From getting to know him a little i felt he was a man very proud of Japan, especially the food, telling me "i think we have some of the best vegetables in the world". He was also very against capitalism, bringing the topic up often. Advising me to see a movie called "Capitalism : A Love Story". I don't know if he was 'living in the past'. He told me how he had not enjoyed his trip to Dubai as much as he expected as it was full of big corporate shops.
The little things he told me would not have been in guide books, small places that i should go eat, and the food i should try. He was so helpful he even wrote it all down for me on the flight sick bag.
I wasn't even in Japan yet and i already felt welcomed after meeting Mr Sashimoto.
After landing i had to go through immigration and customs, where i was called an 'otaku' for my piercing to which the girl seamed to like ;) After getting felt up by the cute customs girl i went to meet Eamon and Charlie.
The plan was to stay up all night until 9am then go to Sakura House to get the keys to my place. This at first sounded ok, but i hadn't slept properly since leaving England on Friday some 22hours ago. We went to Eam's house and dropped my things off, then he took me around his neighborhood. It was fantastic, defiantly what i wanted to see in japan, not just the big city. The houses were small, but they all had nice cars outside! something which i thought was stereotypical but after arriving, so far seams true, that the Japanese people spend a lot of money on cars. I kept stopping to admire certain cars.
On the way to a late open dinner i was shown a shrine which was just stunning. Surrounded by housing its floor just peaked above everything else. The constant noise of water splashing at the place where you cleans yourself. I told Eam and Charlie, if this was in England it would be abused so much, with graffiti and used as a place to drink. Charlie told me it was really respected, but as an outsider i already had the upmost respect for the shrine.
At the late dinner (it was 2am) there were two skyline GTR-32 parked outside, id only been in the country a few hours and i was seeing things i thought was only really a stereotype of Japan. It was just like in the anime series 'Initital D'
The place offered a free bar for 150Yen which is about £1 then really cheap food. It came to 5am and we got kicked out, spending about £20 between 3 of us, was really cheap, and we must of had about 10 drinks each and a 2 course meal! So it was late, where should we go? 100 yards from the dinner was a 24 hour Maccy D's. perfect!
By 6am i was totally fucked. But as the sun was rising it brought with it new found energy. 1st day in Japan and i was already watching the sunrise. Me and Eam then hit the rail networks while his girlfriend slept. We found the office easily and the contracts went smooth... it was finding my house that was the problem. Once we got to the closest station we looked very lost, a nice old lady came over to ask us what was wrong. At this point i had no clue what she said. Lucky Eam came to the rescue but unfortunately she didn't know, we were on our own. So about 30mins later we came to a rail station which was we google mapped. We had been walking in the wrong direction -_- so we walked back and we passed a police box. Eamon again showing his 3 years of studies, asked where to go and we found it soon after.
Here are a few photos from that night, although all were taken on my iPhone so the quality is poor.
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