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Japan | Exploring Part I

By Minh | November 18, 2013

I’ve been lagging on posting my photos from Japan. So much shit has been accumulating in my life and I barely have the time to edit photos or even blog for that matter. Today i’ll be sharing some more exploring of Tokyo and some tips on where to visit and how to get around in Japan.

Waiting at the train can be fun if you try to make some cool motion hipster photos.

We decided to visit Shinjuku today a big city with a bunch of stuff to do.

In Japan they’re building upwards and so many shops are upstairs. We were looking for a restaurant at one point and couldn’t find it until we realized that it was on the 4th floor of the building.

What they say is true about Japan, there is WIFI everywhere. It is either locked or you have to pay to access it. What we did to get WIFI is use the convenience store’s WIFI like Lawson or Family Mart.

Busy streets.

VIP vans everywhere.

Somehow we ended up in Korea town and John was able to get us directions to the ramen shop we were looking for.

John’s new friend even led us there in his cute bike and jean shorts.

Finally time to eat!!

Some classic Ramen.

I got a tsukemen. It is ramen with the broth separated it was my first time eating ramen like this. It was delicious!

I love the city life.

John led us to this place called Golden Gai which is a district full of small bars that hold only 6-8 people at a time.

John very excited to go drinking.

So many small bars, there are about 400 of these bars. Bar hopping here would be so intense.

This looks like a pleasant bar to drink in.

Dark alley ways seem to be a normal thing around here. Sadly, the bars weren’t going to be open until 6pm. So we decided to go do some more exploring around the area.

Randomly spotted this EVO in front of someone’s house.

Passageway to a temple.

Some girls were filming something for a school project. You can see John in front of the temple interrupting the shoot.

A big ass crab.

It got dark quick, but the city lights illuminated the area nicely.

Random glass box that held this drawing of a house.

We decided to hit up this bar because they didn’t charge a table fee for foreigners who knew the secret password.

Some good old Jack Daniels.

The bartender loves what the movie Easy Rider has portrayed of America. He loves the vastness of America, the “freedom” and the open roads. His lifelong dream was to open a bar in Golden Gai and have Peter Fonda sit down at his bar one day. In Golden Gai, most bars charge a cover fee, but here if you are a foreigner and can read the password “Easy Rider” you can sit at his bar for free. The crazy thing about him is he works 24/7 because he is also a hardware engineer at Qualcomm. Bars around Golden Gai are open 6pm-6am.