The Tokyo airport was very large and not near the city. I had to take a van for what seemed to be a couple hours to the train station. Tokyo was similar to Korea because the people look similar the infrastructure is built up with many large buildings jammed together. But Tokyo was clearly more built up and cleaner. The main difference between Tokyo and Seoul is the difference in personality between the citizens. Koreans are very loud and are always laughing and smiling, but the Japanese were very somber and walked very fast as if they were late for something. There was a marked difference in dress also. Koreans dress very formally with suits and black clothing, whereas the Japanese dress down more. I saw a lot more of them dressed in blue jeans. The first thing I did when I got off the bus was walk down a narrow road to have a bowl of noodles. I immediately noticed how expensive Tokyo was after looking at the menu, but the place was very clean and smartly decorated. After that I took the subway to the center where I got a veggie Subway sandwich and a drink for six bucks. I can get a Subway sandwich at home for three and a half bucks. Then I went to the biggest arcade I have ever seen. It had two levels and was filled with lots of games I have never seen before. It seemed like the social scene of the teenagers was centered around the arcades dance games, because there was a group of about ten kids surrounding each beat step game religiously watching the participant.

I had been thinking about dancing in Tokyo at one point because I had been working out and I had met a guy in Denver who said he went there as part of a Chip 'n Dales troupe and make 75 thousand bucks in one month, so I asked some people if there were any Chip n Dales type dance places. I asked a few people if

they spoke English and a few of them decisively said no. But I found a waiter walking down the road who took it personally upon himself to take me and ask everyone on the street where a place was. He asked an old lady and she non chalontly gave directions to a place down the road, so the waiter took me about four blocks out of his way to find the place but we were successful. After dealing with that guy I had noticed that the Japanese people will either totally ignore you and not even give you the time of day, or they will go totally out of their way and personally drop you off at where you want to go. They didn't seem to understand the idea of just pointing me in the right direction. Sometimes it made it kind of a pain to find my way because I would have to ask like fifteen people before someone was willing to help me. I had this experience a lot around the metro with people taking me by the hand and taking me all the way to the metro stop. I wish I knew how to say ''OK that's enough you can go on your way now'' in Japanese. I felt invisible in Japan compared to Korea. In Korea people stare at me a lot more and approach me wanting to talk to me, but in Japan that didn't happen even once.

The subway in Tokyo is ridiculously expensive. It costs three bucks just to ride one line, and if you have to transfer you have to pay another three bucks! So what if you have to get to a place that takes three separate subway lines?! Because of how expensive the subways were there I was surprised that I hardly saw any people commuting by bicycle.

The foreigners I saw walking the streets of Tokyo were different than in Seoul and there were a lot more of them. In Seoul the people were a lot more dressed down and generally younger, whereas in Tokyo the Westerners were very somber looking and dresses like million dollar executives. While I was walking the streets looking for the dance bar I ran across a couple discos that only allowed Japanese. I walked in a couple of bars that were just Americans; the Hard Rock Cafe being one of them, which was totally packed with partying people. I saw a lot of Black people working there in restaurants, I saw lots of black people working the streets in the pedestrian section trying to get people into bars. One very persistent and annoying black man approached me and was trying to get me to just walk into his bar, but I didn't want to. He asked me to guess where he was from and so I guessed some African countries and he got mad and told me he was from Jamaica. I noticed that the Japanese like making sex symbols out of the women. Everywhere I turned I saw drop dead Japanese girls dressed up in the streets. They must have been dancers or prostitutes. There were rooms all over the place were you pay to see a girl do a strip dance on the other side of the glass, but there were no places for guys. The guy who talked to me must have been on a special tour or something. I don't think I would have ever actually danced in a Chip 'n Dales that anyway.

The other weird thing about Japanese people is how they are always saying ''hi'', which means ''ok''. They would pronounce it in a very quick and powerful way as if they were sneezing the word out. They said ''hi'' so much I was almost cracking up to myself everywhere I went because they were always saying it. For example I would present a drink I wanted to buy to the cashier and she would say ''hi'' and take my money and then say ''hi'' again.

Tokyo was very expensive to get a place to stay in. I heard that the cheapest place to stay were small beds that slide out of the wall. That would have been interesting but it wasn't worth the 30 bucks that I heard they costed, so I found a place to camp under a bush on the other side of a tall metal fence in a park. It was a little drizzly that night but I slept well. My brother later told me that it actually is legal to camp out in the parks in Tokyo as long as you are up before the sun rises. My brother did that but was awakened by a foot of an angry territorial man in his ribs. Personally I would never have done that. As a rule I usually only camp where no one can see me which generally isn't that hard to do.

My first full day there I walked around the parks looking at the parks and the beautifully trimmed trees. Then I went to the imperial palace which is where the

Emperors of Japan lived for like a thousand years or something. The palace was was up on a hill surrounded by a wide mote. The palace itself wasn't that big but it was surrounded by a very large and pretty garden.

After the palace I walked down the bike path full of fit looking athletes a couple of blocks to the children's science museum which was very good. While I was touring the museum I got the impression that the Japanese are very intelligent people who have a very developed sense of how they want their world to look like in the future. They had models of underground buildings and parking garages, and a lot of interesting interactive science exhibits that taught me a lot.

My final day there was a Monday so I went to the Korean consulate. The consulate was kind of tucked away in an obscure corner of the city and took me a lot of time walking around looking for it. I quickly learned that the Japanese call the Koreans ''Honguk''. At the embassy the girl told me that I couldn't get a visa on such short notice but I told her that my plane was leaving the next day so she gave me one.

I camped in the same place as I did the night before, and got up early the next morning because I had to catch the plane back to Korea. I had a little trouble finding a place to eat so early, and walked into a fancy hotel, but after seeing that a small breakfast with a tea, two eggs, and a piece of bread for eleven bucks, I had to back out. The waiter was understanding though and told me where I could find something to eat that was more reasonably priced. After I had breakfast I went back to the airport and flew back to Seoul after three days in Tokyo.