Small in Tokyo
Streetphotography
Asia - Japan
About my first few days in Tokyo, the street photos I took and a very lucky encounter that made my first few days a cultural highlight.
Lost in translation
This is going to be English since most of the people I meet in Japan are native English Speaker
Japan was exhausting and inspirational. Exhausting, because every morning I would get out of bed very early and head outside with a heavy backpack full of photoequipment and wander around all day, or ride a bike occasionally. And it was late summer, which means around 32° and a bright, bright sun above.
Inspirational because all of that didn't stop me from enjoying the nightlife of Japan as well as meeting a lot of interesting people on the way, while discovering a complete different culture than the one I'm used too. Although I didn't go clubbing... regrettably, but had a very interesting shooting instead but I'm getting ahead of myself here. Lets start with my first visit to Tokyo.
Prologue
Merry liftoff
Pretty fun start actually, when I went to the airport my flight got delayed because of bad weather. In the end almost 9 hours, which meant for me one thing:
To drown by boredom, chilling at the airport enjoying one beer after another and guess what, they served whiskey in the plane as well. I started this journey not only drunk on life but also quite literally drunk.
My arrival in Tokyo Nara-Airport
I think the first time I realized that I was in a complete different culture was when 🥁 I went to the toilet. I’m not going to spoil anything but let me assure you, we can all learn something from Japan in this sector. Bet you didn’t expect I would start this whole blog entry and adventure with admiring Japanese toilets. Me neither, creativity and writing is a straaange thing my friend.
It took me about three hours until I figured out how where to go to exchange money, get a Sim-Card, get the Sim-Card to work, where to get the right card for using the metro and how the hell am I supposed to navigate this gigantic… oh nevermind, still simpler than Munichs public transportation.
All those starting out problems you can easily avoid if you dont have this “Oh, I’ll figure it out on the fly like always” attitude that some people, including me, live with.
Well, that was random
On my way to my capsule hostel, I meet my first travel companion
I meet Jenni out of nowhere. After finally arriving in Asakusa I went to the first supermarket I could find, I was starving and was eager to try out Japanese beer (obviously), there was this European girl standing there in front of the supermarket.
As I came closer she suddenly approached me asking “Hey, you are not from Japan are you?“, I said yes and told her I just arrived, “Oh, that great! Would you like to have dinner with me?“.
That lucky accident was the best thing that could possibly happen for me because, unlike mine Jennies planning was superb, and she had a bunch of locations and places she wanted to check out. From small mountain cities near the ocean up to famous streets downtown in Tokyo Japan.
Meanwhile, she was happy to have a companion on the way and someone who could snap a few pictures for her on the way.
While this Japan trip was rather spontaneous for me, because I quit my job and wanted to become a photographer and so on, Jenni had this planned for Years and Tokyo was just the first stop on a much longer travel route. Anyway, hope you enjoy the Pictures from my first few days in Japan, which were heavily inspired by Jenni, who showed me around and look forward to the other stories.
By the way, Jenni got an Instagram. Be sure to check it out.
