When I was in Nara and decided to come back to Tokyo I sent out about ten Couch Surfing requests. Most replied and said they couldn't host. One guy, David from France, said I could stay Thursday and Friday night if I was still looking for a place. I had already spoken with Mebae and was planning on staying with her Friday and Saturday nights, so I took up David on his offer for Thursday only. David had over five hundred friends and positive references on Couch Surfing and he gave me advice on how to deal with Tomo, so I wasn't worried about him. I was right- David is great.
I felt awful after my night with in Roppongi, but I pulled myself together and met David at a park very near his apartment on Thursday afternoon. He always has Couch Surfers and tonight was no different. In addition to myself there would be two guys from Portugal and a couple from Poland staying at David's. I was the first to arrive. David was busy, but made sure I knew I was welcome. He is French, but speaks English fluently. In addition to Spanish, Portuguese, and probably a half dozen other languages. While David was cleaning his apartment I started chatting with GGG. We decided to meet up for a late lunch/early dinner. I let David be and headed back to Roppongi to see GGG.
GGG and I went to Coco Curry. Probably not the best choice after the night I'd had, but hindsight is 20/20, right? I hung out with GGG for a couple hours and ran some errands with him. It was nice to just talk and joke around a bit. When we said goodbye this time we knew it probably was the final goodbye. He was leaving the next day for the Izu islands for the weekend, then I was leaving on Monday evening to go back to Osaka to catch my plane on Thursday. I had, for the record, looked into changing my flight to Beijing to depart from Tokyo instead of Osaka, but it couldn't be done.
When I went back to David's, the Portuguese guys had arrived, but were out. David said they would be back in about an hour, then we would go out for dinner. The Polish couple wasn't coming until late. While I was waiting for the Portuguese guys I was chatting a bit with my new friend Tim. We made plans to meet up in Shibuya the next day. When the Portuguese guys came back imagine my surprise when it was the same two guys I had met at Yadoya hostel a few days earlier! Seriously, what are the chances in a city so big? I hadn't caught their names at the hostel... they were Pedro and Diego. When we went out the three of them were speaking in Portuguese. Then David apologized and said they should speak in English because I didn't understand. I said "Thanks. English or Spanish is fine." So we spoke in Spanish because all four of us had lived in Spain at some point for an extended amount of time. My Spanish was the worst, so they did most of the talking. I found I could understand much more than I realized, but when I tried to say something it took a lot of thinking. I was just out of practice. And very tired. It's exhausting enough to switch your brain to another language, much less when you haven't spoken it properly for more than six months and when you're so tired you can barely think in your first language. I fell asleep shortly after dinner (well, they dined, I had tea) and didn't meet the Polish couple until the morning.
In the morning I was going to meet Tim in Shibuya. I was going to Mebae's that evening and although I'm sure it would have been OK to leave my stuff at David's, his apartment was kind of out of the way, so I packed it all with me to Shibuya. I said goodbye to David and the Portuguese guys and we said we would find/add each other on Facebook. They also said when I unhid my Couch Surfing profile they would leave positive references for me to combat the negative things Tomo said about me. I got to Shibuya right on time and Tim was very patient with me while I found a locker, shoved my backpack in it, then went to search for change to pay for the locker. No mind, though, because I was very patient with Tim later when he went shopping in Harajuku. Tim and I walked a lot that day. Mainly we just looked at shops and chatted. We found a hole-in-the-wall place for lunch which was really a bar with three choices for meals. We had Japanese spaghetti and it was quite good.
I had told Tim about Akihabara, so we took the subway to the area. When we came out of the subway I realized that when I went to the sex shop before with GGG I was not paying attention- I just followed GGG. Then I remembered the giant Sega store that was nearby, so we asked a Japanese man where the Sega store was (because we couldn't just ask where the sex shops were). The man spoke no English, but he understood "Sega" and motioned for Tim and I to follow him. The man was walking a bicycle towards a van, then motioned for Tim and I to get in the van. So we got in the van. The man climbed in the trunk with his bike and his friends were driving and in the front seat. Tim got in the van first and the door shut of its own accord. The back windows were tinted and when the door shut I had a flash image of the Japanese mafia kidnapping Tim and speeding down the impossible to navigate streets of Tokyo then demanding an outrageous ransom from me. *I retain rights to any movies following plot* It didn't play out as exciting as all that, thankfully. I just opened the door and got in. The nice Japanese men dropped Tim and me off directly in front of the Sega store. I still couldn't find the sex shop, though.
We wandered around and I found a "Duty Free" store that sold mostly cameras. Perfect! I found one very similar to the Canon Powershot I lost. I was looking for one with a viewfinder in addition to the screen that is on all digital cameras because it doesn't drain the battery as quickly, but was told that feature has not been made for a few years. I settled for a blue one that seemed as close as I could get to my old camera. I wanted one like what I had because I understood all the functions and aspects of it. I was a little disappointed with this new camera, then in Beijing discovered it's actually much better than the one I lost! I didn't have my passport with me (I keep it hidden in a locked locker in the hostels when I can and only carry a photocopy), but to avoid the Japanese tax the photocopy was no good. No matter, even with the tax I paid less than I would have in the US. Tim bought something at the Duty Free store as well. He probably got the discount because Aussies always have their passports on their persons. That's when he realized he left the shoes he bought in Shibuya at the bar in Harajuku. I asked if he wanted to go back, but we both knew we wouldn't be able to stumble upon the place again. Ah well.
Just when Tim and I were about to give up on finding the sex shops in Akihabara (they seriously are all over the place! It was a bit embarrassing that I couldn't find one), I saw across the street Diego and Pedro! That makes three times that we randomly met in one of the most densely populated cities in the world. What are the chances? Where is Sheldon Cooper when you need him... We chatted with the Portuguese guys for a while and they didn't know where the sex shops were either. It was time for me to go meet Mebae anyway. Tim was going to join Mebae and me and some of Mebae's friends for karaoke the next evening, so we said a quick goodbye and all went our separate ways.
I knew what subway line I needed to take to Mebae's, but the ticket agent didn't speak English and when he told me "Track 2" I just got on the next train on Track 2. Too bad that was an express train to a station much farther than Mebae's stop and I didn't know for quite a while. Then when I discovered I was on the wrong train I couldn't notify Mebae because I didn't have her mobile phone number- only her Facebook and I didn't have wifi. Then I missed a call from a Japanese number I didn't recognize. I could not call the number back because it is not allowed on the subway, but I texted and asked if it was Mebae. I told her (or the stranger) what happened. Then I got a text message from another Japanese number that said "I'm Mebae. Where are you now? Are you OK?" I told her I was fine and that I would get to the station as soon as I could. I arrived one hour late. I asked her later how she got my number and she said she found searched my friends on Facebook and found Tim (I had mentioned that my friend named Tim would like to join us for karaoke) and she apparently sent him a message looking for my number. Wow. Tim didn't say anything to me about it later. But hey, thank goodness for Facebook once again, right?
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