It wasn’t raining when I woke up this morning. Nor was there any construction noise. Pulling back the curtain revealed a sight I haven’t seen in many years: a snowstorm. Rooftops and sidewalks were covered in white, and the air was filled with swirling flakes.

I was at a loss. What does one do when it snows? The only thing I could do was go out. I looked in the guidebooks for something indoors-y and found the Roppongi Hills Mall, so I bundled up, grabbed my camera, and headed for the door.

The need for an umbrella soon became apparent, so I stopped off at a convenience store for one. The snow tapped on the fabric, and occasionally a large clump of the stuff would strike with the force of a small bird. Walking was also surprisingly difficult; with the temperature hovering around freezing, previously tramped-on ice would re-freeze into a slippery mass.

Muttering about how I could have chosen Boracay instead of Tokyo, I trudged to the sickeningly colored subway station and took a couple of trains to Roppongi. The trains have heaters installed beneath the seats that warm your feet, unless you’re sitting on the end. Perhaps they figure that if you have the armrest on one side, you don’t need a heater. Nobody was talking on their cellphones, but most people were texting.

I arrived and took a series of escalators up to Roppongi Hills, a mall built on many confusing levels around the Mori Tower, the top of which disappeared into the snowy mist. The shops were all exclusive and boring, and despite the fact that I never quite knew when I was on ground level, I quickly tired of the place. It felt like a video game level where you can’t find the exit. Everyone there seemed to have the same mobile phone model, a big blocky blue or red thing.

I’d wanted to go to the observation deck, but the lady at the counter told me there wasn’t anything to see in weather like that, so I decided to go walk around the neighborhood instead. I walked by some ritzy apartment blocks, over an underpass, through another, past some American kids throwing snowballs at each other, half expecting to be hit with a big frozen rock at any moment, and into a nondescript residential area.

The houses were mostly Taiwanese-style tile monstrosities, with only a few more Japanese designs. Roppongi used to be home to a US military base, and there are quite a few embassies in the area. I walked by the pleasant South African Embassy cottage and some others. A woman in black, far underdressed for the weather, escorted a group of older, more warmly dressed people down the street to their cars; when they’d gone their way, she scurried back up the street with her arms wrapped around her. Policemen stood on almost every other street corner, because of the embassies I guess. In the distance, the clouds parted and I caught a glimpse of Tokyo Tower rising over the rooftops.

Before long my right shoe failed in its water resistance due to walking through the snow. Oddly enough, it squeaks more than the left one as well. I walked back towards the subway station, stopping in some quiet alleys bordered by traditional wooden houses, quiet in the snow. It was a beautiful, peaceful sight.

I read in the guidebook that Ikebukuro was home to some of the largest shopping centers in Asia, so I took the subway all the way out there, counting two fashionable and completely unrelated French horn cases on the way, which has got to be some kind of record. It was almost dark by the time I stepped out of the station, but the snow wasn’t too bad so I walked around the area a bit before going to the shopping centers. It’s a nice area with interesting pedestrian alleys lined with huge neon signs and small noodle shops.

I found some more electronics stores, and was pleasantly surprised to find that here they actually let you try out headphones, including the in-ear types, something unheard of in Taiwan. I tried on many sets and found a Kenwood model that did a good job with my iPod and bought it. Another huge electronics shop is Bic Camera, and again they let customers play around with all the different kinds of cameras. So I did. I wonder if they’d mind if I slipped my CF card into them for a comparison shot or 12.

Japan doesn’t seem to have countdown timers at street crossings, something you see everywhere in Taipei. In fact, their subway system seems a bit antiquated as well. I guess once you have something that more or less works, there’s no need to replace it every time something better comes along, but still, it’s a bit disappointing in light of Japan’s reputation for being so very advanced in technological areas. Perhaps that reputation peaked in the 1980’s.

Finally I visited Seibu Department store, which is utterly and needlessly huge. It just goes on and on. It’s not that interesting to begin with, though, being an older store, so going on and on isn’t a good thing. Eventually I gave up on it and went to the HMV to look at DVDs.

When I exited, the snow had started up again, coming down in huge, clumpy flakes. A guy in a panda costume stood on a corner holding a sign and shivering visibly.

I decided to walk back to the subway station before the sidewalks got slippery again. It was past closing time by that point anyway, and I was tired. Again, the streets were deserted when I emerged from the subway station near my hotel. The hot bath felt particularly good.

It may snow again tomorrow and/or Tuesday. I’m not sure what I’ll do in that case. My friend the Stupid Bear suggested the Asakusa temple area, which sounds interesting. As I’ve mentioned, I have no itinerary or solid plans except for visiting the Ghibli Museum on Friday. Just keep playing it by ear, I guess.

I actually slept well on the beanbag pillow; maybe I should buy one to take back with me.

At about 8:30am I learned of a possible reason why this hotel is so cheap, in addition to the basic nature of the rooms: construction equipment began operating next door, where they’re digging a large hole in the ground. It didn’t really bother me as I went to bed around midnight, i.e. relatively early, last night. I’d gotten in touch with Arndsan, a flickr acquaintance, and he said we could meet at Ueno Station in the afternoon, so with the morning to myself I decided to check out the neighborhood around the hotel.

Downstairs, I paid for another day’s ticket (a lot of things here, including restaurants, utilize a ticket system, which makes sense when you think about it) and handed my key over to the guy at the desk, who happens to have the same surname as I do (“Hayashi” in Japanese) The weather outside was still cold and slightly overcast. Dodging people lined up in front of stores, I bought a mask to keep my nose warm and found it tolerable as I walked up the street to the station, crossed the Panda Bridge without sighting any actual pandas, and entered Ueno Park.

A sign by the pathway told visitors not to feed the birds or the cats, yet both species, at least the ones I saw, were impressive in size and utterly unafraid of people. You’d think one would have won out over the other by now; perhaps they’ve arrived at a truce.

I walked by a temple and onto a kind of land bridge between two of the several lakes in the middle of the park. Out in the water a man sat forlornly by himself in a pink swanboat, causing it to list noticeably to one side.

After exiting the park I then walked over to the market alongside and underneath the railway tracks, stopping by a Mister Donut just to make sure that it is as tasteless and awful as the ones in Taipei (it is, if possible, even worse). The market was very lively with cool retro signage and a very tempting hat store I might return to later if I have enough money.

After ordering lunch it occurred to me that people here don’t seem at all afraid of English. From the moment I enter a store they are entirely willing to refrain from running in fear for the back room, staying at the counter and actually greeting me in nothing but Japanese. Of course I can’t understand a thing they say and have to use gestures or writing, but as I’ve said before, I consider this to be my problem, not theirs.

While I was waiting for Arnd in front of the Hard Rock Cafe inside Ueno Station, I watched the people passing by. It seemed that everyone was wearing either black or tan. Tasteful, but a bit dull. I’m sure my big red jacket stood out in the crowd.

Arnd showed up and introduced himself as well as his lovely new Nikon D300, even allowing me to handle it and making me feel a bit ashamed of my old 20D. We then walked south towards Akihabara and the electronics stores there. Arnd, an architect, is from Germany and has lived here for a couple of years. He also likes to take pictures of the taxis, as, he observed, people here tend to limit themselves in terms of the color of their cars as well as their clothing, while the taxis run the whole spectrum and come in all kinds of flashy colors.

We walked to a shopping center where they have all of the newest cameras on display, actual working models you can fool around with and change lenses. We were both shocked at the machine-gun-like speed of the Canon 1D MkIII, and after playing with the 5D with a 17-40L lens, I once again confirmed that I would really like that camera.

We proceeded upstairs, where Arnd had heard that there was a golf range with a good view, but while we found the range, the view was blocked off. Then a woman who worked there politely kicked us out, so we went downstairs for drinks at a cafe. I was glad of this, as I’d been on my feet all day. While we drank, Arnd made various helpful suggestions for my time in Tokyo while looking at my guidebooks. Just outside the cafe I saw a sign for “Big Echo” karaoke. Finally, truth in advertising.

My curiosity had been peaked when Arnd mentioned a place one could get really cheap deals on just about anything, so we crossed a bridge as the sun set and visited a few unusual shops that seemed to have everything. “They don’t know anything about the goods they have,” Arnd explained. “They just sort of…have them.” We priced a 5D and after looking up the exchange rates, found it was just a little more expensive than they are in Taipei, but still cheaper than we’d seen in the other shops. It’s just as well; I really can’t justify the purchase.

Another of Arnd’s interests is Japanese action figures, so we visited a few such shops. I was sorely tempted to buy a certain figure, but again, I’ll wait and see how my financial situation ends up before I make a decision on that. We also visited some really gaudy Pachinko parlors. No photos were allowed at either type of venue. We did take shots of each other taking pictures in the streets nearby, though. Arnd got some really nice shots of some girls in a restaurant who were apparently from the Planet of Fashionable Communists. The D300 does a great job at high-ISO shooting, though if you zoom in you can see the processing and resulting slight loss of detail.

It was dinnertime, and Arnd had to go, so I had some food and walked around the area some more. It didn’t seem as cold to me as last night, though perhaps I’m just getting used to it. Even though it’s Saturday night, the streets emptied of people fairly quickly. As I walked, the city gave off a vibe not unlike New York City, at least to my mind. Perhaps it’s the cold weather, perhaps it’s the sheer size of the place, or maybe it’s just the availability of sidewalks. I walked around the elevated sidewalks by the station for a while, wondering if people were assuming that I was just another pedestrian occupied with the stress of his daily grind, when in truth nothing could have been further from the truth. I love exploring and being someplace new and different, and the only things on my mind were variations of “I wonder what’s over there.”

By the time I’d returned to the hotel, the streets were almost deserted. I got some breakfast stuff from Lawson’s and came back up to my tiny room, footsore and tired, and soaked in the small yet deep plastic tub located underneath the sink. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, but I haven’t decided what my rain plan is just yet.

Well, I’m in Tokyo, and wouldn’t you know it; my shoes have started squeaking again.

I didn’t sleep well last night. The anticipation kept me up late and woke me early. I managed to stuff everything I thought I’d need into my backpack and a totebag, lugged them across the bridge through the wet, miserable weather to the MRT station, and made my way to the airport bus station hut on Zhongxiao West Road. It seems odd that it’s only a hut, when they’re planning to build a whole dedicated MRT line out there. But for now, it’s a hut.

My flight was scheduled to leave from the old 60’s-era terminal, which looked dull and old. I noticed a monorail train moving between the terminals, but I’m not sure if anyone was riding it. This was the first time I’ve been made to dispose of all my liquids before going through security, which sucks as I’d brought some throat medicine I had to throw away. The area in front of the gates was filled with people glugging down bottled water they’d just purchased to keep themselves hydrated in the dry airplane atmosphere.

The boarding area seemed to hold more people than could possibly fit on the Cathay Pacific 747, but somehow they managed. I was the last to board and settled into a window seat that seemed markedly smaller than I’d remembered. But as the plane pierced the clouds and I saw the sun and blue skies for the first time in what seemed like weeks, my spirits rose as well.

The flight was about three hours long, and lunch was served. I ate chicken rice while watching cartoons and staring out the window looking for the Japanese coast to appear below. We approached and landed as the sun sank towards the horizon, taxiing slowly around Narita Airport bathed in the light of the sunset. The light was extraordinary, but the scratched plastic of the windows made photography of the scene next to impossible.

Immigration was a breeze. I noticed a lot of boisterous young Americans on the flight that came in just after ours, all dressed in shorts and T-shirts. None of the immigration officials had given me or my passport more than a cursory glance all day, but the customs guy did give me a double take before sending me on my way.

Down in the airport causeway, I had to find a way to access a map to the hotel that was in my email account. There was apparently no wifi in the airport, which surprised me, and the Internet kiosks needed 100-yen coins to operate. I purchased a bottle of water to make change, called up the map image and took a picture of the screen with my digital camera. Hopefully my email account won’t be hacked as a result.

Getting from the airport to Tokyo meant taking the Skyliner express train. The platform was quite chilly, but thankfully the train itself was heated. I wasn’t able to see much out the window, though, as it was completly dark outside by the time we departed. What I did see, however, was quite different from Taiwan. Neater, more orderly, with less steel bars and more window glass. It took over an hour to reach Ueno Station, where I switched to the subway to reach Nakaokachimachi Station, where my hotel was located on the map. The cold really hit me when I exited the station; I’m really not used to this kind of weather. It’s a dry cold, different from that in Taiwan.

I found the hotel, which is a very cheap, very basic arrangement of a tiny room with a single bed, a beanbag pillow, a TV that only works if you insert a coin, and a bathroom the size of a placemat. Still, it’s cheap and central, and there’s wifi, which I’m using to write this on as I look out the window at the street construction below. The workers have erected a big white balloon and bow as they instruct pedestrians to make a detour around their work area.

This area seems to have a lot of little restaurants that are open late. When I went out for dinner, I found that I really don’t understand anything at all. It’s almost refreshing in a way. Sure, I can read a lot of things, but hardly anyone speaks any English and the only Chinese speakers out there, I’m sure, are all tourists like me. The guy at the restaurant did write down all the different kinds of teas they have for me, which was uncommonly nice of him. Afterwards, when I walked to a convenience store to pick up a few things, I realized that my shoes were squeaking again. It must be the cold.

Tomorrow I might go meet up with a Flickr aquaintance at Harajuku. Hopefully it will be a little warmer during the day.