I write today’s post perched on a step along the Dotonbori River in Osaka after a short two days in Tokyo. The streets are busy, the crowds are out, and there’s a nice smog of bbq smoke that has settled on the river.
Today I spent most of the day travelling, on trams, trains, and the Shinkansen, ready to start my cycle around Lake Biwa from tomorrow.
Tokyo started by meeting up with the remainder of the devhouse group after we had checked into the airbnb. Our first stop was a nice little cafe run by a very chatty man. Amongst many of the conversations we had with him, he gave us some recommendations for some food and drinks we could get that night, we were eager to try them out.
Trusting the locals, we headed to an isakaya by Sumago station, where we had rounds of sushi, and rounds and rounds of lemon sours. We had a lot of run here just drinking and chatting, but the staff were eager to show us the door when they were close to closing.
Not yet ready to end the night we were on the hunt for a karaoke bar. We found one place that was open all night, and we set off for the adventure. We spend the next few hours blowing out our vocal cords and belting out some absolute bangers. Once we were done we all headed back for home, and Gloria and I said that we would lead because we knew the way, which was surprising because we only took this route once. I came clean the next day that I was actually using my maps.
The next morning our first plans made was we needed to find some costumes for the Halloween bar crawl we were going on that night. I also wanted to purchase a certain film stock for my camera and we set out to there, where we would follow up with the costumes.
I managed to find the film in the first shop I went to, which I was cautious of because I could only find a single online comment from a year ago saying it was there. After this we went to a local chain for some lunch, and this place was criminally cheap. We managed to get two meals with drinks for just $16!
Our costume hunt after this was nothing short of an ordeal. We scoured 4 different donkis in 3 different cities, one even being a mega, in search of some costumes. What was meant to a group of Pitbulls was creatively pivoted to the girls dressing up as cops.
Costumes and props in hand, we headed back home after the long day and we all had naps and got ready for our crawl. I started playing some Pitbull while we were getting ready to hype us up, but some people were still sleeping and got mad.
We headed to the first bar, and as soon as we got there I knew that the Mr. Worldwide was going to be a hit with some people shouting out at us and asking to get some photos with us.
We tracked onto two other bars, but unfortunately the free pouring spirits and the free shots on each bar were starting to stack up and I need to make a quick exit at one point. A couple other members were feeling the same so we headed on an adventure back home.
The next morning we all got up, packed our bags, and all headed in seperate directions with devhouse being split 4 ways. I ventured off to Osaka by myself, and had a relatively quiet afternoon, trying to save energy for my rides.
I look forward to spending the next week in Japan sat on a saddle. I hope that I will be able to keep you up to date and won’t be too tired.