A walk in Tokyo
This is part 4, read first part 1, part 2 and part 3.
Sunday morning in Tokyo
I walk through Tokyo’s quiet and coloured streets, with the typically exposed wires dancing in the wind from one window to the next. I notice families passing by, directed to different places of worship and I surpass them all sweaty.
Yes, I’m the human version of a Saint Bernard (such a cute drooling dog). In my defense, I can say that yesterday night was raining and now the Sun is doing its job calling the water back to the sky. In between this incredible natural cycle, that’s me, a new homo sapiens sudore madĭdus.
Young musicians in Tokyo
While I’m walking in the middle of a long street similar to the 5th Avenue in NY, but narrower, I hear a familiar sound. Yes, in Japan, as in every other place in the world, children wake up early to wake up everyone else with their flutes. I hope Santa will give you coal, kids!
So, with the Last Christmas Japanese kids flute version in my ears, I can finally see the end of my research:
The Tokyo Skytree!
The shape of the Tokyo Skytree seems like something in between an antenna and a spinning top glued to a stick. And it’s indeed the tallest building in the whole of Japan. Yowza, as my grandpa Antonio would have said. This exclamation is more than appropriate when I notice the line to enter the elevator to reach the top.
To tell the truth, a lovely woman tells me that by paying a small extra, I would quickly jump the line ahead of me and go on top of the Tokyo Skytree in a few minutes. But, hey, do you think I’m a stupid tourist? The line will move fast enough!
Nope, I was wrong; I’m indeed a stupid tourist.
I’m stuck in the middle of a queue for a queue! I’m in the line to pay for the tickets, and then there is the line to go to the elevator to the top of the Tokyo Skytree. I’m in a loop, part of an endless human caterpillar.
When I’m out of this digestive tract, I’m up on top and can finally watch Tokyo from the top (I mean, I’m flying all over the world, I have this perspective for most of the time).
When I’m back to the ground, I search around this humungous middle finger building for a restaurant. I find myself again in a line in fast food. I’m desperate, so this is what I want right now since the breakfast in the capsule hotel didn’t really satisfy me.
I order a big menu maxi giant whatever (the more adjectives, the better, I’m hungry) together with a big maxi cold tea cup.
Shock
Yes, I’m shocked. After all those adjectives, the sandwich I receive is smaller than a happy meal and so is the fries portion. I finish it in two bites, and I try to forget about it by drinking the tea.
This tea doesn’t have any sugar!
I know what I said here about not comparing and trying to discover and keep an open mind, but… I’m so desperately hungry right now!
In Japan, people don’t add useless sugar to the tea. I think I could easily lose 20 kg in a month living here; I put sugar even in my dreams.
I decide to come back, I have a flight to operate back to Dubai. I catch the train in the right direction, I loose my bus shuttle for the hotel (so I have to come back on my feet), but I have enough time for makizushi and a shower before coming back.
I bring with me from this adventure the elegance and the OCD elves that seem to put everything in order around, the discipline of the 200 students I saw seated on the ground in the metro and the way they left it after (spotless).
I bring with me the people covering their mouths to laugh, a policeman bowing to me with a huge hat and the tiny capsule room that hosted me for the night for a ridiculous price.
Bye, Japan.
ありがとうございました
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