A few months ago, in the fall of 2014, one of my close friends back in my home country messaged me that he wanted to come visit me in Asia. Seeing as how I don't get many visitors from the western hemisphere, I was skeptical of my friend actually taking the plunge and crossing the Pacific. However, he's the kind of guy who doesn't say what he doesn't mean, and after some careful planning we had plane tickets and an itinerary: come winter vacation we'd meet up in Japan for four days before hopping over to Korea to celebrate the new year.
My last day of school before the break was Christmas Eve, so I spent my first day of vacation, Christmas, with my girlfriend in Seoul. I had an early flight the next day to Tokyo, so instead of going home in the evening I took a train to Incheon airport and spent Christmas night there, sleeping on the benches in a ghostly empty airport with a handful of other holiday travelers. In the morning I got on my flight, and before noon on the 26th I was in Narita airport, waiting for my friend to arrive from sunny California.
This was my third visit to Japan, so I wasn't a total stranger to the country. It had been awhile since my last trip, though. I visited Osaka and Kyoto in the spring of 2012, and before that Tokyo in the fall of 2011. Back then I was a novice traveler, and basically had my hand held by my gracious Japanese friend and host for the entire trip. He wasn't available to play tour guide this time, but I wasn't worried. If I could get through the Thai/Cambodian border on my own, surviving Tokyo should be easy.
I explored Narita a bit while waiting for my friend, had some lunch, took a nap. When his plane touched down (right on time), we got on the express train from Narita to Tokyo and fumbled our way through the metro system to our accommodations. In an effort to save money, I had booked us two beds at one of Japan's infamous capsule hotels. Despite the size, it was very comfortable. After dropping off our luggage, we got back on the subway and went to Shinjuku (one of the busiest wards in Tokyo) to meet up with a Japanese friend of mine from college.
She had made us reservations at a restaurant/karaoke hybrid, and we followed her and her friend through the labyrinthine streets of Shinjuku before arriving at a well-hidden but lavishly decorated establishment. After checking in we were led to a private singing room, which we could stay in for three hours. Each of us had to pay $50, but for that price we got as much food and drink as we could consume. My friend and I agreed, to recoup the steep entry fee we were going to have to drink everything on the menu. He got more adventurous than I, daring to try a myriad of foreign-sounding Japanese cocktails, while I played it safe and kept to beer.
When it was time to go, we said our goodbyes and went back to our hotel. We were still alive with the energy of the night upon our return, so we wandered around the neighborhood until we found a late-night ramen place. The process of ordering was so novel to us, and ridiculously convenient: we ordered from a vending machine, putting in our money and getting a ticket in return, which we then handed to the cook who gave us our orders in a matter of minutes.
After eating we finally called it a night, and crawled into our capsules for a few hours of restful sleep.
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