tokyo tokyo.

私の家族！

sitting here on a teeny tatami mat of a room while typing away. walking down the chilly streets of ikebukuro and letting glimpses linger on the impeccably groomed passer-bys. everything still feels unreal. maybe because it's happening in a mist of exhaustion and post-departure syndrome - where your heart is trying to recover from the entire nerve-wracking packing fiasco, every single cell is shriveled up after seven hours of insomnia in the plane and all those nagging homesick pangs brought on by the bewildering foreignness of everything.

my very first glimpse of japan was from the airplane window - at the moment i felt that the stupid flight was taking forever, daylight thankfully crept in. the entire process was breathtaking - how perfectly horizontal strips of azure and dark orange formed on the horizon, how the sunlight watered it down into pale blue and gold, and finally, the blood-orange sun peeking out. i stared at it in rapt fascination for so long until white dots literally flashed in front of me. greetings from the land of the rising sun yo!

after that spectacle, my first impression of tokyo was less exciting. i could only think of one word to describe it: grey. maybe i've seen too many photos of bright neon lights and wackily-dressed people, but coupled with the depressing drizzle, the entire landscape was just grids and grids of rectangular concrete buildings.

i still feel lost, disoriented, and sometimes, like i want to go home now. the people i've met so far have been amazing, to the extent i'm still trying to pluck up courage to converse in my lousy japanese, because smiling, bowing and "hai" is mostly sufficient to get your way. maybe it's because it's only day one, but honestly, i expected day one to be more exciting than this.

i think i just need to sleep off my exhaustion. g'night.

btw, it's 6.10pm and the sky is pitch black with ominous looking clouds. boo, everything is still so stony and wintery.