostels are: a small room with a futon and barely enough space to fit both the futon and a suitcase. However, in our case we were only staying there at night, so it was just fine. It was very noisy though, and because the doors were made of metal, every time someone opened a door, it sounded very loudly through the hallway. There were only two private showers for the whole hotel (but only until 10 pm in order not to disturb anyone…), and a public bathroom. The neighborhood was kind of bad as well; there were lots of old, unemployed men lying on the streets… But well, it was cheap!

We went to have dinner in the area, and had a bowl of ramen (noodles). It was pretty cheap, 400 yen (about 3 euro), for a bowl that was way too big to finish. We did have the feeling that the other customers and owner were staring at us and making jokes, which made us feel very uncomfortable.

We went to bed pretty early seeing as we hadn’t really slept on the plane. I found out that I could easily fold my futon double so it was much smaller, but at least I didn’t feel like I was lying at the floor anymore.

After five years of waiting and saving money, I was finally able to go to Japan in the summer of 2006, together with my friend. Our holiday consisted of three weeks, two with my friend in Tokyo, and one week by myself because aforementioned friend didn’t want to travel around, while I did.

We started our trip in the Netherlands, and then went to Paris, France to stay at a campingsite with my friend’s parents for a night, because flying from Paris would be cheaper. We flied with the Russian company Aeroflot, so we went from Paris to Moscow first. The Russian airport, Sheremetyevo was rather… creepy. The whole building was kind of small and dimly lit, which gave it a bad and somewhat scary, unsafe atmosphere. The toilets were gross, and because there were no lobbies or any waiting spaces, people were lying on the floor on pieces of cardboard… I thought they were homeless people at first until I realized that no one could get into this part of the airport unless they were transferring planes. We had to wait there for one and a half hour, and then we spent another ten hours on the plane, to Tokyo Narita.