Tokyo Between Summer And Fall

It’s my official last day in Japan! We’ve been here for the past ten days for Tokyo Game Show and exploration, and like my last trip two years ago, where we got both spring and winter, we walked through two drastically different seasons. When we landed, the city was stuffy, hot, humid and sunny. Last night, it was deliciously chilly with thunderstorms. In between, we walked about a million miles in endless rain, cicada-filled heat, breezy pre-storm evenings and (as you can see above from our first night in Chiba), a lightning storm that flashed through the night sky across Tokyo Bay.

I slept with the window open last night (because that’s my thing, you know?) and I kept waking up every once in a while to the roar and chill of a crazy thunderstorm. Amazing! It was like having my own ambient-sounds-to-help-you-snooze CD playing but with the A/C on full blast.

Oh, wait. What did we actually do for the past 10 days? Here’s a list:

• Ventured alone onto the Tokyo rail system for the very first time.
• Figured out how to navigate around the city on the Tokyo rail system for the very first time.
• Sony press conference where I got an official looking press/media badge (that I sadly had to return).
• Tokyo Game Show where I got an official looking press/media badge (that I sadly had to return).
• Cut the line to play the new Professor Layton games (that I barely understood because it was all in Japanese)
• Visited my grandma where she told me the same story over and over.
• Disney Sea Resort (Journey To The Center Of The Earth is my new favorite ride EVER)
• Ate at the Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku’s seedy yakuza-controlled Kabukicho district where there were less robots and restaurants and more bikini-clad dancers.
• Checked out the kaiju/miniature exhibit at the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art.
• Ate the best tonkatsu ever!
• Introduced everyone to the deliciousness of takoyaki and okonomiyaki.
• Touched all the pretty handbags at the Shibuya Miu Miu store and thought about maybe buying on back in LA but will probably never do so.
• ALMOST almost made it to the Studio Ghibli museum but went shopping at Ginza instead (no regrets!!! okay, maybe a little) but now I know how/where to buy tickets and what to do because I am definitely going when I come back.

Here’s what I’m coming home to:

• My wonderful bed and pillow.
• A buttface who probably did not make aforementioned bed for the past 10 days.
• Regular work.
• Non-Japanese food.
• The latest response packet from my advisor which probably contains a lot of well-deserved criticism on the work I turned in the day I landed in Tokyo, which will make me realize how little progress I am making and that I should just give up on grad school.

Yeah, not looking forward to the last thing at all.