Immediately following our monkey experience, Duffy, or, the "Duff Man" as I had begun calling him by that point, headed off to Tokyo, where he would soon end his Japan experience and I would meet up with some friends from Nagoya. 

It occurs to me now that I haven't really introduced the Duff Man. As you may rememeber, he is a traveller I met at my first hostel in Hakuba. Originally from Ohio (I think), and now living in Monterey, California, he was on a two week long blitz of Japan as part of his annual international vacation. Now, usually when you meet somebody from California, they have some sort of celebrity encounter/experience story, and the Duff man was no exception. In fact, he was in the music industry, working as an agent for large company based in California. One of his many claims to fame was being friends with Mos Def and his family. Needless to say, he had lots of good stories.

Back to Japan though. We set out from Nagano city towards Tokyo on the famous Shinikansen train. Famous for its incredible speeds (I have heard rumours that it can hit 300 km/h on some straight-a-ways), these trains are a popular way to travel. They are convenient, comfortable, and lightening fast (and very expensive)...my friend describes them as planes without the turbulence. I took a picture from the inside that resembles a plane, and found a picture online of what they look like from the front--more like a spaceship than a plane.

In under an hour an a half we were at Tokyo Station. This is were me and the Duff Man went our seperate ways, he had trouble holding back his tears, as did I. From there I headed into the maze that is the Tokyo subway system, towards the hotel my friends were staying at. The subway in Tokyo is both amazing and ridiculous; there are 14 seperate lines (compare that to the two Vancouver Skytrain lines) which criss-cross eachother in what looks like a giant spider's web.

About 25 minutes later I had found my hotel...more specifically, my capsule hotel. Capsule hotels are quite popular, particularly among businessmen, in Japan. Here is the rundown. For Y3000, which is about $30 Canadian, you get a single "capsule bed" to sleep in. As space is an issue in Japan, these economy hotels consist of large rooms of these capsules stacked on top of eachother, not unlike a morgue, only slightly more spacious. With the price of admission you also get a locker to store your bags, and access to a public bathroom upstairs. Many of these hotels do not allow foreigners and/or women. This one, luckily, allowed both (with gender segregated floors of course).

A few hours after checking in, my friends Steve (a friend from Nagoya), his girlfriend, brother and another friend, all visiting from Adelaide, Australia showed up. As it turned out, there were many, perhaps a dozen, Nova teachers from Nagoyo all staying there (must have had something to do with the English website they have).

Later that night I headed out on the town with a couple of those people to check out a famous Tokyo sight called Shinjuku. I can recall going there a number of years before when I passed through Tokyo with my family. It is particularly impressive at night, when all the bulidings light up with advertising and the like. For those of you who have seen the film Lost in Translation, it is Shinjuku that is in the background in the scene where Bill Murray cruises into Tokyo in the back of his limo. It is the site of a fair bit of gawking.