Tokyo Ranger

I must apologize for the lack of posts in a while. I made it to Tokyo and got a horrible flu that kept me down for a while. Also Tokyo is something that took quite a while to kinda sink in for me, it is overwhelmingly huge.

Well, let's get the most unpleasant news out of the way right at the start. My right foot has gotten it's share of punishment along the years, including a few surgeriers and metal rods inside. It went basicaly completely immobile, swollen and incredibly painful.

After waiting for it to get better in Tokyo to no avail, I decided to call it quits, since I was kinda planning to do another skateboarding journey next year and I don't wanna destroy my legs completely.

I made my way to Tokyo Tower that seemed appropriate ending point, considering that I started from Sapporo TV Tower. Thus I travelled around 1300-1400 kilometers, in about a month, trough horribly hard terrain and weather. I am most pleased with my self and I had really good time.

Now on to talking about Tokyo. It is really hard to longboard in there. My board rules in down hills and long distance but it really isn't designed to being a snappy city cruiser. Tokyo also has a lot of people, bikes, cars and other stuff that comes on the way.

Tokyo is ludicrously huge. I don't know how it would feel like for someone from a another actual metropolis. To me it is just... Incredible. The aproach with skateboard was a weird dystopian nightmare, 150km of nothing but urban area, the last six hours in darknes and rain. To put things in perspective, the whole Finland has a slightly bigger area than Japan. The population of Finland is about 5,2 million people. The population of Tokyo is about 13 million people, and counting the suburbs, around 32 million.

I come from a relativley big city in Finland, Turku. The population of Turku is 175 422 people (according to wikipedia) with population density of 714 people/km².

Comparing this to the 13 million people living in a city with population density of 5,847 /km² makes my head hurt.

There is so much to see and do in Tokyo, it would take like a year to get the basic grasp of the place. It is still very interesting, I can very warmly recommend Tokyo BakPak Hostel as a place of residence, if you're contemplating a trip to Tokyo. Very nice place, even nicer people and awesome atmosphere and a convenient location 5min walk from the Minowa station, that is few stops from Ueno station. The staff also speak very good english.

Even tho I'm heading home, I still have lots of stuff to tell, hundreds of pictures and few hours of video to share.

Thank you for your patience and a humble apology for the long pause in writing, stay tuned for more.