Q: Are there really used schoolgirl panties vending machines in Japan?

This was the question I and some people I was talking to in the hostel became committed to answering after we read contradictory and doubtful accounts of this unique and extremely dubious aspect of Japanese 'culture.'

If you've been following my excellent adventures for a while, you might remember how disappointed I felt at the end of my Malaysia trip when I failed in my quest to find the world's largest pencil. This new task felt similarly vital, and I knew I couldn't move on from Tokyo until the matter was settled, and I could be sure this city's more depraved residents had a convenient way to get their perverted fix. I don't think I could have stomached another failure, though admittedly the prospect of success was similarly stomach-churning.

I didn't really want these things to exist, but I had a mission and I intended to see it through in spite of taste or decency. Join my unholy quest.

A childish day out again again again again again again again again

In retrospect, this looks less whimsical and a lot creepier than intended

I didn't have any kind of plan when I took the JR train to Ueno, feeling restless and assuming there'd be something to occupy me there.

It didn't take too long before I ran into some critters that inspired me to visit my sixth zoo in a year and a half (not counting sanctuaries and wild critters). By myself. With lazy beard growth and wearing a T-shirt of an infectious parasite. I wonder why all the parents and school group supervisors were making sure the kids kept their distance? Just courtesy, I guess.

Maid in Japan

I hadn't heard of maid cafes before I saw these morally dubious flyer girls on every street corner in Akihabara, but as someone who was brought up with the controversial world view of gender equality, and having seen enough preachy Star Trek allegories to know that servitude isn't generally something to be encouraged, things didn't look promising.

When I later found out what sort of stuff goes on behind that cheery facade it wasn't quite as bad as I feared, but was still pretty sickening. Which basically means the girls are paid to find all of their customers' conversations fascinating and their personal quirks endearing rather then creepy, but that any excitement the customer may get from this endorsed superiority has to remain a secret. He has to keep his hands to himself, and not in that way.

I'm using the third person because I decided not to cross the moral line and visit a maid cafe myself, but once I'd come up with the blog title I had to mention it some time. Plus, it was pretty expensive and I wanted to save my yen for the cat cafe, which isn't an outrageous Are You Being Served? style euphemism for pussy. They're cafes where you hang out with some cats. It's ridiculous, but at least they don't make the cats wear debasing French maid outfits. Actually, what am I talking about - they definitely do.

Where are my goddamn freaks?

There are no freaks in this picture. Even I'm not that mean

I don't like being a slave to someone else's schedule, and usually go to places when it's convenient for me. But having heard that Tokyo's resident misfits, show-offs and other assorted, self-appointed freaks like to gather in Yoyogi Park on Sundays to spend time together and out-weird each other with sexy or horrific Cosplay outfits (or both), that gave me a clear deadline for my day out in west Tokyo.

Maybe I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe The Man is stamping down on these freaks' freedom of confusing expression, but I didn't get to gawp at the freaks today... or did I? Who's to say the businessmen, shoppers, students and tourists dashing across the five-way intersections and packing into the narrow lanes of Shibuya and Harajuku aren't the real freak show?

No, I just double checked and the ones who dress up like dead school kids are the freaks, obviously. I don't know what I was thinking. At least the park was nice.

Tokyo good experiencing joy you 6 garden

Enough of wilderness excursions, cosmic choreography and minging museums, I know what you want from Tokyo. Shibuya is probably the best place to see iconic Tokyo sights like too many people crowding into cramped streets, cyberpunk fashions and deafening arcades packed with pensioners, though these static photos probably give a misleading impression of how stressful and frenzied it all isn't.

Even when my senses are being overloaded, I still feel a lot more relaxed in Japan than in most other countries I've visited (Korea excepted), and even during rush hour, the scales are tipped more in favour of order than chaos. That doesn't mean this city always makes sense and isn't completely bewildering on occasion - it's Tokyo, after all. Perhaps you've heard of it?

Another totally disgusting museum

Another ghastly blog you shouldn't read if you're squeamish or were planning on eating today, about another macabre museum I urgently needed to visit as soon as I read about it.

The assorted tapeworms and other organisms displayed at the Meguro Parasitological Museum in Tokyo aren't as shocking as the deformed baby corpses and crushed skulls of Bangkok's Siriraj Medical Museum, but this research centre still probably isn't a place to take your kids on a family day out in Tokyo. Unless it's me as a kid.

I saw an eclipse today... honestly

They don't call me Dave 'Hubble' Warburton for... obvious reasons

On the morning of 21 May, I stepped outside to get a can of hot coffee from the vending machine (that sentence alone might have merited a blog post back when these things weren't normal) and saw a few people from my hostel gathered on the other side of the street, swapping around what looked like three pairs of differently shaped sunglasses clumsily fixed together. Because that's what it was.

Apparently, there was an annular solar eclipse going on that I hadn't even known about, but was able to enjoy through this crude and extremely medically inadvisable apparatus. Don't try this at home, and certainly don't try to take a photo through it with your camera. It will look shit. But I thought it might amuse you. It should have looked a bit more like this:

Ring of Fire, as seen from the Ring of Fire.
But enough about my anal fissures (Image: Wikipedia)

I saw Mount Fuji today... honestly

Mount Fuji from Mount Takao, as seen with my natural eyes.
Photo: Japanory

This may not be news to you, but Tokyo is pretty big. So big, you can travel on an express train for 90 minutes and still be well within the city limits. So big, you can escape the squashed city streets for the serenity of the mountains and not even get close to the edge of the local rail map.

I've been trying to pack in as much as I can during my brief stay in Tokyo, and filling my 'off' days with work due to inflated worries about how much Japan's costing me (not too much and I'm doing fine, but don't waste your effort trying to assuage my paranoia with facts and maths). So discovering that the day trip to tranquil Mount Takao would only take about an hour and 1000 yen or so each way, this seemed like a great way to spend the best part of my Saturday.

I love nature walks, and from the websites I read, this seemed to be my perfect type of national park - not too far out, well signposted trails, the teasing prospect of monkeys and easily accessible even by old women, so I can clamber over tree roots past the old dears and delude myself about my physical superiority.

Unfortunately, this promise of Zen serenity was splintered into annoyance and more financial worries when I arrived at Takaosanguchi station and dug around in my bag to find my camera was missing.

Tokyold and new

Tokyo may be a sci-fi city set permanently in the future, but there's some nice old stuff here as well. Or at least, what remains of old stuff and reconstructions of old stuff destroyed in some obscure Asian conflict called 'World War II.'

Budgeting my days out is fun and a refreshing bit of strategic thriftiness after being able to travel ridiculous distances in Thailand, Malaysia and even Korea for practically nothing, so today I planned out a rapid tour of Tokyo's east side that took in the old, the faux-old and the brand spanking new. What you won't see is the tangled subway knots and train connections linking these places together, which was all part of the experience.

Tallest, oldest, sexiest

...but enough about me! Brilliant, Dave. This blog was inspired by my visit to (look at) the Tokyo Sky Tree (東京スカイツリー) a few days before the grand opening of THE WORLD'S TALLEST tower.

It wasn't all that impressive. Maybe I've seen too many doc-off structures in the last couple of years or maybe I only visited reluctantly out of a sense of obligation - after all, if you've already seen a few examples of a thing, you have to complete the set, no matter what the cost to your finances and patience. That's what those never-ending Dinosaurs and Star Trek Fact Files magazines taught me as a kid (or taught my mother, who had to buy the bloody things).

Maybe having some official goals would make me feel more motivated and excited, and make it easier to obscure the pointless futility of life. Here's some far from complete brainstorming.

Sleep like the dead

I thought long and hard about where to go next after not exactly being blown away by Sri Lanka, before ultimately making an impulse decision again after spotting an absurdly cheap flight to Tokyo. It was as good a reason as any, and this time I was a lot more excited about Japan, having strategically lowered my quality of life in recent weeks rather than coming straight from comfortable Korea like last time.

In the short term, I was particularly excited about spending my first night in a capsule hotel - you know, those extremely cramped, utilitarian bed/coffin arrangements that sprang up as a cheap accommodation alternative in the overcrowded megatropolis of Tokyo.

You might have seen these on TV shows highlighting how kerrrazy Japan is. I thought I had, but clearly I hadn't, as the image I had in my mind was of a fully grown man in pyjamas sliding horizontally into a barely-human-sized slot, like a poor family keeping its children in a chest of drawers (citation needed).

It turns out it's really not that bad, and I found there to be more than enough space. Though I have spent a lot of time in bunks over the last 20 months, which generally offered a lot less room and privacy (especially last time I was in Japan). You'll have to try harder than that to shock me, Tokyo - please take on the challenge.