Nagoya

This blog starts yesterday.
After chinese food and empty chinatown I thought my evening had surely come to an end. So I went back to my hostel.
It is the smallest I have ever been too. Like most japanese, not a word of english...

So in the hostel at midnight I meet Brycey, an australian guy from Melbourne and Maru from USA, Mississipi.
We hitted off real nice, I loved 'em right off the bet. Mary even lives here and has a great businessplan goinh on.
They had great stories to tell. I learned a lot about a lot. 😁

Soo for today I had a great and ambitious plan: take the bike and drive 400km west to Nagoya. Because appearently a belgian friend of mine is getting married there tomorrow (I discovered this when I asked if I could crash at his place.. 😆). He has lived in Japan for over 2 years now.

So I get ready, dress as warm as I could and left. It would be about 4h driving.
So here is a pic of me after 1h30 driving:

Its a good thing pictures dont capture motion or you'dd see how I'm close to hypothermia.
Yes. It was COLD. Awesome bike, awesome view while driving. But feeling bodyparts slowly dying takes away 'some' of the romance...

It was so bad I decided to cut my trip short. The risk of very bad things happening was something I did not need right there.
So after like 7k ¥ of toll 8 more to buy shinkansen ticket. Which is basicly a bullettrain that reaches speeds over 300km/h.

I managed to arrive in Nagoya by 18h. Just in time to join my friend and his other belgian friends for dinner. They came over for the marriage ceremony.

So I mingled with them and had a great evening. (Apart from my voice slowly slithering into nothingness, intense pain when swallowing and still that same. wretched. backpain.)

We had great food, good laughs and ended in the hotel's onsen. Which is the japanese model of wellness. Sauna, washing, hot and cold baths.

Here we were playing paper, stone, scizzors to see who would have to eat the raw wasabicoated octopuss. The soon to be wed came up with game and lost 😁

In an attempt to conquer the pains I took backmassage and feet massage at the vapsule hotel.
I was very relaxed, but within the hour in more pain.

All around this day was intense. I had to drag myself trough it. But it was nice 😊

Wether a day was good or bad is all about perspective. My body is in hell, my mind in heaven. Sorta like Yin and Yang.
maybe.
Or not.

It is so nice to meet new and interesting people everyday. Not having plans also means there is no pressure, I go where the current takes me.

Tomorrow: a traditional japanese wedding!

Oh today I witnessed epic burger on sale and got a glimps at whats in a japanese fridge. Randomness 😅

Today is D-DAY  !!

I was extremely excited for this moment.

I got up, still felt sorta crappy, troat, nose etc...

went downstairs and met up with the english and german girl from last night.

We had breakfast and lunch and talked about pretty much everything for 5 hours straight. My back started hurting again. Why? I did not listen to the doctor and had a few drinks last night... When someone tells you not to do something it's so much more likely to be doing it..... right?

Eventually we parted ways and I went out to get ... my motorcycle!!!!!

I arrived at the place around 16:00

Everthing seemed in order until I had to pay. They don't take cash (which is rare in Japan). I gave my mastercard, entered my pin, ...ERROR

From the gestures and japanese mumbling I could make up that my card did not have high payment enabled. That or my pin was wrong...

It took a long time, many pin enterings. I started worrying about my card getting blocked... so I looked up deutsche bank tokyo and found out they had an office 5km from here. Next thing I know, she is calling someone and giving all my mastercard information.

I wait some more...

She comes up to me - yes everything in order!!

In terrible english she explained that she had the limit raised (I think)

I was like superrelieved. Imagine not having the bike I always dreamed I'dd ride.........

So finally at around 17:00 I'm driving trough Tokyo.

Or rather.. crawling... the traffic jams were terrible.

Driving trough the middle in a strange country where right is left?

No way (not much anyway 😃)

So around 18:30 (!!!) I'm right outside Tokyo, my fingers, nose and lips frozen.

But still with a big smile. This bike is everything I dreamed of and more.

Such a smooth and pleasant ride 😆

The original plan was to go straight too Nagoya to meet a Belgian friend who is appearently getting married there...

This plan was an absolute no-go without dinner and better cold-protection.

So I spend over half an hour looking for good and cheap places to stay near where I was and in the direction of where I was going.

Yokohama central hostel was my best bet! I booked the wrong night (lol) and went there to drop my stuff and find some great chicken, beef and nuts in chinatown.

Then, finely, I updated this blog!!

Thanks guys for following my blog, I hope it's a good read.

Please feel free to leave comments. I'll gladly respond 😆

Expect some more pictures of my kickass ride 😎

***Warning*** this blog-entry contains extreme forms of explicit and offensive material.
Proceed at your own discretion.

Gomennasai!

Because of lack of batteries and abundance of social interaction, updates are slower then usual.

Lets catch up! Why english all of a sudden?
By popular demand. By one person. Yes, it is a girl. 😅

So yesterday I got up early, because my back hurt badly..
I went to the reception to ask for an adress to meet a physician or chiropracter.
They made an appointment for me and gave me directions.

Following the advice of a London girl I met in the hostel the other night, I decided to go to the gamer's district and found out about Japanese Hentai (which is basicly japanese porn in comic-form).. It.. I... Uhm..
See for yourself:

is this... children's.. porn?!

uhm..

I guess the closed nature of japanese peoples makes fantasies more... extreme.

Moving on...
She also pointed me to a tiny shop with a big load of really really old games and gameconsoles. It was nice to be reminded of the good old days 😊

Around noon I went back to the hotel because i felt worn out. The backpain was still as strong as day one and my troat and nose still hurt a lot.
So i decided to respect my body and rest/slept for 3 hours with Shpongle-music in my ears. When I woke Manami texted me that she went to the hospital with the same symptoms as me. They told her she had a fever and most likely the flu.
Yea... that explained why I felt so terrible, haha!

So finally I went to the chiropracter. And boy was I glad I did. He explained to me how my bad posture caused my frequent neck and shoulder pains, and how my lower backpains are related to my hips not sitting in their rightful place.
so he pushed and cracked a bunch of things, told me about good posture and pressure points and gave me excersices to avoid these pains in the future. He continued to explain I should avoid alcohol for a few days, which seemed easy, because I only drank 4 units for my entire stay, plane included.
I was in shock and aw at the great deal I got here...

this haircut of mine... *embarrassed* as the japanese would say 😁

This was until I wanted to pay....
Since my parents raised me to be very careful with cash abroad, I checked my cash right before I entered the chiropracter's room.

'That will be 8000¥ (65€) please, would you like to pay by creditcard?'

I open the pocket with my money, passport and other valuebables to find out everything was scrambled and the money... missing (68.000¥....)
My mind started racing for a good strategy.
How will i get them to give my money back?

I realised I had to give them opportunity to put it back and I knew they would play the dumb card. So I decided to look my doctor strictly in the eyes, giving the assistant space to set things right. I kept repeating how I was a 100% sure I came in with the cash and mentioned that calling the police was my best option.

After a while of back and forth talking, him asking me how much I had with me (thank god I had a good idea), checking my pocket again and checking the crate where I had to put my stuff, he suddenly asked to check all my other pockets. (I have a strict each pocket has certain purpose system for the sake of not losing things.) I checked the other pockets and ... voila: my cash nicely folded.

I was stunned, wad it there form the beginning because I somehow screwed my pocketsystem? Did the assistant actually put it back while talking?

One thing is for sure, I was extremely embarressed. After all I may have made wrong accusations..

Glad that I wasn't robbed, I went back to the hotel where I was invited to eat Takoyaki. Which is eggbased.. something. Sorta like panckes but in a ball.

Here I met some cool germans, a canadian guy and an argentinian guy.
Great stories, good fun. Near the end of the evening a core group remained.
Lateron a yopparai japanese guy joined in and made the eve all the more fun.
we shared music and had many laughs. It was hilarious to see how the german girl (who also felt ill) had to literally find cover to avoid getting kissed.. Some guys fail to grasp to concept of subtle flirtuation... or they were just drunk. Maybe both.

There, since you guys did not receive updates for 2 days, I decided to make this one more thoroughly. Hopefully the wall of text was endurable!

Tune in for more... in like 30 minutes 😂