October 25, 2003 - page 2

The streets were filled with tiny cars, bustling pedestrians, and vending carts, while bright neon advertisements and jumbotrons dotted the cityscape. This was the Tokyo I had seen on television, and I was hyped about getting to explore the world’s largest metropolitan area (28 million) and tenth largest city (8.1 million).

If there’s one hot spot in Tokyo it’s the Shibuya district and, of course, that was our first stop. There was anything and everything to do here and I just soaked up the Tokyo nightlife. We ended up partying in a small bar until the wee hours of the morning.

After a few hours of sleep in our tiny hotel room, we headed out early the next morning to see more of Tokyo’s tourist offerings. We visited the Tokyo Tower, several famous shopping malls, and a historic shrine. To get from place to place we took the jam-packed trains. Oddly enough this was one of my favorite parts of Tokyo; being smashed like a sardine in a train with hundreds of strangers was an experience I’ll never forget. Tokyo was by far the coolest place I visited in Japan, and I definitely have it penciled in on my list of places to revisit.