I flew into Osaka, so I was able to save Tokyo until the end of my Japanese adventure and at this point i figured I was saving the best for last.  I am typically not a huge fan of large Asian cities, but for some reason Japan is different and Tokyo was an invigorating city to be in.  I booked a hostel near the centre of town and upon arriving, met a German guy who was interested in heading out and seeing the town.  I dropped off my bags then immediately headed into the Akihabara neighborhood.  We decided we wanted to find a place that would do Namihoda which is all you can drink for a few hours for a pretty cheap price.

We asked the hostel and they helped us make a reservation at a nearby place that did it and so we spent the next 2 hours drinking beer and Sake and preparing ourselves for our first night in Tokyo.

We walked through Akihbara and explored some of the anime shops, weird adult stores and an arcade that had a VR set up in the top which was pretty cool, but basically just an HTC VIVE with one of their tracking pucks on the end of a gun.

I found an open box figurine at one of the stores for $3 and since I was heading back to Canada after my short stint in Tokyo, I figured I might as well by it.  Mind you I had just finished 2 hours of beer drinking and may have made an impulse buy.

The evening went off pretty normally and after a lot of wandering, we called it a night.

The next morning I woke up and set out on my first day of exploring the gigantic city.  I still had one day of my train pass left and this allowed me to travel on the tokyo JR lines which surrounded the city.  I decided to pick at random several stops, walk around then go somewhere else.  I asked Twitter and Facebook for suggestions and then set off.

My first stop was JR Ikebukuro Station which is in the North West part of the city.  It had a big mall, some theaters and a typical spread of shops and food places.  Wasn’t all that interesting, but was still a nice walk.

I went back on the train and picked my next station as JR Yoyogi Station which was still west of the city center but a bit further south.  When I got off the train there were signs for Meiji Jingu Shrine which appeared to be in the centre of a large park, so i headed in that direction and was pleasently surprised by a very quiet forested area with a big temple in the middle.

There was a bonzai competition happening within the shrine and some of the entrants were very impressive.

I got my mom I’m OK photo and chatted with a girl who was doing a school project in which she has to talk to tourists and ask them questions about themselves.  I think it was for an english class but i am not sure.  We had a conversation about my travels and what kind of things I liked doing on my travels as well as photography as she mentioned she was interested in it.

As I wandered through the park towards the city, I accidentally stumbled on Harajuku area which is basically an area for young teenagers to get their bright colored strange fashion accessories, like cat ears, sparkly items and whatever other random accessory young people can still pull off.  There was a lot of pink and the things being sold were similar to what you would see in a hot topic or other store that sells interesting fashion accessories.

There was a brewery in the neighborhood, but i was there too early and it was closed.  I was hungry though and suddenly had a craving for a burrito as I walked by a Mexican place.

It was a pretty small burrito although tasty… considering.

I walked through the area and then headed North to Shinjuku as I heard that this was a popular place.  I realized that it was huge and that I would have to come back to visit this area and opted to jump on the train and head to the next station instead of spending too much time here.

The next station I ended up at was Nakano as per a suggestion from a friend on Twitter.  I wasn’t really sure what to there but wandered into the  market area and checked out the more dingy adult arcades where the people were betting on virtual horse races, playing the penny pushed games and smoking up a storm.

It was an interesting area and enjoyable to just wander around and outside there was a few alleyways and interesting shops and stuff, but they were all closed.  I headed to the last station of the evening which was Ochanomizu Station located north of the city nearby my hostel which is where I ended up getting off to turn in for a quick rest and resupply.

After a bit of a rest, I was scheduled to meet up with Shota who is the guy I met in Hiroshima who owns the brewery in Tokyo.  There were a few brewery events that evening and so he invited me along.

We started out at a growler shop he frequents that is mostly a to go growler fill shop but also sells individual glasses.  They had his breweries beer on tap and we had a nice chat with the guy who runs it.

We had a few beers there and then headed across town to one of his favorite craft beer bars who was hosting an event to launch a new brewery.  It was pretty packed and the vibe was pretty good.  The brewmaster and the brewmaster who taught her how to brew were both in attendance and they both chatted with me about beer etc.  It was a great time and the company was great.  I taught the brewer about untappd and how it was a pretty good tool to promote her beer and brewery.  I added the brewery and the beer to untappd but secretly hoped she wouldn’t check it because the beer was actually not that goof and i rated it poorly.  As with all new breweries though, things can only improve!

We had the two beers offered by the new brewery, Shota exchanged his name card and we decided to head off to the next brewery opening party on the agenda for the evening.

Apparently in Japan, in order to apply for the proper permits, you have to have the brewing system all set up and ready to go before applying.  Once you apply it takes up to a year to get the license and so the large capital investment required is made up to a year before any income is seen from the brewery, which makes things a little difficult.  Smoke beer factory has been open for about a year and has operated as a craft beer restaurant up until this day as they were waiting for their permits to come through.

Today was their launch day and to celebrate they did a beer/food pairing for a pricey $30.  Similar to the previous beer launch party, the beers were not actually that great and they really needed a bit more time to get better.  The event was pretty cool and they had all you can eat snacks which hopefully made the $30 a little bit more worthwhile.

After eating a bunch of the food and finishing my tasting tray we decided to move on to a craft beer bar that was nearby.  It had a lot of beer from the US and also a decent ammount from local breweries.

At the bar we met a bunch of other cool people drinking craft beer and started talking to them.

Eventually Shota needed to go home but in conversation we were talking about how no trip to Japan is complete without going to Japanese Karaoke.  The two guys that had joined us were completely down and so we set off on an evening of adventure.  First off though we needed to stop in at another craft beer bar in the area, so that one of the guys could say hello to his favorite bartender.  We ordered another round and continued to converse and it was a great time.  We headed over to a karaoke place and sang the night away for several hours.  My the time we were done, it was pretty late, so we just took a cab to the one of the guys places and he graciously offered me one of his spare mattresses.  It was a super fun day/night and it was made possible by the friendliness of the local Japanese people.  What a great start to Tokyo!

The next morning, I took the walk of shame and headed back to my hostel but in an adventure walk fashion. I walked along canals, and explored parts of the city I had not seen yet.

It was a great walk and a beautiful day.  I returned to the hostel and had a bit of a chill afternoon, while I tried to decide what I was going to do in the afternoon.  Shota had told me about a beer festival that was happening in the afternoon, that he was volunteering at which looked pretty cool.  It was a $45 to enter but was 3.5 hours of unlimited tastings with a very large number of Japanese brewers represented from all over the country.  I decided to go for it and therefore was off to my first beer festival alone.  I really wasn’t too worried about meeting people as beer festivals tend to be a very social affair (at least in the US).  I headed over to the Tokyo BeerFes and was given my taster glass and let loose amongst over 50 brewers from around Japan.

The best thing was that they gave a list of beers being poured from each brewer, so i could track and comment on the beers that I liked, or didn’t like.

Honestly when it comes down to hit, the festival was pretty fun and the people were very nice, but the Japanese beer scene needs some time and work to improve.  In a typical California beer festival I will usually drink a lot of decent beers and a few real “Hits” but at this one, there were some pretty bad beers, a lot of mediocre beers and only a few good ones.  I don’t know if I even really tasted a “Hit”.  It was a really good way to fully explore the Japanese beer scene though!  There one sour beer on the menu was so bad that I had to pour it out.  Kinda reminded me of tasting like vomit.

At the beer festival, I started talking to these two american guys who loved Japan so much they moved there and tried to find work after the fact.  They were pretty cool guys and after chatting and drinking together most of the festival, we decided to make plans for the rest of the evening.  We needed to get food and we were in the neighborhood of Shota’s brewery, so since I haven’t gone there yet and they had food, we decided to go there for dinner.

It was a great little brewery and I hope it does well for him.  After drinking a beer and having some food at Inazuma we headed to a bar that apparently had a good DJ.

The night continued with a lot of Dancing!  I mean a lot of dancing.  Do much dancing in fact that when we left the bar, it was bright out and I didn’t even realize it was 5:30am.

We had some fun on the way home and were lucky that the trains had started running for the day.

I returned to my hostel for a much needed nap!  On the bright side, I had already achieved my step goal for the day and then some!  There were a few japanese guys that appeared to also have a lot of fun the night before, but didn’t make it to 5:30am as we did.

Although this type of thing happened all over Japan and was completely normal.  You could pass out with your wallet in one hand and your phone in the other and everyone would just step over you.  Nothing would be stolen and the police would ignore you.

This post has gotten to a decent length and I was heading a bit south to Yokohama, so i will start a new post for that!