Lost in Shinjuku...

I can't even tell you how many times I've been lost in Shinjuku.  That place is a maze!

On Friday, I met up with a friend to go to a meetup.  (By the way, if you move to a new place, join meetup.com.  Seriously, I've met so many great people already!  You know who you are.)

Shinjuku Station itself can be quit confusing, but I think I've got that mapped out pretty well.  Now the street is an entirely different story.  Shinjuku is cool but it freaks me out.  I really like Shinjuku-Sanchome and I mainly hang out (read: shop) there.  I tend to avoid the main drag of Shinjuku at all costs.  Though riding (read: walking) my bike through there was kind of cool.

Back to the story, my friend and I armed with ambition and iPhones made our way through Shinjuku heading toward the designated blue dot which lead us right into a deserted alley.  For real, there was a warehouse and nothing else.  I think we manged to find the one not busy place in Shinjuku.  We headed another direction which lead us away from the blue dot.  Shit.  We walked all around asking anyone who would help us where this mystery place was.  We took a taxi.  We asked a karaoke employee who directed us right back to the deserted alley.  Finally, we just gave up and went to Hub.  What we learned the next day was that she gave us the wrong address.

In the end, it was okay because Hub is a good place to meet people, both foreigners and 日本人 who speak English.  (Good advice for you travelers out there.)  Also, it's a chain, so you can usually find one just about anywhere in Tokyo.  I recommend the spicy fried potatoes.  So we made some new friends and created our own version of meetup for the night.  I thought I was outgoing but my friend so much more than me and by the end of the night we had some eight new friends.  All in all it was a good night so I'm glad we got lost in Shinjuku.