Day 53: 23 May 2009

LOCATION: TOKYO (ASAKUSA)
MOOD: INTRUIGED
LISTENING TO: GORILLAZ – FEEL GOOD

HEAVY MENTAL:

I woke up around 10 this morning, which was a little later than I had planned but still in time to catch Henry and introduce Ryan to him. The two of them set off on what would turn out to be an epic insider's tour of Akihabara, while I headed back inside to take care of some administrative matters. When I got back to the dorm to get my laptop there was a new face. Well, it was mostly long hair and beard, but there was some face as well. My new roommate was a Jewish computer programmer from Washington DC who also happened to be a massive heavy metal head. The beard was pretty much a giveaway (he said that with his current look he was pretty much restricted to two styles of music: heavy metal or folk), but it helped that he also had his guitar with him. I quipped that he could also easily audition for The Passion 2, assuming he could get past the whole Jewish-Christian thing.

Unfortunately the guitar was all that he had with him, given that the airline had lost his bags and he was waiting to move into his new place. He had moved to Japan to take up a programming job with a video game company and was in the process of getting everything organised, but as he didn't have a Japanese mobile phone yet he was confined to waiting at the hostel for a call from his realtor.

I wasn't in a particular rush to head out and as he was a pretty interesting person I decided to stay in and keep him company for a while. He educated me about life in the US capital, heavy metal and the state of Judaism in the States, and we had a pretty eye-opening conversation about the political scenes in Australia, America and Japan. By the time we finished talking it was pretty much the middle of the afternoon so I contented myself with knocking a few more items off my shopping list and chilling out around town.