around the world- tokyo in 24 hours

this trip definitely gave clarity to the phrase, scratch the surface. i realize that to go to tokyo for 24 hours is a little on the crazy side, but the purpose of this trip was to see daft punk, which alone was worth the trip!

i was about to blow it off with my million excuses: too expensive, too difficult, too much to do alone. well, then my friend martin called and told me he and his friends were going to do it and i was welcome to come along. we left nagoya at 10 pm on an overnight sleeper bus and arrived in tokyo at 5 am, just in time to make our way to tsukiji for the freshest catch of the day. we ate the world's best tuna nigiri: toro, the belly of the tuna, for 800 yen a piece. worth every savory, melty cent!




from there we went to the imperial garden and wandered around the city's electronic district, made our way to shibuya for the classic "lost in translation" video moment. we watched hundreds of people flood the intersection, crossing through innumerable ads featuring cameron diaz the softbank poster girl and will smith (pronounced uiu sumisu in katakana). thierry and i ran from the shinjuku station, attempting to outrun the sunset. defeated, we took out a stiff bottle of gin and drank on the steps of the government building until martin and daniel arrived. we went up into the government building and peered over the entire expanse of tokyo city. it spanned for miles: purple and orange lights creating a dreamy effect on the city.


once we found our hostel and took showers, we made our way out on the town- down shinjuku dori and then to roppongi where we danced all night. the bar was so packed, it was impossible to move without being shoved, so i took shelter atop the bar and convinced some of the bartenders to hook a girl up. so we returned to the hostel around 5 in the morning, thus completing one full circle of 24 hours non-stop tokyo.

the next morning we took our trains to get to the venue for dafunk fest: daft punk in tokyo. mathieu had brought a bottle of whiskey and since some silly j had not shown up for work with the tickets (an unheard of japanese error), and all the gaijin were stuck in a line waiting for their etickets while innumerable js, who had been smart enough to buy their tickets at the circle k, walked right in, we decided to keep warm with whiskey cider. this lightened the mood considerably. once we finally arrived inside, we saw a japanese electronic band play that had an animation film behind them which coincided with the music they made. the film was crazy: two chinese dragons come to life from a shrine and fly around, then dive into the sea and chase sea life around. it was like pixar meets dj shadow- cntrl would have loved it!!














the show had 10,000 people in the venue and it felt like it when the pyramid was revealed. i was smashed against a sea of people who errupted in screams when, "television rules the nation" sounded out over us. the set was unreal. the lights were unreal. the energy was unreal. it's hard to put something like that into words- which is why man invented the camera with video capacity.

so, without a doubt, this has been the highlight of my trip to japan. i enjoyed every second of my intense tokyo weekend. i'm going back for new years, so i'll be sure to add all the lovely details of crazy j parties and ridiculous outfits; like the hostesses dressed as sexy santa. its to die for funny!