it ends
Well time to finally finish off my adventures, so last few days in Tokyo consisted of not a lot during the days, it was hot, I mean seriously fucking hot.
The days were spent wandering, and the nights were spent drinking, found a good drinking buddy in an American girl I met in a hostel in Kyoto, she could hold her liquor and was a brilliant source of American amusement.
Basically take all the typical American factors, loud, culturally insensitive and add a sense of sarcasm (very rare in Americans), and you got it.
First nice involved another Canadian guy as well, we when to Shibuya and hit a nice little bar called the Funky monkey bar, the Saki was great, and in Japan its typically served cold, and its different form the Japanese restaurants in Australia, it had less “bite” so it goes down very, very easily. Perhaps all up a little too easily, I found myself downing a jug of the stuff in minutes, and it tastes great.
The Canadian guy was soft and after a bottle of Saki and a few beers was a write off (excuse to hit onto the American girl), so I left them to flirt drunkenly because it was gross, and wandered a bit more then went home and went to bed.
Night 2 involved a visit to Shinjuku, which is the other big bar/red light/ whatever district, this time the Canadian who had left to go to Seoul (why the hell not), the bar we visited was the same I went to with the Canadian and German, and this time we had the pleasure of brief introduction to a ‘Japanese rage rock’ group, (think limp biskit but less angry). There video was playing in the bar, but frankly I felt it was missing something, these Japanese kids are just too well damn mannered to be rage rockers.
My last 2 days in Tokyo involved trying to track down this elusive ‘shop’, it’s a clothing brand called BAPE, and I had the mysterious place narrowed down to a 6 block radius, the issue was in 2 days I had not been able to find the f*cker. Thanks to a mate in Melbourne who came through with the goods at the last second, I was finally able to find it hidden down a stairwell, that was totally unmarked.
So this place is big, minimalist, the t-shirts are in glass cases, and there is no change room, the staff are unhelpful, and the clothing is over priced (in a nutshell), so needless to say plenty of money was dropped there.
Upon leaving the place more wondering occurred, then this adorable little Japanese couple came up to me, the guy spoke to the girl and she spoke to me in English ,they had been looking for the place for ages as well and had spotted my bag… damn “underground” clothing places… needless to say I’m writing about it in marketing.
Anyway the final night out in Tokyo, obviously involved lots of alcohol, I went with my American drinking buddy to meet another American she had met in a hostel, by the time we got there they were horribly trashed….someone’s birthday.
Rhepongi, not sure where to begin with this god forsaken place, but it was nasty, nasty vibes, very foreign and lots of skanks.
The area is the “foreigner” district, its were you go if your either working in Japan, and don’t give a shite about Japanese culture, or live there and want to get away from it all.
As my American friend put it, “if I wanted to see this I would have stayed in DC”, and she was right, it was totally Americanised, the beer was American (American beer is shite), the bars were very American, and the music was American.
The people gave off nasty vibes, lots of drunken ‘jar heads’ (marines), and other random foreigners, also lots of Japanese girls who clearly were there to pick up foreigners, you didn’t go to Rhepongi for any other reason.
So we followed this group with this other American girl into a bar, and within seconds I was ready the bail, it was a nasty bar, jam packed with people mainly singing along to fat boy slim, just nasty, took me and my companion 10 minutes to get out of there due to a bottle neck effect, where I could not move, I* put all my body weight into it, but I could not get past this crowd of people, it was just crazy.
Finally got the hell out of there, and it felt good, kind of reminds me while I discovered dance music, to avoid bars full of wankers like that.
Next stop was a trance club, as to why we went there, well I still don’t know, it was real cheesy club trance, the kind the kids in the western suburbs in Melbourne come to the city, drop some pills and enjoy totally. Only this time it was totally inhabited by blonde, tanned Japanese kids, which in itself is pretty weird, but the entire club was full of them, and the girls were dancing like punks, throwing themselves around, the entire experience was a sight to behold to say the least.
It took one remix of a 1980’s hit and I couldn’t take it anymore, I politely insisted we get the fuck out of there and find a real Japanese bar, which we quickly discovered the one and only happened to be closed.
In order to get away from the madness there was only one solution, karaoke!, and within minutes, we had found a nice little booth, ordered plenty of Saki and were singing our off tune hearts out to the best of the beetles, Sheryl Crow, and some bad American hip hop.
I love Karaoke and cannot recommend it highly enough, especially with lots of Saki, and when accompanied by someone you never expect to see again, needless to say we were awful, great fun.
Anyway this is where it pretty much ended, went back to the hostel, got some sleep, and the final day did a bit of shopping, had a quiet night (my drinking buddy had gone to climb Fuji), and next morning took all manner of public transport to the airport, and this is pretty much where my story ends.
Bit of drunkenness, at Tokyo airport and wrote myself off at Singapore, but that is about it.
Anyway im back and well and truly into uni again *sigh* ill see many of you shortly.
Later
Gids
The days were spent wandering, and the nights were spent drinking, found a good drinking buddy in an American girl I met in a hostel in Kyoto, she could hold her liquor and was a brilliant source of American amusement.
Basically take all the typical American factors, loud, culturally insensitive and add a sense of sarcasm (very rare in Americans), and you got it.
First nice involved another Canadian guy as well, we when to Shibuya and hit a nice little bar called the Funky monkey bar, the Saki was great, and in Japan its typically served cold, and its different form the Japanese restaurants in Australia, it had less “bite” so it goes down very, very easily. Perhaps all up a little too easily, I found myself downing a jug of the stuff in minutes, and it tastes great.
The Canadian guy was soft and after a bottle of Saki and a few beers was a write off (excuse to hit onto the American girl), so I left them to flirt drunkenly because it was gross, and wandered a bit more then went home and went to bed.
Night 2 involved a visit to Shinjuku, which is the other big bar/red light/ whatever district, this time the Canadian who had left to go to Seoul (why the hell not), the bar we visited was the same I went to with the Canadian and German, and this time we had the pleasure of brief introduction to a ‘Japanese rage rock’ group, (think limp biskit but less angry). There video was playing in the bar, but frankly I felt it was missing something, these Japanese kids are just too well damn mannered to be rage rockers.
My last 2 days in Tokyo involved trying to track down this elusive ‘shop’, it’s a clothing brand called BAPE, and I had the mysterious place narrowed down to a 6 block radius, the issue was in 2 days I had not been able to find the f*cker. Thanks to a mate in Melbourne who came through with the goods at the last second, I was finally able to find it hidden down a stairwell, that was totally unmarked.
So this place is big, minimalist, the t-shirts are in glass cases, and there is no change room, the staff are unhelpful, and the clothing is over priced (in a nutshell), so needless to say plenty of money was dropped there.
Upon leaving the place more wondering occurred, then this adorable little Japanese couple came up to me, the guy spoke to the girl and she spoke to me in English ,they had been looking for the place for ages as well and had spotted my bag… damn “underground” clothing places… needless to say I’m writing about it in marketing.
Anyway the final night out in Tokyo, obviously involved lots of alcohol, I went with my American drinking buddy to meet another American she had met in a hostel, by the time we got there they were horribly trashed….someone’s birthday.
Rhepongi, not sure where to begin with this god forsaken place, but it was nasty, nasty vibes, very foreign and lots of skanks.
The area is the “foreigner” district, its were you go if your either working in Japan, and don’t give a shite about Japanese culture, or live there and want to get away from it all.
As my American friend put it, “if I wanted to see this I would have stayed in DC”, and she was right, it was totally Americanised, the beer was American (American beer is shite), the bars were very American, and the music was American.
The people gave off nasty vibes, lots of drunken ‘jar heads’ (marines), and other random foreigners, also lots of Japanese girls who clearly were there to pick up foreigners, you didn’t go to Rhepongi for any other reason.
So we followed this group with this other American girl into a bar, and within seconds I was ready the bail, it was a nasty bar, jam packed with people mainly singing along to fat boy slim, just nasty, took me and my companion 10 minutes to get out of there due to a bottle neck effect, where I could not move, I* put all my body weight into it, but I could not get past this crowd of people, it was just crazy.
Finally got the hell out of there, and it felt good, kind of reminds me while I discovered dance music, to avoid bars full of wankers like that.
Next stop was a trance club, as to why we went there, well I still don’t know, it was real cheesy club trance, the kind the kids in the western suburbs in Melbourne come to the city, drop some pills and enjoy totally. Only this time it was totally inhabited by blonde, tanned Japanese kids, which in itself is pretty weird, but the entire club was full of them, and the girls were dancing like punks, throwing themselves around, the entire experience was a sight to behold to say the least.
It took one remix of a 1980’s hit and I couldn’t take it anymore, I politely insisted we get the fuck out of there and find a real Japanese bar, which we quickly discovered the one and only happened to be closed.
In order to get away from the madness there was only one solution, karaoke!, and within minutes, we had found a nice little booth, ordered plenty of Saki and were singing our off tune hearts out to the best of the beetles, Sheryl Crow, and some bad American hip hop.
I love Karaoke and cannot recommend it highly enough, especially with lots of Saki, and when accompanied by someone you never expect to see again, needless to say we were awful, great fun.
Anyway this is where it pretty much ended, went back to the hostel, got some sleep, and the final day did a bit of shopping, had a quiet night (my drinking buddy had gone to climb Fuji), and next morning took all manner of public transport to the airport, and this is pretty much where my story ends.
Bit of drunkenness, at Tokyo airport and wrote myself off at Singapore, but that is about it.
Anyway im back and well and truly into uni again *sigh* ill see many of you shortly.
Later
Gids
