Meetings in Tokyo

In the evening, Yanis was waiting for us at Shinjuku station. At half past nine in the evening, he was still in his work shirt and pants. We went to have dinner in the Korean district.

"Tokyo has many colorful neighborhoods." Yanis has been my guide for three months now. We communicated when I was in Israel, through LiveJournal and Skype, and now we're meeting in person for the first time. He works as a programmer and has been living in Japan for six years already. At the same time, he doesn't have citizenship. "Only a residence permit." "What if you marry a Japanese woman?" "Nothing would change, getting Japanese citizenship is very difficult." "Are you dating a Japanese girl?" I asked him when we were already in the restaurant. "Yes." "How is that different from a relationship with a Russian girl?" Yanis assured me that relationships with Japanese women are completely different. And despite the general answer being "you just need to try it to understand," I still tried to grasp some nuances. According to him, the main person in the relationship is the man — this statement didn't surprise me much. "The man is the center, he decides where to go and what to do." "Can the girl refuse?" "Yes, then the guy just needs to come up with another place."

This probably doesn't apply to all Japanese couples. I couldn't extract anything particularly distinct — I should probably just try it myself. From the Korean restaurant toward Shinjuku station, we returned through the red-light district. A fat black guy approached Peter with a business card and smiled lively and pleasantly. "Dude, you'll like this, I promise." "No, thanks." "You need to try it."

Besides prostitution, they offer different types of services here. A naked girl will give you a massage for 3,000 yen, 40 minutes of hand pleasure for 2,000 yen. "This is what you call a dangerous neighborhood, I didn't see anything like that." "You just saw a lot of mafia people." "Really? I didn't notice..." "It's hard for a tourist to distinguish them, and they don't pose any threat to tourists anyway." Peter decided to go back to that girl, hoping her mood had improved, but tomorrow, and today we continued the party on the bridge talking about life with a can of beer. I spent a total of three days in Tokyo. Relaxing, walking around, and eating my fill.

On the morning of the third day, I got up early to catch the tuna auction at the Tokyo fish market, but on Wednesday the market is closed. I rode my bike through all of Tokyo. From Shinagawa to the center and further northeast to Matsudo.

On my way out, I stopped to chat with the uncle from Heroshima Motors — a shop-workshop for vintage Jaguars.

And that's it... the road again, familiar, measured. Wait for me, Tokyo, somewhere at the end of October. I'm not saying goodbye to you yet.