Keep it Simple!

Such awesome and random thoughts have inspired me to get back to writing just when 2025 is about to end (that fulfills my 2025 resolution and 2026 resolution both)

What better way to bring in our visionary 40s than to visit a nation of tiny eyed people! We zeroed in on Japan since it was in the middle (of nowhere) and equidistant (far enough) for everyone so not one person feels that they din't get to travel much (so much of travel justice & equality). 

Before every such trip, there is a planning phase - what do we carry, day to day plans, places to visit, places to eat, things to do etc. We completely skipped this phase! 

Me carrying some Indian snacks for everyone was the biggest trip planning 'feels' to have happened to everyone on Whatsapp. 

Fun fact: Out of 8 people expected to visit, only 6 could make it since the other 2 did not get a visa on time. Just FYI - The primary reason for selecting Japan was their easy visa process :D

Another Fun fact: Out of the 6 people who finally made it, 2 'almost' got cancelled at the last minute since Indigo decided to get grounded during that time. But I guess God almighty (would have been Pikachu instead of God if we had been in Japan) had some different plans for all of us :)

Now comes the most interesting part, especially for those who plan to visit Japan and also for those who want to read this article instead of visiting Japan and save some money (just kidding! you got to visit Japan!)

We did a 6 night trip in December 2025 when Japan is cold, windy, Christmasy, Earth quaky and Tsunami like.

3 out of the 6 Avengers assembled in Mumbai as we have booked ANA tickets to Tokyo. Now the baggage allowance is 46 kg and carrying anything less than the allowed limit would be a crime as per my wired brain. So here I was carrying 2 suitcases for the trip - 1 with food (for the hungry and needy people) and 1 with clothes (for the cold and shivery people). Pulling over these 2 big bags, I met my 2 friends at the Airport and was looking out for their big suitcases - they were backpacking and did not even have a check-in bag (facepalm moment)!

So after an 8 hour movie binging and sleepy flight, we landed in Narita airport near Tokyo. Airports are our first impression about a place or a country; but for Japan its not their Airports - Its their Toilets. You read that right! The country seems to have spent a majority of its technology & innovation budget in building the most comfortable Toilets in the world (and I am not exaggerating). As soon as we landed, we walked in to one of these on the Airport and I was instantly in love with what I experienced. The toilets have a controller with multiple buttons and each button has its own magical spell. From warm seats to lights to music to 'surgical strike' like jet sprays to sanitizers, it has it all. (Phew!) This fascination was a good enough reason for us to lose count of time to an extent that only my bag was left on the conveyor belt and all other passengers had moved on in life :)

Immigration took some time as there were multiple tiny eyed people entering Japan along with us (not enough eye diversity I must say). There is one interesting thing that the immigration experience prepared us for days to come - standing in queue. People of Japan are taught to stand in queue even before they are born and they have queues everywhere - a queue to get in a queue too! (evil laughs from Indians :D)

Now the best part about the boys trip is randomness that comes with planning. We were aimless once we were past the immigration since none of us had planned anything. And since the other 3 Avengers were supposed to join us after 5 hours or so, we decided to proceed to our Airbnb in Shinjuku. Commuting in Japan is a breeze once you make peace with their metro train network, Google maps and google translate. We got the Suica travel card and hopped onto one of the trains going towards Shinjuku (changed the line at Nihombashi). 

Fun Fact - Standard checkin time in Japan is 4PM and checkout is 10AM. They need 6 hours to cleanup the rooms (maybe they would be renovating and painting too before each checkin). You can request to drop in your luggage before checkin or store the luggage in any of the lockers available across multiple locations in Japan - we chose the former option and proceeded to see Shinjuku city especially the area near Shinjuku station. 

Shinjuku has one of the best night vibes in Tokyo and it is mesmerizing enough to just stand and watch the crossings and 3D billboards. The rest of the gang united here and thus marked the official beginning of the Hood trip 2025. After randomly roaming the streets of Shinjuku, we decided to visit Golden-gai for drinks and it was unlike any area we had seen before. Think of an area with 200-300 bars and each bar is the size of a 100 square feet room equipped to accommodate a bar tender and 6-7 people. Had never seen or experienced cozy bar setups at such a scale before. So we picked one and had a great time since the bar lady was playing our favourite rock songs. 

Must appreciate her inter personal skills since she gave all kinds of facial expressions and even laughed at our jokes when we were talking among us. Fun fact - We were talking in Hindi and she did not understand a word :)

End of the day we brought the party to our room. Now the funny thing about that and the rest of the days on this trip was that the sunset was at 4.45PM everyday and it used to become dark immediately so our end of the day plans were pretty elongated. Back to the room, we had a lot to catch-up and talk about and also time for me to get the rabbit out of the hat (**drumrolls**) - Had got a customized hoodie for all of us for this trip. Plan was to print a word 'Konnichiva' (meaning good day) printed on the front and 'Hood' on the back. My brilliant brain decided to consult Perplexity AI to create a Japanese translation of these words too so that the hoodie would have a Japanese feel to it. And unlike any AI, this one did not hallucinate normally but did so very creatively and gave a completely random Japanese text that did not have anything to do with what I intended to print. Fun Fact - I blindly printed what AI gave me (as it looked nice visually) and realized the hallucinated Japanese text after the hoodie was distributed to everyone in the room.

We had deep conversations around AI, world, health, philosophy and life and of course one important topic - this trip was all the more exciting for all of us as one of our friends was getting married (yes he has had a peaceful life for so long) and we were all pumped up for the grand bachelors that we have been waiting for 100 years now!  

That brings us to the end of Day 1. More on this trip soon. Stay tuned.