I lived there for over 1yr. in 1990’s in Roppongi, Tokyo. I fell in love with Japan the people, site seeing and shopping.

Roppongi, Tokyo

Japan is such a unique and different place. Everybody needs to make a trip there just to see and travel to different cities from the main city Tokyo. I really loved it there. All the city buildings are stacked up on top each other, side-by-side and into the basements. Shopping is particularly fun because everything is wrapped and presented so beautifully. Sometimes kind of scary because there would be a little trimer earthquakes every once in a while.

My girlfriend and I stayed at a nice hotel and had our laundry serviced, and when we got it back, every single piece was individually wrapped in individual plastic bags. Even our socks were wrapped an individual piece of plastic. Was pretty wild!

Every week my friends and I would take the train and explore more areas outside of Tokyo’s main city Roppongi. The styles that people wore were just whatever they felt that day and of original styles. Of course there’s always going to be trends, but for the most part, I think they’re styles pretty cool. The cooler thing I noticed is they wouldn’t just dress let’s punk or goth. They would mix the two together with these wild color, pallets and patterns. Has seen below. This is just an example of how they were dress. Love it!

Mount Fuji for the weekend

One weekend we went and stayed at the Hilton at Mount Fuji. It was pretty cold and snowing outside, which gave it a completely different feel than living in the city coolest things that I can remember where the Jacuzzi was outside in the snow. We had a seven course meal where we sat on the floor in our room and geisha girls would come in and bring us each of our courses. I am not a big fan of anything more then California roll. So after our dinner, we went down to the closest McDonald’s and I got a hamburger with french fries. Mind you I was in my early 20s and the food was quite unusual for our main course. I do remember it was barely dead octopus and a bunch other things. I can’t remember just remember that they did not look appetizing in anyway. I think the food is what I had the most hard time with because I’m definitely a meat and potato girl.

Vending Machines & Love Hotels

On every street corner, you will see vending machines that have everything in it from beer, snacks , live crabs, ramen, soup, and dirty, women’s underwear. no, this is not a typo… It is a true story Japanese are obsessed with women’s underwear. So cool that you can just walk up and purchase a beer out of a vending machine. Kind of funny because I think it’s after 12 midnight all the vending machines will lock down. Yes, I said live crab. I’ve seen them on the subway just about getting ready to board and there periodically through the city. I guess there is no restrictions on what can go inside the vending machine. Once someone told me that they saw kittens and puppies in a vending machine. I couldn’t believe it, but was never able to find where that actually was, or if it was even true.

Love Hotel Artia Dinosaur Machida, Tokyo

So this had to be one of the most interesting experience I had in my whole life. We were all out late one night and my friend that lived there said hey, let’s get a hotel all of us I wanna show you these hotels called the “love hotel”. It is a hotel that you rent by the hour and I think you get the jest of what a love hotel would be. We all went there and just drink and laughed but it was a pretty ridiculous concept. First of all, there was no door that you walked into the hotel room to check in. It was just a plastic partition between the owner and us. The funnier thing about the whole situation was there was a black out shield between our eyes so he couldn’t see me and I couldn’t see him. We just paid and went to our love hotel room. Such a trip!! You can also

pick what theme you’re into like a Hawaiian setting, comic books, or jungle theme just to name a few. Inside the room was a tall plastic menu that you can order anything. you could order food on one side and toys on the other.. if you get my gist.

The funniest part about the whole thing was that you could rent the room for one hour or the whole night. We are anonymous with no commitments. You’re just getting down to business at a love hotel.

Vending Machines down different streets

The really wildest thing I thought was so interesting while living in Japan. They have vending machines down street and before you get on the subway. No ID required. This honestly why I love traveling to see all the different things and unique things that different countries have to offer. What about you? Where have you traveled that has cool unique things that the US doesn’t?