Russian fur in Shinjuku

The french guys from the apartment invited me to a rock gig in Shinjuku in a bar far from the metro station, that took me a while to find, when I finally got there, went into the place to the green room where the band was rehearsing, took some pictures, hung out with the band members and tried practicing my japanese with a local rock band, they flipped out when they knew that I was from Mexico. The band had already put me down on the VIP list which meant that I would only have to pay 500 yen. That included a drink. So of course when I got stamped the bar was next to the door, again they see the crazy foreigner and ask him where he´s from, As I told them my origin I requested a tequila shot with my ticket, listened to the concert, went outside the main entrance to smoke a cigarette. So I tell maxime(one of the lead singers) to meet up at 10 pm there so we could go back to the apartment together with the rest of the band. Somehow I decided to split on my own, and began looking for the metro station with the map on my hand, as I´m walking I see its one of those sketchy streets where you just turn a corner and it gets ´downtown´ like in a second . I walk behind a blonde lady with a humongous fur coat and her hair picked up in a bun, I ask her with the map pointing thinking she speaks English, where the metro station was and she responds with a question:

fur: Where are you from?

Me: Mexico... What is your work?

With a heavy Russian accent answers: Oh, I work in the nights... with a disdain look on her face. Then grabs me by the arm, saying: You hansome!, and begins pulling me away into the night, I ask her again as we´re walking -Is the metro station close from here? Her high heels keep clacking on that cold sidewalk with bright lights.

She makes a right into a building, and pulls me into an elevator, she tells the people in there: Hold please! we walk in with probably 3 more people in there, and thats when it hit me, I dont even know where the hell this lady is taking me, but her arm was still tightly attached to me, something snapped inside of my big blur, and released her arm from me and slid off her as the elevator door closed in with my arm and hand drifting away from her. She stood there reaching out saying: Dont go! then the door closed in on her....

the land of the rising sun

After living on the beach for 2 years I felt like i needed to ride the metro and visit museums in a big city, took a plane over to Tokyo Japan and stayed there for 3 weeks.

The first week i stayed in a hostel, second week i stayed with a Japanese host who would take as many travelers as possible, week three i stayed with an American host who had lived in Japan for a little over 2 years.



Week one was great because I met a bunch of travelers like myself from different parts of the world just out taking life as it came, wonder around the city for the whole day, take pictures, meet random people in the metro, try to understand people, the culture, get lost in the metro, have dinner in traditional restaurants, play pachinko,night clubs, bars, feel free.

Week two I moved in with a japanese host, he spoke 5 languages, and was always doing interesting things, there I met a french band that sang in English and played in Tokyo, one night there were 17 travelers in this small jap apartment, I had to sleep under a table in my sleeping bag next to my Puerto rican buddy who snored, the next day I hung out with him in Shinjuku and he lost his walet, that was a bummer, but he managed to get out of the country back to South Korea.

Week three I transfered to Nippori with an American host, there I felt I had the most fun of all, cause we would constantly be riding the metro back home drunk talking to random people and just hanging out like crazy, he became my brother and long time friend in a matter of days.

Coming back to Mexico was tough because my city is not safe at all, I wish I could go back and live and work where Ive been... well see.