I managed to get from the airport to Meguro Station without any trouble. I decided to walk the mile or so from the station to the hotel. It started raining. I got lost. I hailed a cab.

Ooh! The Claska Hotel is very cool.

I just ordered food and a shöchü, a Japanese liquor. "Onsarokku" is cool here. Instead of a glass full of regular ice, you have a stack of two perfect cubes of ice, measuring about an inch and a half per side. Oh, by the way, the hotel restaurant/bar is called the Lobby. For some reason, all of the places this guy owns has English names.

I've been up for about 24 hours now.

I'm walking in Naka Meguro and for the last several blocks, I've had a freaky soundtrack following me. I'll let you know when it ends.

I'm looking at the map of Meguro and it looks like a lot of ghetto embassies are here - Bangladesh, Dubouti and Uzbekistan, to name a few. Go Paraguay! You're on the good side of the tracks!

Okay, I've seen about 20 Starbucks but I saw my first Tully's today and I hope it's my last. I got a little lost around Shibuya station. The good news is I stumbled into one of the redlight districts where I saw my first older business man/well dressed young woman "relationship" at work. Unlike most of the world, where prostitution is driven primarily by poverty and drug addiction, in Tokyo, the sex trade is largely due to their excessive consumer culture. I guess she has to pay for the Fall/Winter 04 fashions somehow.

Guess what doesn't work well on an electric train? A compass. Damn magnets!

I've only been here a day and a half and I've already seen more fashionistas than I've ever seen in my life before.

Japan is a very punctual society. I had planned on going to a gallery opening tonight, but things fell through. The regular hours at this place are from 11 to 8, but tonight was supposed to be an opening night party, so I showed up around 10. I guess that 8 o'clock is 8 o'clock, because the place was locked down when I arrived. Party on creative people!

On the way home I had to transfer from one train to another, so I was looking at my map in the second station. A nice older man asked me in English if I needed any help. We talked a bit on the platform and on the train. In Japan, Seattle isn't know for Microsoft, or Boeing, or even Starbucks, it's knows for Ichiro! "Ah, Ichiro," he says. He had recently been to Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria. Then we talked about the weather.

I walked a very long distance today, but missed the area I was looking for. Directions are almost impossible here.

I just finished lunch, Tonkatsu, as a matter of fact. Anyway, it appears as though my communication has mostly devolved to an unintelligible series of hand signals. Something between ASL and a 3rd base coach.

I tried again today to find the parasite museum. I'm pretty sure I was standing right in front of the place, but unless it's in an apartment block, I'm stumped.

I might have seen my first Japanese motorcycle gang tonight. It was rather amusing. Several were wearing kamakazi-style bandanas on their heads, while a couple were wielding aluminum baseball bats. Go Ichiro!

On a side note, wheel pegs aren't just for BMX bikes anymore. They also work if you want to give your friend a lift.

So there's some sort of party at my hotel that I'm currently attending. At first, I felt a little awkward, but that's no different than how I'd feel at a party full of strangers at home. A couple of drinks later and I stopped caring.

The party's pretty fun. There are a couple of drag queens, a stripper and some girls modeling tassel tops and hot pants. I'm not complaining!

I got still some drink!

By the way, I failed to mention the fact that at least three people here are wearing Mexican wrestling masks!

I smell like a goddamn road flare!

Right! So I met this Aussie who was looking to score something other than booze, but I told him I refuse to travel with drugs up my ass! I am not a freakin' mule. I also met a New Yorker who moved here for work. I told the guy that I was here on vacation and that work is for squares!

I checked into the Shibuya Excel Hotel this afternoon. It's above a mall that is attached to the station. Imagine Westlake Mall, but replace the food court with a bunch of restaurants, replace the Monorail with one of Tokyo's largest train stations and replace the Starbucks with a Starbucks. Is there even a Starbucks in Westlake?

I saw perhaps the best Engrish t-shirt ever:

Fuck
Sick
Inch

I love it!

I went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and checked out a couple of their exhibitions. Both the William Klein and Eiichiro Sakata (go Ichiro!) shows were excellent. There's also the Sapporo beer museum here in Ebisu, but I think I'm going to skip the tour and go straight to the final results.

I'm going to take it easy tonight. I've probably walked a marathon since I got here and my legs and feet could use a rest. I'm about to have Nepali food, which seems pretty similar to Indian food, but we'll see.

Nepali food is okay, but not that different from Indian food. It does give me the opportunity to talk about automatic doors, however. Lots of places have automatic sliding glass doors, but this one was carved teak. The doors require you to be much closer than they do here, so you just walk towards it until it hopefully opens Star Trek-style.

I did a little shopping today at this big hardware store called Tokyu Hands. I've been looking for some very Japanese items and found some in their sign department. Speaking of signs, on the way back I came across an adult bookstore or strip club with a very interesting sign. The "mascot" on their sign is some sort of anthropomorphic apple with a vagina for a smile. Oh how the Japanese just love cute!

Okay, so I've seen and heard some really awful Japanese hip hop here, but this takes the cake. I know that dance hall is all the rage these days, but just because you also happen to live on an island that starts with a "J" does not make a rude boy, ready or rough. Jah man. Haile Selassie says you suck!

I got my shopping on today in an area call Harajuku. I went to this big toy story called Kiddyland to get my nephews a couple of robots, or something. The place has six levels of toys, including a big Hello Kitty area, but the basement held something that I didn't expect. Over the last few days, I've seen some very young girls with Playboy shirts, hats and bags. Sure enough, a section about a third the size of the Hello Kitty area is devoted to Playboy merchandise. In true Japanese form, everything is very cute and only the bunny logo is used, but still, these girls are like 9! What's next, a Hustler stroller?

I looked at a bunch and bought a couple of very cool t-shirts. There was an absolutely awesome GI Joe shirt at the toy store, but it was only in small. Anyway, I's stupid how much some of these t-shirts cost. There's a place called Beams T with a cool conveyor belt, viewing rack thing, but the shirts are between 50 and 100 bucks! I'm sorry, but the best T in the world isn't worth much more than $30.

So this story is really two. I'm getting a little hungry, so I decide to roam around Shibuya to see if I can find an interesting place to eat. Now Shibuya is exactly a model for idea social behavior, but it isn't nearly as seedy as either Time Square or even the Pike Place Market used to be. If you're not in one of the many high-rise shopping malls, you'll soon find yourself in the midst of pachinko parlors, arcades, restaurants, shops, bars and strip clubs. All around the major stations there are tons of people handing out coupons, Klenex (really, tissue advertising is big here!) and all sorts of other advertising for both legitimate and less legitimate business. As I was walking through one of the smaller intersections, there were a couple of guys hawking something. Anyway, to make a long story even longer, this guy holding a laminated card comes up to me, holds the card in front of my face and says something in Japanese. I'm still walking, so he turns the card over says "blowjobs!" Sure enough, the card says "blowjob" right on the back. I knew that pretty much every form of sex is legally bought and sold in Japan, but I had no idea open and public their sales force was.

So anyway, now I'm in Ginza, the 5th Avenue of Tokyo. I decided to leave the teenagers, pimps and titty-bars behind and try to find an izakaya I read about. I never found the place I was looking for, but I did find this side street with a couple of hole in the wall restaurants with tables set up on the street. Three people showed up shortly after me and sat at the table next to mine. After awhile, it looked like their conversation had turned towards me. I got a few curious looks, then one of the men offered me some Japanese ginger with miso paste. I managed to communicate the fact that I was from Seattle, which once again, got the response of "Ichiro." I think they were mainly entertained by the amount of chili powder I put on my chicken. Crazy gaijin!

I'm on the observation level of the south tower of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices. From 45 stories up, you really get a sense of how huge this city really is. Shinjuku is the center of city government and has the largest concentration of skyscrapers. On this sunny, yet somewhat hazy day, the city literally has no visible bounds. It dwarfs Manhattan in terms of area and while Los Angeles' high-rise "downtown" is similar to Shinjuku, Tokyo has at least a half a dozen other major sub-cities only slightly smaller that its largest. Also keep in mind that Yokohama, Japan's second largest city, is only a few miles south of here, which makes this whole area one gigantic megalopolis.

I'm having a drink at this bar called Office, which is owned by the same guy that runs the Claska Hotel. He has a few other bars around town too. Anyway, a very well groomed toy poodle is keeping me company.

I think I'm going to do a little night photography in Naka-Meguro.

Beers like HÖegarden and Stella Artois have fancy glasses with a line showing its volume. Usually it's something like 330ml, 500ml, etc. Asahi has its own glasses too, but they have a "harmony line."

Here's an interesting observation about the Tokyo subway system. The signs for the stations, exits and other directions are always available in English. This isn't the interesting part. Station names, like most place names, are always written in Kanji. Every other station sign that you see pulling into or out of a station has the English pronunciation under the Kanji or the name written in Hiragana. I imagine that this has to do with the fact that kids first learn to read and write the syllabic Hiragana symbols. It does go to show just how complicated the written word is here.

Cool! The gas company van has lights and a siren. The guy was even using his loudspeaker to tell people to get out of the way, or something. He just pulled in front of the store I'm about to go into, but it doesn't look like there's an emergency.

I went to another huge toy store. Does anyone really ever out grow shopping for toys? Anyway, this one has the Playboy line too.

Tokyo has a lot of mega urban malls with all sorts of shops and restaurants, but Roppongi Hills has got to take the cake. There isn't an exact equivalent that I can think of in the States, but imagine a cross between the Bellagio Hotel Casino, the Seattle Art Museum, Rockefeller Center and most of Rodeo Drive. It's nice that the uber wealthy never have to leave their pod.

I had a couple of hours to kill before making my way to the airport, so I grabbed a little breakfast and tried one last time to find the parasite museum. I was lucky this time and found the place! This is definitely not a place you should visit prior to sushi or following a questionable B.L.T. They have all sorts of specimens in jars, the most disturbing of which is an 8 meter (24 foot) tape worm that was living in some guy. Worst of all were some of the photos, including some poor bastard whose testicles had grown to the size of a small child. I don't think even Dockers makes pants loose enough for this guy.

I'm on the plane now and there's a freakin' baby no more than 3 feet to my left. I think my headphones have something like 20dB of isolation, but Ambien, please don't fail me now! I'm looking forward to time travel. I'll arrive home about 7 hours before I leave.