watashi wa adrian desu
saturday, 14 june 200813h36
i just had a delicious bowl of pasta with shrimp and tons of salsa cholula (God bless the mexican exporting companies)... in tokyo's asakusa neighborhood, one of the oldest parts of the city. it doesn't sound traditional but that's just tokyo today: unconventional.
i arrived three days ago, on wednesday, and katsu picked me up at narita airport. as soon as i got here, i got a glimpse of that avant-garde, techy, über-modern japan everybody in the west imagines. we took the subway and katsu didn't have to buy a ticket: he just quickly passed his cell phone through a scanner and the right amount gets charged to his cell phone bill. then we caught a taxi and as i approached the car and reached for the door, it opened automatically and then closed after i got in.
i went to the sakura house main office, the company from which i rented my room during my 6-week stay in tokyo. i felt weird as i went over the lease agreement and signed... who would've thought i'd ever get my own place in tokyo, even if for a short period?
my room is no fancy place, but at 98,000 yen/month, it's a bargain. it's about 25 m2, which is way bigger than all those 6-8 m2 places i saw online for $1,800/mo. the best thing? it's located in the heart of roppongi, the equivalent of times square in ny, dupont circle in dc, or polanco in df. the guesthouse has about 15 rooms, and there's definitely a strong "auberge espagnole" feeling to it. every day, i wake up and i see a new housemate getting out of the shower or having coffee in the common area. last night i came back home, and a bunch of them were hanging out in the kitchen: gustav from sweden/turkey, justin from canada, michael from germany, simon from australia, another guy from france and another couple of swiss blokes. a lot of them have been in japan for a while now -- gustav, for example, has ben around for about 5-6 years; this other guy from ohio, andrew, has been living in the house for like 3 years. and all of them seem to speak japanese fluently or are taking japanese classes. it's funny how my friends and relatives at home think i'm this super world traveler... then i look at these other people, and i realize i'm such a novice...
i don't think i've ever felt so lost in any of my previous trips. in most of the other countries i've been to, i 've always been able to communicate somehow. even in china, at least i had taken about 4 months of mandarin classes, which was enough to get by. here, i've been only in some very touristy places of tokyo, japan's capital and main city... still, sometimes i've been hungry and i've had to postpone my meal just because i had no idea of what the things on
the menu were -- even with pictures. and, normally, i wouldn't mind trying things out, but i've realized these people eat every single limb and organ or every single living being on this planet... and at 3,000 yen ($30) per dish, i don't really feel very adventurous just to be (potentially) grossed out.
anyway, so far, so good... but the food in general is expensive. i don't think i'll try any of the restaurants in my time out guide, since the average meal at those places is at least 2,500 yen. other than mcdonald's and the ramen (noodles) places, it seems hard to find anything below 1,000 yen.
i just had a delicious bowl of pasta with shrimp and tons of salsa cholula (God bless the mexican exporting companies)... in tokyo's asakusa neighborhood, one of the oldest parts of the city. it doesn't sound traditional but that's just tokyo today: unconventional.
i arrived three days ago, on wednesday, and katsu picked me up at narita airport. as soon as i got here, i got a glimpse of that avant-garde, techy, über-modern japan everybody in the west imagines. we took the subway and katsu didn't have to buy a ticket: he just quickly passed his cell phone through a scanner and the right amount gets charged to his cell phone bill. then we caught a taxi and as i approached the car and reached for the door, it opened automatically and then closed after i got in.
i went to the sakura house main office, the company from which i rented my room during my 6-week stay in tokyo. i felt weird as i went over the lease agreement and signed... who would've thought i'd ever get my own place in tokyo, even if for a short period?
my room is no fancy place, but at 98,000 yen/month, it's a bargain. it's about 25 m2, which is way bigger than all those 6-8 m2 places i saw online for $1,800/mo. the best thing? it's located in the heart of roppongi, the equivalent of times square in ny, dupont circle in dc, or polanco in df. the guesthouse has about 15 rooms, and there's definitely a strong "auberge espagnole" feeling to it. every day, i wake up and i see a new housemate getting out of the shower or having coffee in the common area. last night i came back home, and a bunch of them were hanging out in the kitchen: gustav from sweden/turkey, justin from canada, michael from germany, simon from australia, another guy from france and another couple of swiss blokes. a lot of them have been in japan for a while now -- gustav, for example, has ben around for about 5-6 years; this other guy from ohio, andrew, has been living in the house for like 3 years. and all of them seem to speak japanese fluently or are taking japanese classes. it's funny how my friends and relatives at home think i'm this super world traveler... then i look at these other people, and i realize i'm such a novice...
i don't think i've ever felt so lost in any of my previous trips. in most of the other countries i've been to, i 've always been able to communicate somehow. even in china, at least i had taken about 4 months of mandarin classes, which was enough to get by. here, i've been only in some very touristy places of tokyo, japan's capital and main city... still, sometimes i've been hungry and i've had to postpone my meal just because i had no idea of what the things on
the menu were -- even with pictures. and, normally, i wouldn't mind trying things out, but i've realized these people eat every single limb and organ or every single living being on this planet... and at 3,000 yen ($30) per dish, i don't really feel very adventurous just to be (potentially) grossed out.anyway, so far, so good... but the food in general is expensive. i don't think i'll try any of the restaurants in my time out guide, since the average meal at those places is at least 2,500 yen. other than mcdonald's and the ramen (noodles) places, it seems hard to find anything below 1,000 yen.
posted by adrián at 10:53
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home