Albert Art

Day 1 Tokyo Japan Trip

Saturday Night in Tokyo!

Posted 9am Japan time, Sunday Morning. First off, please excuse the rushed blogging. I really don't want to spend all day updating, when I could be outside playing. This is Tokyo after all! The next few posts will basically be to get the general happenings down, but there's so much in between that I'll have to leave that for post-Tokyo blogging. Like how I broke my iPhone prior to Tokyo, which I'll go into detail at a later time.

Gawd damn that was a long plane ride. Though the service on JAL was incredibly good, which included one snack, and 2 full meals (One dinner, and one breakfast), sitting in a tight chair for 9 or 10 some odd hours, was tough. I don't think I'd want to endure it more than once in a while. The staff was friendly, and understood English very well, more than I was expecting. They also kept coming back to provide some coffee or tea after meals.

We landed at Narita around 6pm Japan time, on Saturday afternoon. Marie and I, got our temp cellphones, met up with a friend and hopped on the Narita Express train which was 30bucks, but the fastest way to get to Tokyo, Shibuya. This part reminded me of San Francisco when I went to GDC because of the trains convenience at the airport. We decided to get some drinks to make the trip a little more livelier. Alcoholic ones. They also have vendors on the train who sold more drinks.

We got off at Shibuya, and headed straight for the hotel which was not even 2 minutes from the station to drop off our stuff. Let me just say that Shibuya is exactly how its described by all those who have been here, and all the videogames that have portrayed this crazy part of Tokyo. Hip, full of life, and just plain cool. It's so fucking extreme, it's awesome, and the fact that it was Saturday night made this place even crazier. Man I kept thinking about all my friends back home who would kill to be in my place.

By this time it was around 8 or 9, and I was pretty worried we wouldn't be able to make it to the Chiptune party I had wanted to go to, which ended at 10pm. We briefly checked out an arcade near the hotel, then got on another train to Kichijoji. We packed in like sardines, it was hilarious. Once we got to Kichijoji, we couldn't find the place -- Fourth Floor. Being stupid, I forgot the address, but luckily my friend had an idea of where it was.

After standing in the small little streets of Kichijoji (that reminded me of the inside of New York New York in Las Vegas), totally trying to figure out what to do next, we started to hear blips, and bleeps, so we knew we were close to the party. We realized it was inside this building with a sushi restaurant. We caught an elevator, to the party.

We caught the last bit of the show, which was still pretty awesome, and after experiencing Chiptune in Tokyo, I'd say I'm ready for Blipfest come this December in NYC!!! Already have my tix.