The time had come, and I got a ticket to ride, an expensive one that would allow me to go almost anywhere in Japan at 120-200 miles per hour, and in first class no less. The only real limitation was that I had only 14 days to use this golden ticket, and if I lost it there would be no way to replace it without paying again, which wasn’t going to happen. Now, going from an essentially leisurely existence filling my time going from one amazing ramen house to the next while enjoying the sprawling immensity of Tokyo, to having an unlimited ticket to ride anywhere in the country was a bit daunting.

I had honestly grown attached to the little area of Tokyo two blocks from Ueno Park where I was holed away inside a capsule hotel, surrounded by hard nosed Japanese businessmen whose conversational skills were a case study in minute facial fluctuations and nods of the head. Regardless, the time had come for me to leave my pod and explore the true gems of this ancient land beyond its millions of tons of concrete and plethora of distractions.

I've been looking for things to do before finally getting out of Tokyo, the walls are really starting to close in on me here, even after having met some great people and finally going to a party that Tatsuya, the one Japanese friend I've made thus far, threw at this amazing place right on the river. That was a necessary experience for me, really. Even so I cant stay in this megalopolis forever, there's so much to see! Tokyo is cool and all, but if you think its all you need to see in Japan I need to know what you've been smoking?

I've been in Tokyo two weeks now, and believe me that's not what I had in mind when first coming to Japan. Actually its the exact opposite. Even without a plan of any kind my heart always longs for the country, the small towns and tight knit communities they foster. I may be old fashioned, but the big cities just don't feel very welcoming to me. Some people love them, thriving off the palpable levels of frenetic energy oozing out of every square inch of concrete and steel, longing to go from one novel excitement to the next. Tokyo is surely that, only times 38 million, and I can feel my inevitable departure from this megalopolis coming, and soon

"Okay D, so you've died and been reborn to a life that is shiny and new. That's great, but what now? What will you do with all that freedom and time in the sunshine? Any plans to open up shop, get further educated and tie the knot? How about that 401k, isn't life better in old age with a check coming every day? Even with a new lease on life, you'll still have to strive, still have to fight, isn't that right?"

Life seems to haunt us with lessons we are not prepared to meet with grace or the passion often required to rise to the occasion. How so? How can passion and haunting lessons be mixed together in the same sentence? It should be no surprise to any of you that lessons are there for our own benefit, otherwise we'd call them something else, like tragedies. But what could be more tragic than a life without lessons? A life devoid of growth? Such things do exist, and never so much as now, for at the same time we are capable of living lives devoid of choice, following a prescription that one facet of society or culture has set, we are also creating machines with unchangeable programming that act in our world, changing it as programmed. Yet we are not so perfectly static as them, not yet. Our programs can change the moment we recognize them as merely that and chose a different way. 

Who was saint Patrick? Nobody seems to care. All I see is green, and all I hear is cheers! Needless to say this isn't about some dead guy canonized by the church, nor is it about drinking, though that will take a roll in this episode. You see March 17th is not only a day to lose yourself in drink and swirls of green attire, it's also my mothers birthday, and today I was feeling a little glum, as both her and I are alone in a foreign country, feeling the weight of our lonely paths in this world.

After having gotten a good dose of culture and Ramen I looked up things that might interest me, such as anime and video games as I mentioned in chapter 1, and all signs pointed to the Mecca for such things, a place known as electric city or Akihabara. Taking the train there was simple and fast, being only two stops from my Capsule. Boy was this an experience, even before getting to the station I noticed that many of the passengers were foreigners and Japanese people alike dressed like anime characters, a sight which became inescapable the moment the train arrived. Akihabara is known as the Mecca for all things "Geek" in Japanese culture and for good reason. Think Times Square cranked up to 11 and filled with the most out of this world characters. The feeling you get there is one of pure fantasy, but its edged with a harsh electric assault one cannot ignore or escape. I took advantage of the opportunity though, having found a place I wanted to go before arriving. A place known as Super Potato.

Now that we’ve laid the ground work for my relationship to travel in the past and my feelings as they’ve changed in this massive city, lets get down the business of exploring the people and the culture of japan as I’m experiencing them. My first order of business after overcoming my extreme lack of sleep and loneliness was to explore Tokyo, a total impossibility I assure you, as neither my time in Japan nor my wallet would allow for a complete trekking of 845 square miles of super city above ground, 300 kilometers of railways underground, along with 18 kilometers of shopping malls built into that 300 so... yeah, you have to pick and choose your battles.