After finishing the 6 week intensive Japanese language course at ICU, in preparation for the upcoming school year, all students must evacuate the campus. Meaning we are homeless! I had be fairly warned from a friend about this 2 week gap between summer school and start of school but I always planned it would be fairly easy for me to pull 2 grand out of my butt and travel all over east asia. But as the Japanese say: yo no naka sonna ni amakunai yo. The world really isn't that sweet. But thanks to the super responsible and proactive Tina, I managed to secure hostels for mon-fri for both weeks.
However this means that for a couple of nights I really was without a place to sleep in Tokyo and I feel like I have learned a thing or two. So here are some tips.
Unlike many cities in America, many parts of Tokyo never sleep. All McDonald's across the country are open 24 hours and many drunk people end up spending the night cuddled up to a big mac. So when in doubt walk towards the golden arches.
Another 24 hour oasis is a family restaurant called Gusto. (Gasuto) The beauty of Gusto is, not only is it much cleaner and pleasant than McD's, but they have a Drink Bar for only abour 300 yen. This means all you can drink for as long as you want. Now im sure Gusto is not used to gaijin coming into gasto and spending 12+ hours in there not ordering anything just drinking, but they are sure good sports about us taking the system for a ride.
For those who have a bit more money but dont want to go through the trouble of reserving a hotel or anything, you can always post up at an internet cafe. The night after gusto
, I spend 16 bucks for 6 hours in one of these internet cafes. I would have had a bad nights rest if i spent the time to think about what might have happened on those beds in front of computers, but I was so tired that the 6 hours of sleep was like a god send.
Another option if you have no place to sleep is, stay up all night then sleep on the train. The very first yamanote train starts at around 4:15. Yamanote line is a train that circles around tokyo in a giant loop so you dont need to worry about getting kicked off. So you can sit back, enjoy the lovely air conditioned train with cushioned seats, at let the gently rocking of the train lure you into sleep.
Unfortunately, even though i figured out how to catch a few winks, I dont really know where public showers are in tokyo. Lucky for me I have a friends house I showered at those days of homelessness.
