You would never believe what happened to me the other day. As I was craving for some bread, I stopped at this huge bakery on my way home. As I’m taking my leave with a precious loaf a sliced bread under my arm, I suddenly stop, in sheer shock.

Ten meters away stands before me a familiar figure I haven’t seen in more than a year. Is this true? Her haircut has changed. It’s shorter. Her face is not sweaty. Unusual, for a tourist in Saigon. Her long skirt and tall figure leave no doubt. This is my friend Ariane, a delightful lady whom I met during a summer internship in Paris, a year and a half ago. Good God! I thought she was supposed to be in America!

”Is that you? This is C-R-A-Z-Y! What happened to your face?!”
”I had the most wonderful one-hour face massage!”

We decided to catch up while sipping a beer. Five hours later, she was on a plane to Tokyo. Such a small world…!

* * * * * *
LE MONDE EST SI PETIT

Ce qui m’est arrivé l’autre jour est complètement incroyable. Comme j’avais un besoin insatiable de pain, je me suis arrêtée dans une énorme boulangerie. Alors que je m’apprête à partir avec la précieuse miche de pain tranché sous le bras, je m’arrête tout à coup, sous le choc.

Dix mètre plus loin me fait face une silhouette familière que je n’ai pas vu depuis plus d’un an. C’est pas possible! Sa coupe de cheveux a changé. Plus courte. Son visage ne ruisselle pas de transpiration. Inhabituel pour une touriste à Saigon. Sa jupe longue et son élégante silhouette ne laissent aucun doute. C’est Ariane, une charmante amie rencontrée lors de mon stage d’été à Paris il y a un an et demi. Ca alors! Je croyais qu’elle était en Amérique!

”C’est toi? C’est D-I-N-G-U-E! Qu’est-ce qui est arrivé à ton visage?
Je viens d’avoir le plus extraordinaire massage du visage pendant une heure!”

Nous décidons de rattraper le temps perdu autour d’une bière. Cinq heures plus tard, elle est à bord d’un avion pour Tokyo. Le monde est si petit…!

The Backstory: We were so broke in Tokyo, mid-April, 2.5 weeks away from departure, and one of our monthly leases was up.  Renewal would be $500 we didn’t have.  We were already living in poverty in one of the world’s most expensive cities, so why not go one extra step…Manga Kissas, Internet Cafes: Tokyo is peppered with internet/manga cafes, a cross between an internet cafe, a manga library, and a hotel that rented cubicles instead of rooms.  You can rent by the hour or stay overnight.  They seem to be used for 4 things, as far as I can tell. 

First, people who have missed the last train home and who don’t want to pay the monstrous cab fees to go home.  They’re either Japanese salarymen, stumbling out of a client dinner, or those damned denizens of Tokyo with money to enjoy the nightlife.  In the cafes, you could hear them throwing up or snoring drunkenly. 

Second, highschoolers who want some private time – they live with their parents and they can’t go to love hotels.  In the cafes, you could hear them…well, you could hear them.

Third, manga lovers and gamers. I was actually surprised that people paid money to go to a manga library and read manga.  What kind of manga people read or internet sites they browsed is anyone’s guess, although, in the cafes, they sometimes sounded like the highschoolers.

Fourth, the internet cafe refugees or “cyberhomeless” – people who can’t afford the outrageously expensive housing in Japan but who have enough money to afford a $10/night roof.  They rove from cafe to cafe, catching 7 hours of peace at night to recharge for a part-time job during the day.  It was in this fourth class that I fell.  So instead of paying $500 for another 19 days, I’d pay around $12/night for sleep in Tokyo’s central districts.  I’d save money on transit, because I wouldn’t need to travel out to exciting Kanagawa.  I’d also still be tutoring, so I’d be making a decent amount of money.  The cafes had free coffee and juice, and I’d enjoy internet speed we only wet-dreamed about back at our guesthouse.  I’d sleep in the cafes when I could and then just huddle up on one of the trains and sleep as it wound its way around the city.  So I packed my bags…

and set out with 4000Yen, about $45, to see where it would all take me…

Here’s a picture of me with my new duffel bag, wandering around outside the east side of Shinjuku station.

I don’t look homeless, right?

Let’s review some data from the past couple days to see how this experiment is going in its initial stages, from Tuesday morning to Thursday morning…

*remember that I started with 4000 in my wallet, and 1000 went to a 2-week wifi pass

So far, so good – I’m definitely saving money, even if its costing me sleep and pumping me with coffee.  We’ll see how I hold together.

What are some other things you’d like me to track during this time?

Not too shabby

First, it’s a cheap intense form of cultural immersion. This isn’t just a “wild and crazy Matt idea” – as I alluded to, people do this every day. About 1.5 years ago, there were estimated over 5,000 such refugees and given the waves of layoffs, more people will be doing this very soon. The furnishing isn’t too bad, just slightly smaller than a standard closet…

Showers, coffee, fast internet

Second, it’s a way to save money. For my tiny single, I paid about 50,000Y/month, roughly $18/night. For a 7-hour stint in this internet cafe, I can pay only 1,000Y ($11). For a trip into central Tokyo and back, I once paid at least 400Y; now, I walk out of whatever cafe I happen to sleeping in. I’ll be measuring my new budget against what I would have been spending to see how effective this strategy is.

3,000 Y to my name

Finally, if we’re going to be poor in Tokyo, let’s drive it into the ground, utterly and completely. I have 3,000Y in my wallet and a 2-week wifi pass redeemable at McDonalds. My only source of income is my tutoring. Basically, we will see whether I have reached a financial equilibrium in Tokyo without a stable teaching job. It’ll be like a worst-case scenario for an aspiring English-teacher…

Every night, I will sleep in a different internet cafe throughout the city, and by day, I will haunt various regular cafes, McDonald’s, subways, and public parks, weather permitting (which, unfortunately it is not at the moment).  Everything I have is laid out below, and I encourage you to visit the Flickr picture which explains each item.

My worldly possessions for the rest of our time in Tokyo

Think I’m nuts?  Let me know, and stay tuned for a daily update of my new lifestyle…