What I Love About Tokyo

*This is fiction, anything resembling real life occurrences are purely coincidental.

8:17 AM

It takes me about a four good snoozes before I finally wake from a warm fuzzy dream in my cold bed. I slide the glass doors and go out to the balcony for some quick temperature check. I realize it's colder than most of the other days in autumn. I take a good warm bath, get dressed and throw my scarf on. I rush to the refrigerator, pour and drink some milk. It's a good morning in Tokyo.

9:23 AM

Girls on high heels readily beat boys on a race to the train during rush hour. Ordinary people choose to align themselves to the left while those in a hurry race thru the right lane. Today nothing puzzles me more than the railway map. I decided to take the JR Yamanote Line. I'm off to Harajuku.

9:53 AM

Prompt and prompt it is. The train arrives for Harajuku at exactly 9:52. I exit through the Takeshita Street Exit and swim a sea of transparent umbrellas.

10:45 AM

There are only four kinds of stores in Takeshita Street, and they sell either of the following: crepes, cosplay costumes, clothes and cute stuff. I barge in to a store selling little trinkets and huge mobile phone key chains, pencil cases, earrings, magnets, pins, hair bands, anything you think a girl would probably like. I talk to the sales lady in English and she answers back in Japanese. I was not really surprised. It happens, always happens. And no matter how much they don't understand you, they still try.

12:12 PM

There's no place in the world where ramen tastes as good as where it was originally made. I hear people eating ramen, and it's perfectly fine since I understand that it's meant to be noisy. I'm in their country anyway, who am I to dislike it?

1:02 PM

I took a train ride to Shibuya. Nobody speaks in the train. Some people stare in space, some keep their eyes glued to their pocket books while others who detest static plug their earphones to their ears.

1:49PM

In the midst of the city chaos I discover a temple, and suddenly it's another world. Sandwiched in Tokyo's urbanity is the peace that people find in such places. I begin to take pictures of people hanging their wishes on the rails.

2:35 PM

Walk in the main streets and you see the world, in the form of designer brands. Walk in the side streets and you see Japan-- the tiny stores selling fur coats, street food and kimonos.

8:12PM

Traffic lights from all roads turn red and the people rush in. The huge Shibuya intersection is the wildest intersection I have crossed. Probably more than a thousand people cross in one go, living about their lives, minding their own businesses yet dancing to the rhythm and the flow of the huge human chunk. In the middle of all these I look up and see countless lights, billboards, electronic televisions, street signs--signs of an awake city at night.

10:18PM

I walk back to my pad. The houses of the neighbors often intrigue me. They are so quiet, boxed in, small yet big. I marvel the silence that the Japanese enjoy in their homes, a far irony from the chaos and bustle in the main roads at night.

1:35 AM

As I go to bed and sleep, I stare at the ceiling I realize that today, I saw breadths of life in different dimensions I could have not imagined possible to exist in just one city. If I could choose to be in any city other than home it would be this. I always knew even before I came that I would like to live in Japan.

And there's nobody to be thankful to but Him.