Maxing and Relaxing, Rippin the Pongi, Tsukiji in the early morn...

After a day of rest, an all nighter in the dingy Rippongi, and a relaxing following day, it is sunday morning, we'll be getting up soon to prepare ourselves for the Cherry Blossom Party that Shinji and Jun are throwing and taking us to.  But let me take you back to the All-nighter.

All Day in the crib and Im cool like that...
The day after I explored the lovely (and spread out) Kyoto, I decided to just stay home and relax, write blogs, upload pics, chat with Raquita online, listen to music and give my poor aching feet a rest.  While this is a visit to Japan, its also a vacation for me and I dont want to be so exhausted that I need a vacation to Recover from this one!  So thats what I did.  That night though, when Adam got home, I changed clothes into Rippongi-approved gear and we headed to Embocca to grab a quick bite to eat with Tommy, one of Adams friends and a smooth mutha-sucka in his own right.

Looks like a dead fish, tastes like HEAVEN!
Adam brought his friend Uriyah through, a cool cat from Maryland and we bounced to Embocca where I (of course) had a lovely glass of Ohmishu and Tommy, who must have sensed my eminent hunger (I didnt eat anything all day, but I wasnt hungry until Uriyah ordered the pasta with the ham and spinach in cream sauce).  So Tommy ordered me some kind of blackened fish, mackeral maybe, with a bowl of rice, some onion soup (not french onion but something much lighter, a little like miso), and a small plate of different condiments to season things with.  I clowned it.  Jun is, as so many have emphasized with great animation, is an excellent cook and I've not ingested anything in their bar that was not Simply Delicious.  So, after I ate and talked to Tommy, who probably will be running for Governor or Senator in a few years, we headed back to the apartment so Adam could change his clothes, met up with the Just-off-from-work Josh, and bounced towards the train station, adventure in our eyes, the taste for liquor on our lips.  SO IT  BEGINS!!!!

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...
A few train stops later and we emerged into the crowded, throbbing, odorous center of Rippongi, a clubbing/bar district and favored hang out of the various military peolple stationed in Tokyo as well as tourists who might want to get their Happy-Ending on, so to speak.  They even except dollars here and there are english ATM's so thats all good.  We hit the ground running, walking around trying to find a good bar and club.  After I grabbed some cash from the ATM, we headed to a place where they play 80's music.  It was crowded.  Very crowded.  And the drinks were stupid expensive...toss a bar stool expensive...we're talking 1000yen for a fucking tequila sunrise!  Thats nearly $10!! INSANE.  But the best part of that first bar were the beautiful and friendly Londoners we met and talked to at length.  Well, lets say that Me and Uriyah talked to them, Adam and Josh sort of played the background, but that was cool.  Their names were Naomi (who I talked to and had a shot with), Emily who was visiting her friends, and Sandy (who Uriyah scored the digits and was probably the cutest of the three, closely VERY closely by Naomi).  Turns out the two girls were Nova Teachers as well, although they worked in Tokyo.  After having a great time talking with them and sharing drinks and laughes, we bailed out of the spot in search of a new bar or club...thats when we ran into Brian from Ohio...Oh Boy...

Okay, heres the plan, we walk in here, distract him, and then dissolve...got it?
As we were crossing a street we had crossed 4 times at this point, we ran into a guy named Brain from Ohio who was pretty drunk and 100% jackass.  He seemed like a fun guy at first so we invited him along.  No no, I invited him along.  At first things were going well...we rushed a spot full of Nigerians playing Hip-hop and R&B where I bought both of us a Tequila shot and he bought us Rum and Cokes.  There was pretty much nigerian thugs and thats about it in the club.  No ladies really to speak of, except one half black/half asian chick with long blond weave that was 'working' on this white guy in corner.  So we're chilling, laughing at this guy Brian who is proving himself to be a bigger and bigger loser as time goes on.  He just doesnt have any game, or skill, or personality, or even really a clue.  He's just loud and boistrous and talkative and energetic.  BUT THEN, thinks take a turn for the Jackassery when a pretty white girl walks into the club and starts talking to the bouncer.  Brian saunters over and starts to holler at the girl, who is clearly trying to NOT  talk to him when the club owner gets pissed and gets all up in Brian's face with 'What, you dont respect me white boy?  I'll fuck you up you cracker ass!' and stuff like that.  Brian quickly backed down and walked over dejected and we, observing the girl and the bouncer quickly discovered that it wasnt a lost girl/friendly neighborhood nigerian dynamic or even a tired girlfriend/over protective boyfriend thing.  She was clearly working and he was arranging her dates around the city becuase a lot of money was exchanged as well as locations and what not, all in english.  We told Brian this but he didnt want to believe it.  If homeboy had started a rumble, he would have found us watching him get his ass stomped in while we yelled out 'OH SHIT!! You're getting fucked up dude! Maybe you should protect your face! DAMN!!!' and shit like that.

We quickly tired of the loser who was now hanging on to us like we were his fucking lifeline so we made plans to ditch his ass.  That and he refused to stop talking about going to titty bars, which none of us were interested in talking about, much less going to.  So we turned a corner, went down some stairs into a bar, with Brian in the lead, and as soon as we got separated from the crowd, bounced out to the street, beat a hasty retreat around a corner, and kept rolling.  Cruel?  Maybe.  Necessary?  Oh HELL yeah!

Down and out in Rippongi aint where you wanna be.
The wet streets and the multitudes of drunk horny foreigners, money seeking foreign loving j-girls, the occasional american ghetto thug, and business women running up to you to ask you if you want 'Massagee?' makes the whole of Rippongi an interesting if seedy and at times disgusting place.  But I was loving it.  Having a good time.  One thing that we noticed and Adam mentioned to me as well, was the fact that in Japan, you dont get no sympathy or love. If your drunk in a corner, puking your guts out, next to nobody will come and help you, your friends will bounce without you and you could wake up outside some bar in a puddle of your own vomit.  They just dont give a fuck.  We saw two girls who were too drunk to even move get left by their friends.  Pretty sad.  Not a country for the weak and a hell of a place to be lonely in.

But, as the seeds of Jackassery by then had been well planted within us, of course its saplings could be seen creeping into the light.  What do I mean?  Well, at one point, after we ditched the loser, Adam was hungry and wanted to get a Taco from a mobile taco stand.  In front of us were two fairly cute J-girls, getting their tacos.  We chatted with them for a minute, and found they were going to the same club we were, Gaspanic 99.  But then they called their super-hot friend over to share in their juicy taco goodness.  I started saying things undermy breath like 'Oh yeah...you like that juicy taco dontcha girl?  Thats right...take a big bite...daddy likes...oh yeah...lick your fingers...oh you're so nasty.'  I was just fucking around and being silly but then the girl sort of turned to her friends and was like 'Alright you girls ready to go?'  I was like OH FUCK SHE SPEAKS ENGLISH.  After they left we all cracked up at the stupidity of it all.  I didnt care.  THe look of horror on her face was just the right spice on a strange and ugly night.

Our last stop of the night was at Gaspanic 99 where we (they) shared a pizza, we all had a corona, I was informed by a drunk ghetto cat that the best girls were in Guam (how the fuck am I gonna go to Guam??) saw the Nets beat Dallas, watched a few guys drooling over some transvestites, and generally passed an hour until it was 5am and the first train heading back to civilization was on.  BUT WE WERENT DONE!!

On to Tsukiji!  No rest for the wicked.  He looks like a nice guy so lets have him show us around...
After we bid our farewells to Uriyah who was apparently way too tired to continue, we headed to Tsukiji to get some morning sushi and witness the wonders if the giant fishmarket.  After a few train stops we emerged from teh tunnel, the sun rising in the east, a barely sober gleam in my eye, Josh and Adam nearly collapsed with fatigue.  This is when we ran in to a family of 5, most of which were wearing matching jackets who were touring the area trying to find the fish market.  They saw us looking at the map and approached Adam, who seemed the friendliest and asked if we could go with them.  They had a little girl with them, who they said they had adopted from Mongolia a few years ago (she was 4) and they were on their way back there to adopt another girl.  Adam did a wonderful job of playing host, refraining from smoking and cursing, or going into the details of why we were up so early, and even befriending the little girl Victoria, who refused to let go of his hand and talked with him the whole time.  I personally wouldnt have had the patience for it but Adam is cut from a different cloth.  Besides if it had been just me, I dont think the family, from chattenooga and seemingly very conservative, would have approached ME to be thier guide.  I dont go out of my way to spare other peoples sensibilities, especially when its 6am and Im over tired and hungry and a little drunk.

The fishmarket was pretty cool and I got to see all manner of sea-faring creatures laid low by the appetites of man.  Very cool.  Once we got to the wholesale fishmarket, we got to see the massive tunas that had been caught in the wee hours of the morning and were being bid on by various peoples.  After wandering around for about an hour and a half, I wanted to grab some tuna but our touring family had no idea how to get to the train station so we took them there and by the time we GOT to the station, I was too tired to walk Back to the sushi shops to eat, especially since Josh and Adam didnt want any.  So we headed back towards home, exhausted.  Despite what Adam says, I enjoyed the trip.  No pictures though because Rippongi isnt the kind of place you bring a Pentax to.  We got home at around 8:30am and promptly passed out.


Thats it for now.  The next day (last night) we slept late, then went to dinner with Dan and his mother at a Korean Restaurant, a YakiNori I believe, where they give you a big plate of raw meat sliced then, yoiu marinate it then through it on a charcoal grill in the center of the table.  Very very good and if they have one like it in Chicago, raquita and I will have to hit that place up this summer when we go.

Anyways, its supposed to rain today, and the camera's flash broke so I need to get a new detatchable flash before the Cherry Blossom Party with Shinji and Jun.  I just hope it doesnt raint to much and ruin the party.  But we shall see.  Monday will probably be more rest and I wont go anywhere too far since my JR pass runs out today, and tuesday is the Date in the park and the last minute souvenir shopping.

Benticore
Out