Tokyo 2K1 - episode 1

By Lyndonimus
24th May 04

Well it was the day, the day I had been waiting for since I watched my first Manga [FOTNS]. This was what my life was counting down to from that moment, and now after years of wishing I was finally going. It was a life long dream about to be fulfilled. How should one feel? Me, I was damn tired.
Anyway, after a looong drive in a car [courtesy of my travelling companion Himesh], we had arrived at Heathrow airport. Nothing new, I'd been here many times before, only not on my own with two mates from school. This was going to be great I kept telling myself. Oh well we hit the arcade to relieve ourselves of UK £££'s. Guess what was on the agenda? A good old bout of TTT, hehe, what can I say, I knew I wasn't gonna lose, this is Nam, newbie rookie. Who after a few weeks of practice [as opposed to my playing since Tekken 1] thinks he would be able to defeat me [hey I am king!]. So after TTT we played some Time Crisis 2, then got bored.
Hours passed, then finally 8:00pm came, time to check our shit in.
Well, the rest is a blur, probably boredom, I was tired. All I remember is getting on the plane and trying to keep our 2 year old [Nam] who had never seen anything in his life before calm, here's the usual scenario;
Nam - Wow look, we're at the wing!
Lyndon - You *have* been on a plane before right Nam?
Nam - Yea...
Lyndon - You act like you've never seen daylight before dude.
Yeap, Nam was excited by everything, even the automatic escalators, so aaanyways, we had an 11 hours to Seoul, Korea then 3 hours from Seoul to Tokyo, Japan.
The 11 hours seemed like an eternity, rather boring I might add, but our resident 12 year old lightened things up by being sick... I've never actualy seen someone throw up on a plane, so like they say, there's a first time for everything.
So from this point on when ever Nam did something we found funny it resulted in a barrage of,
'Nam I can't take you anywhere!
Well it's funny to us!
What happened next?
Well we landed in Seoul, had to kick back for about 30 mins so we hit the lil arcade to unleash on TTT [god its everywhere] and some good ol' Puzzle Bobble. Then our flight was called and we were ushered like cattle to an abattoir. Into the tin can we went, luckily for only 3 hours though. After being served by pretty air hostesses we were here.
My dreams had become a reality we were in Tokyo!
Even though I had landed, I still didn't feel as happy as I thought who knows why? Maybe I needed more sleep, either way I was yet to be as happy about landing as our resident 2 year old. So we land, collect our shit, and get going, but we don't know where we're going. After much confusion we hitch in some kind of mini bus thingy, that got lost. Yes lost, it was nearing midnight and our taxi didn't know where he was going, what luck eh? After much praying on my behalf we found our lil haven amidst miles of similar buildings. This similarity would soon lead to disater for us, but thats a while away yet.
We're at our place, Kikuya Ryokan [Japanese style hotel] and all moral was lost upon entry, the manager was not in, the place seemed empty. Fear hit me, but I was too tired, to care so I nominated to sleep in the lobby, which I then tried to do. An hour rolled by as slowly as possible and a miracle occurs. The manager turns up, shocked to see us, but still prepares us a room.
Saved. This guy was the nicest guy in the world, he didn't even charge us the extra night we stayed [cos we landed earlier than we booked, courtesy of Nam, no less].
Or so it seemed.

After unpacking, we foolishly attempt to walk around, to explore. Well we made it to the main road then back home, it seemed easy enough. So the next morning we wake at such an ungodly hour 6am. After much fussing we decide it would be best to get accustomed to our surroundings and off we go.
After a good hour or so of walking, it becomes clear to us that NOTHING in Japan is open til 10:30am, then someone has the silly idea to keep walking. Lets just say that morning we had walked across Tokyo, it was hot and sticky and moral had been slowly depleeting. Eventually Nam says:
'Heh, I bet we're near the Tokyo Tower.'
Five minutes later I look up and say:
'Isn't *that* the Tokyo Tower?'
We had found ourselves at the Tokyo Tower... which happened to be fooking closed! Yes it was still only 10pm. We walk and walk... and find ourselves waiting outside a frigging department store for opening time... now I found this extremely odd... because we weren't the only ones there *shrugs*. Once inside I found a dandy PS2 with DMC and willed away a good few hours until I realised I was pretty hungry...
Next stop KFC, oh yes good ol' junk food, can't beat it anywhere in the world.

Our first outing into the land of the rising sun had seemed to last us 20 hours... that's some cray shit. I've never been outside than long in my life. We even found what seemed to be a patch of never ending gravel, if I looked hard enough I saw mirages... now that was freaky, I had decided it was time to purchase some refreshing beverages.

Our trip had begun, I was here, this was my childhood dream. Who knows what would await us, but I was tired, I was going to bed...

... to be continued.

-- Lyndonimus 24th May 04