tokyo’s neon hum and my attempt at writing a poem about it

i woke up to the sound of rain and my laptop fan screaming like a dying swan. 5.56 degrees celsius outside, which is just a fancy way of saying it’s cold enough to make your soul question its life choices. the weather here is like a drunk friend who forgot to pack a coat-unpredictable, but somehow endearing. i just checked and it’s still raining there right now, hope you like that kind of thing.

the first thing i did was try to find a coffee shop open at 3 a.m. a coffee snob by trade, i demand roast this dark it could hide a skeleton in a suit. instead, i ended up at this tiny spot called sakura brew where the barista served me a drink so bitter it screamed ‘i was once a premium brand.’(1) i posted a review on yelp that read ‘the coffee changed my life… for the worse,’ and now i’m haunted by the vague suspicion that someone reported me for slander.

neighbors? let’s just say if you get bored, the nearby electronics district is just a short walk away. or don’t. sometimes when it rains, people here start singing old jazz tunes in the streets. i heard that from a guy who seemed to be either sober or high on something. either way, it’s oddly calming. i asked him where he learned that, and he just handed me a flyer for a ‘ghost jazz night’ at a spot that might or might not exist.

someone told me that the old train station where i’m staying has a hidden room. i don’t know if it’s true, but i kept checking the walls for secret passageways. turns out, it was just a locker room with expired snacks. still, the thrill of the possibility kept me up for hours.

i wandered into a bookstore near the river, and the owner recommended a novel about a fisherman who communicates with turtles. i bought it, ate a sandwich, and spent 45 minutes trying to read it while the rain beat against the glass. a woman behind me kept muttering in japanese, and i swear she was telling me the secret to happiness. i wrote it down: ‘never trust a turtle.’

the images here are for show. one shows a bridge over a body of water with a palm tree-leetcode of a failed travel blog screenshot.(2) another is a grassy field next to an ocean that looks suspiciously like it was staged for a ad campaign. and this one? a sign from a ceiling. probably something you’d see in a horror movie, but here it was leaning on a lamppost, soggy and defiant.

reviewing the weird: i heard that the city council is planning to turn the abandoned arcade into a cat museum. true or false? who knows. i also overheard two teenagers arguing about whether the local shrine’s torii gate is spiritually significant or just a really fancy clothesline. they never reached a conclusion. everyone left, and i pretended not to care.

i tried to walk to the beach, but the path was flooded. instead, i sat in a park and made a podcast episode about existential dread. it starts with: ‘have you ever wondered if this rain is what the city hears when it dreams?’ nobody listened. probably because they were too busy buying neon flags from street vendors.

someone else told me that the best way to experience tokyo is by getting lost. i hate being lost. i hate that every map app I use defaults to english, which feels like an act of cultural erasure. i asked a old man in a yukata for directions, and he pointed me to a noodle shop called kazu no mi. the sign was just a single character that looked like a scribbled question mark. i ate there, and the noodles were okay. the staff kept asking me if i wanted to donate to their koi fish pond. i did.

external links: if you’re here, check out tripadvisor for the best ramen spots. yelp has reviews for that sakura brew place-only 1.2 stars because of my coffee rant. travel blogs like nomadlist might have tips for staying dry in this weather. for the poi-philes, this city has a board on flickr with photos of every forgotten subtitle.

so there you have it. a city that won’t let you sleep, a drink that questioned reality, and a podcast I will never release. the temperature’s dropping, so maybe tonight i’ll stay inside and write a haiku about the rain. if i survive.

(p.s. check out unsplash for more pictures of bridges, grass, and signs that probably mean nothing. also, don’t trust the water.)