Korea
Japan
Hong Kong
But there are so many other places I may wind up... (hopefully not jail or dead).
I am using this space as a blog, and as a way to dump the dailies I take from my camera (Panasonic GH1 and Samsung TL320). I want those who are interested to get a daily-updated, unfiltered view of my crazy Asian adventure.
Goodbye, my friend… Hong Kong - Day 69
Hong Kong has been home to many, many firsts, but tonight, was one of David’s lasts. David, you have been my friend, my brother, since 1993. We’ve had an incredible adventure these past 3 months; Seoul, Busan, Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, Hong Kong…. Most people thought we were gay. That part sucks and is TOTALLY NOT TRUE, but the rest of the journey has been unbelievably amazing. I cannot believe that after so much time spent together, we are suddenly standing at the crossroads of our lives, on the same side of the tracks, facing different, distant unknowns. How can it be that I, the foreigner, the stupid, ignorant, white guy, gets to spend a few more months in this metropolitan paradise, while he, the man with real Hong Kong blood running through his veins, has to leave, drained of his finances, with nothing more than a heart and a hard drive full of beautiful, torturous memories? Life truly is unfair, and I feel guilty that it gave me the chance to stay, instead of him.
Ah, I won’t bore you any longer with my words, I’m just going to leave you with this (gay) pictorial sign off to my friend, my brother, David. This was tonight’s goodbye party
They got him drunk early on…
And then fucked with him.
NOT GAY! WE LIKE BOOBS! With nipples the sizes of bottlecaps. See above for example.
After dinner we went to LKF.
David was already hammered by this point in the night. So of course he was forced to drink a flaming lamborghini. I do not have a picture of what happened next, but I do have video. They turned off all of the lights in the bar and lit this entire structure on fire. You use a straw to drink alcohol out of this thing while it is on fire.
He seemed pretty happy after the drink, but then he puked, hahahaha
Then we went to some cage bar, and threw him into the cage with the dancer.
Then David became pass-out drunk.
So it became time to leave…
Sleepy….
The walk (stumble?) to the cab.
One last hug goodbye, too drunk to cry.
During the cab ride back, David’s mom called him on the phone. I answered (in Cantonese and English), and even called her by her name, but she didn’t understand me for some reason. So one of our friends took the phone, and told her David was drunk and couldn’t talk. Why would you do that!?! Never say that to someone’s mother!! Gah!! So I had to play damage control and make some shit up like “we were up all night last night, didn’t sleep, went to the gym today, David is just tired, yes he had some drinks, just like I did, but he’s not drunk, etc., etc…” Oh man I felt so bad lying to her. Wtf was I supposed to do?! My parents could handle that sort of news, but not his mom, no way.
Anyways, that’s the end of the night. Right now David is passed out drunk in his room, tossing, turning, and snoring. I am in the kitchen eating raisin bread and crying like a schoolgirl. Time to pass out. Only one day left…
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Aaah THE DREAD!
Hey tumblr people! All like…9 of you haha. Thanks for following me! Here’s part 1 of that scary movie I’ve been working on (and have been bitching about the past month).
Enjoy!
的恐懼 | The Dread - Part 1 from Eddie Kezeli on Vimeo.
I wish there were a way to enable comments on tumblr? I’d love to hear some feedback.
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Oh my God… LKF, Hong Kong - Day 2
Actually, lemme take that back. Sleeping on a towel, on top of a stiff mattress covered in plastic, with humidity cranked to level 11, made for a shitty night. I woke up stuck to my bed. Actually, I’m not sure I even went to sleep that night. Bleh. Shower time.
This is our bathroom. Tiny, ain’t it? A quick shower revealed our desperate need for a shower curtain. I’m kinda splashy when I bathe, cause water is fun! But I ended up flooding the place. Sorry David.
But before bedsheets or shower curtains, we had to eat. And what better way to greet our first Hong Kong morning than with…DIM SUM!
David and I wandered around aimlessly for a while trying to find a dim sum place…as if we knew where the crap we were going! He got hungry, so we hopped into a Starbucks (damn that bitch loves that place…) for some crappy drinks. He asked the lady behind the counter where we could find a decent dim sum place. She was all….”next door!” On the second floor. Whaaaa! Coincidence? Or does Hong Kong just have badass dim sum places everywhere? Oh well whatever. DIM SUM!
It was actually on the third floor, but I’ll get to that later… The place was just about packed.
Word, time to order some shit! What no english menus? Oh right…China. At least they had pictures!
Side note: it wasn’t until our second trip to this place that we discovered that they did have English/Chinese menus. But you know what? The prices were jacked up over the straight Chinese menus! I know, I compared the characters. Weak! There was an average of 5 HKD markup.
To be honest, at this point in my life I didn’t really know anything about dim sum. I remember having it once in Sacramento with David and his mom one time when we were like 12. I remember not liking it, haha. So this was a pretty fresh experience.
David didn’t see anything he wanted in the pictures, so he asked the waitress if they had this or that. Turns out they did! The pictures don’t tell the whole story! Grub time was ooooonnnn.
I know this picture looks pretty pathetic, but at one point we had a HUGE stack of empty dim sum containers on our table. David told me to take a picture and just as I busted my camera out, this ninja waitress came out of nowhere and took em all! So this is the only pic of our meal I managed to snap. I can assure you, by the end of it, our table looked like a culinary battlefield. We ate hardcore.
What was really neat about this place is that it was on the 2nd floor (which is actually called the third floor in America), and it offered a really cool view of the street, for those who were seated close to the ceiling-high windows. Love it.
Oh good, you see this picture? The dim sum restaurant is that floor on the top. Clearly, that’s the third floor, but in Hong Kong, the floor order goes Ground, Level 1, Level 2, etc. This slight difference in wordage makes a huge difference when giving and receiving directions!
With stomaches full of Chinese joy, it was time to go shopping for the house. IKEA!
Man, I saw so many people passed out on IKEA furniture. But you’d do the same after 1 trip through the Causeway Bay IKEA. That place is a MAD HOUSE.
It took David and I well over an hour just to make it to the second floor (their basement). Next to the stairs to go down, there was a rack with a buncha different hand puppets on it. David and I each picked one up and started playing with them, making silly noises, giving them names. It was so goofy, and we were busting up the entire time. Adjacent to this rack of fun was a large window separating the end of the first floor and the IKEA restaurant/entrance. Underneath the window there was space to hide, just large enough for two people. We know what we had to do. PUPPET SHOW!!
We had no idea if anyone was watching, but it was hilarious. We put on a solid one-minute show before people on our side started giving us looks.
It took us days to find bedsheets we didn’t hate, and about 10 seconds to find a decent shower curtain.
This is the view coming back from IKEA. See the McDonald’s in the distance? Just past the Price Rite, 7-11, and HSBC bank? Our building is on the right. Hell yeah, Hong Kong. It boggles my mind how many resources are right there in front of our house. Oh, and behind where I’m standing is a 24-hour grocery store, a movie theater, several department stores, specialty brand clothing stores, cell phone shops, restaurants (both high and ‘low’ class), an electronics store, a starbucks, and God knows what else. It’s incredible. I can access all of these stores within a 1-minute walk from my building’s entrance. Where else in the world can you do that?!
A note from David (he wanted me to mention the other things around our building): Well, two or three doors down to the right is a bakery, with BOMB ASS dan tat. There are also a few more cell phone shops, restaurants, and a beef jerky joint on the corner. To the left, is a fucking awesome-ass hair salon ($11 USD for a salon cut and shampoo! From a hot girl!), a rotating sushi bar ($3 HKD salmon nigiri!), a recruiting agency, a bookstore, god so many things!
Menacing view! (of our building’s entrance).
This is the main day-shift security guard at our building. He’s such a jolly dude! We call him the “happy guard” (cause neither of us can read Chinese names). Here he’s giving David directions on how to get to an electronics store that sells adaptors. And here are his directions:
The fuck does that say?! Those are the worst directions I have ever seen man! Maybe he’s a little too happy…
Look at how much my room sucks. It looks a lot better now, I swear! Hmm…but I don’t seem to have a picture of it yet. Ah, too lazy to take one, maybe later…
Tim was told us to meet him in SoHo to meet his friends. The SoHo/Central area is full of rich people and posh stores, LIKE THIS FUCKING COACH STORE OH MY GOD
I think this walkway is supposed to be famous? I think it’s called Hollywood Road (I could be wrong, it’s what some foreigners told us when we got lost).
Hong Kong is full of really cool-looking environments. The wall’s texture + the streetlight just look so damn awesome!
We met up with Tim and his friends at a place called Classified; a wine a cheese bar. David and I were hella late cause we got lost, and they were just about finished when we arrived (what a horrible first impression!)
After Classified, everyone decided to go to Lan Kwai Fong. It’s the bar area in Central where lots of people like to spend their weekend nights. David and I had no idea what we were about to get ourselves into…
BOOM! Down some stairs and into the devil’s mouth we flew. This place is insane. Closed down streets littered with people spilling out of over-crowded bars, dancing sporadically when a beat filters through the door and smoke and haze of the night. Women showing every inch of their legs and fashionably covering the rest tumbling down steps in a drunken mess, attracting glazed, hungry stares from any male with eyes, a beer, and a popped collar. This is the bar scene on Hong Kong island. Actually, not much separates this bar scene from all of the others all around the world, but when Hong Kong does something, it goes all out. Like, if you happen to come across a lamp store in Hong Kong, chances are you’ve just discovered lamp street where the entire street is literally dedicated to lamp stores. In similar fashion, this Lan Kwai Fong (LKF) area is packed to the brim with bars and clubs, one right after the other spanning at least three adjacent streets, and stretching up into the sky.
On the ground level we came across this group of dudes yelling something about the “Happy Corner.” Before I could ask Tim what the happy corner was, he yelled out to the guys, “hey! He doesn’t know what the happy corner is!”
Before I even knew what was going on, the group rush over, picked me up…
and repeatedly smashed my genitals into the corner of this building. Luckily I was able to fend the four of them off with my MIGHTY SUPERHUMAN GREEK POWERS!
After killing them and eating their organs, I laughed it off with some fellow strangers.
We walked into a bar called Fong, and David and I decided to treat our new friends with a round of shots…. of tequila!!
supersmash!!!!
Wait, lets back up a minute here. See those shots? Those are 1oz glasses, not 1.5! What kind of crap is this? Oh and, the tequila was watered down!! WHAAA?? And the bill? 560 HKD for 6 shots (thats…fucking over $70). >:| screw you Phong.
Oh well, as you can tell by the pictures, we weren’t gonna let it ruin our night.
After Phong, we went to Bar 7-11 (that is, the 7-11 convenience store, haha) and bought some cheapo booze! Oh and my new friends? Here, let me introduce them to you:
From left to right: David, Sam, Kate, Siu Chung, Tim. All hella cool people! I’m not gonna post all the pictures, but we had a silly ass time that night.
Tim tried hitting on this girl. Yup, it was that awkward bwahhahahaa
oh snap! rejecteeeed!
Then the night started getting a little crazy and fuzzy. We ended up at this hotel, taking the elevator to the top floor. There was a bar on the inside! It took some negotiating to get us up there for free, I’m not sure how we managed. I think either Tim or Sam knew someone there.
Now check that view out. That’s the view from the bar. wicked.
Like the said, the night started getting fuzzy, I think my camera was drunk, too.
At that hotel we were all dancing around, having a good time. Then Tim suddenly shoved me into this girl. I said I’m sorry but she….started dancing with me?! That shit never happens! Then Tim shoved David into one of the girls’ friends, and they started dancing too! And pretty soon we were all dancing and having fun!
After a while, David and I noticed that all of our friends had disappeared. Huh?! We tried calling them, but no one picked up! We were so confused, but we kept on dancing, cause we thought the four of them went off together to hook up, hahahahahha (which was totally not the case….right guys?)
So David and I kept dancing with those girls. They eventually took us to some other jam-packed club and got us in for free! There I danced my ass off, but I’m sorry, the girls turned out to be not that interesting to talk to…they had no passions in life, nothing compelling to say; talk about anonymous personalities! I mean, I know you can’t really dive into any sort of dissecting and significant chatter with 120 dB of UNCE UNCE UNCE pounding your ears into submission, but at least a few words can be adequately exchanged here and there, enough to get a feeling, you know? Hey girl, are you into anything? Music? Art? Riding lawnmowers? Something??? It could be the dumbest thing in the world, but if you’ve got passion for it, you’ve got my undying attention.
I guess none of that stuff really matters, I just danced! It had felt so long since I had let go at a club and simply danced for the love of the music, but the music that night was doin it for me. I totally stopped dancing with that one girl and just went off in my own world, haha. I was going crazy, so much so that people actually stopped to watch, and they were…clapping for me? Nuts, I know! And the killer is that all of the people behind the bar were cheering me on, too! And they gave me a free shot! That never happens to a dude! I win.
I was a sweaty mess by the end of the night. The girl I was dancing with wanted my number, but I didn’t have a phone at the time so I had nothing to give but my email, hahaha. I didn’t want to go near her cause I was all sweaty and nasty, but she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Score! I think she wanted more, but….eh I’m too old fashioned. I don’t give it up that easy, ho! God I’m such a loser.
Oh but wait! I didn’t get to the fucked up part. It’s a good thing I didn’t pursue that woman. David overheard some shit on the dance floor, but he wasn’t sure who it was concerning. About a week or so later, it was confirmed by the girl he was dancing with that night. Apparently, my girl….is married. MARRIED?!?! What the fuck, woman! What the fuck what the fuck! What the fuck kind of fucked up shit are you doing to your husband? To your marriage? What kind of shit are you trying to drag me into! Why did you dance with me like that?? Why did you kiss me? Why why why!!! You dumb, stupid, horrible person. You better not try to blame your marriage problems on some guy you met at a bar, I had nothing to do with this. It was your choice to dance with me, and to take me to another club and dance with me some more. You weren’t drunk. WHAT. THE. HELL.
Oh man, when I found this out, I was so damn angry. I wanted to smash things. The world became a cold and ugly place that day.
She emailed me a few times. Once her friend confirmed with David that she was married, the emails stopped. Good fuckin riddance, tramp.
Anyways, that was an interesting night to say the least.
We ended it with some good ol fried noodles and meat down the street from our place. That plate of food was under $4 USD at 4:00 in the morning. Aside from the cheating bitches, I love Hong Kong.
Question with 1 note
hallyucinations asked: Excuse me, sir(s), your blog is pretty damn brilliant! Love the layout, colours, fonts, photos, texts, humour, everything. Fangirl-dom at first sight.
I too am headed for Seoul, after a quick stopover in Hong Kong. So this may be a good place to gather some 'research'. Anyways, good luck! And stop by Singapore (where I'm from) if you can schedule that in. Don't believe everything you read about the country.
Haha, thank you very much for your kind words, I really appreciate them :)
Korea truly was an amazing country, and full of potential for incredible experiences. I did find a few things to be cynical about, but that’s just me! Don’t let that cynicism ruin anything for you :P
Are you going to Seoul for travel or for permanent stay? In any case, I’d highly recommend a trip to Busan. Not everyone will feel the same way I do, but I loved Busan a lot more than Seoul; it was the people and the vibe that did it for me. And we had a fireworks fight on the beach! Where else can you do that? :)
Here’s my post on Busan, it really was a great day: http://thesavageorient.tumblr.com/post/483922369/explosions-in-the-sky-korea-day-7
Hey, if you’re stopping in Hong Kong, lets meet up! I’m always down to meet people I’ve never met before. haha
Friends, welcome to HONG KONG, Hong Kong - Day 1
We were late again for our flight. People were yelling at us to go here and there. Blah blah blah same story as always. David packs like a girl, (i.e. he has TOO MUCH SHIT in his suitcase). I knew we weren’t going to pass weight inspection, and being so late for our flight, ah, that woulda caused all sorts of mess! My bag barely made the weigh-in as it stood, and I knew for sure his bag weighed so much more. But, as luck would have it,
BAM his suitcase wasn’t completely on the scale when they weighed it! HAHAHAHAH suckers…
So we made it. Just barely.
Our flight was from Narita, Japan, with a layover in Beijing, China, and finally arriving in Hong Kong around 4:30p local time. Here’s China from the sky:
I’m not sure what I had in mind about what China would look like from the sky, but I certainly didn’t expect this. It looks….so normal! Aside from the badass snaking river, I mean. I think I was expecting something like when Neo exits The Matrix into the real world - black and machines and smog and dirt, kinda like this!
But it didn’t look like that. Weird.
Beijing airport was hella strange. So big, so unfriendly, and so empty. This made me a bit worried about Hong Kong. Is it going to be big and empty and unfriendly, too? I seriously know nothing about Hong Kong at this point. Not a single thing.
In line while waiting to get through immigration, I struck up a conversation with some dude from the east coast who’s been living in Hong Kong for a year or so. He told me how there’s nothing to do there, the country is too small, life is boring, too many people, etc. etc. I mean, holy shit the dude didn’t like HK. He said I’d be bored after a week. A week!? What the hell kind of country am I moving to if I’m going to be bored after one week?!
Needless to say, I was getting shit in my pants.
Seriously, look at this place. It’s dead. This was a bad sign.
——-
Hong Kong: The Backstory (skip if you don’t care)
David and I have been searching for apartments in Hong Kong since January. We were scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong on April 1. As of March 30, two days before our arrival, we did not have an apartment. Most of our time in Tokyo was wasted, stressing over not having a place to live for the next few months. We were shitting ourselves.
It just….wasn’t that easy to find a decent place here. We didn’t know the area, had no contacts, had a tight budget, and wanted to live in either Central, Wan Chai, or Causeway Bay, because we heard that those are the most exciting places. Unfortunately, those are also the most expensive places.
On March 30, we decided to settle on sharing a studio in Sheung Wan (close to Central). That’s right, two guys sharing a tiny fucking studio in a big city. It was our worst-case scenario, but it is the only place we could find that was in a decent area, fully furnished, and didn’t destroy our bank accounts.
So the night of March 30, at 4:00am (so…Mar 31), David and I, drunk, printed and signed the lease agreement and credit authorization form, and faxed it to the apartment company. Then we passed out.
In the morning of the 31st David received an email from the apartment company saying that I had neglected to write down an amount for the credit authorization form, therefore invalidating the agreement. FUCK WE DIDNT HAVE A FUCKING HOUSE GAHHH!!
But!
15 minutes before that email was sent, David had received another email, this time, from someone whom we contacted on craigslist over a month ago, telling us that she had a friend with an open apartment in Causeway Bay. He emailed us notifying us that it was a two bedroom apartment, fully furnished, and the rent was cheap! No commission fees, government fees, nothing! Holy crap!! But no pictures. No pictures!?!? What the fuck no pictures!
But you know what? We didn’t care at that point. With less than 24 hours left before we were scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong, we said “fuck it” and agreed to rent it.
——-
Hong Kong airport was like any other airport. Some people, some shops, etc. Nothing struck me as all that special. It took us a while to get some money and find the train, but soon, we were off! Off to Causeway Bay to meet our landlord, and our new place of residence!
There were a ton of whiteys on the train. I kept forgetting that Hong Kong used to be a British colony and there are tons of caucasians here. And they all still look beat up in Hong Kong. I’ve discovered that no matter where you go in Asia, white people always look like crap (myself included). Damn you Asians and your flawless perfect skin! And eternal youth..
We were instructed by our landlord to just meet him outside of the train station, exit F. The train station seemed like any other one in Asia; kinda crowded. Nothing too remarkable here. We walked up the steps to get to the exit, not really sure what to expect of the outside world. It hit us like a ton of bricks. BAM.
LIGHTS.
PEOPLE.
LIFE.
and badass R34 Skylines.
You know, I was so stunned by what I saw, I didn’t even capture the moment, my first impressions. These pictures were taken well after we were settled in, while David and I went exploring around 1-3am, and there are still this many people out! You can’t imagine how it looks at 9pm. You will see in the coming posts how incredible Hong Kong shines. But for now, the rest of our first day.
———-
Move in!
———-
Our landlord picked us up from the train station. He had never seen a picture of us, but he walked right up to us just as we’d exited the train station, and about 5 seconds after the lights and life floored our senses, and he said, “David and Eddie?” Holy crap we were all “uuuuhhh????” It was our landlord!
He took us to our place, less than a 2-minute walk from the metro exit.
We entered some apartment complex off Yee Wo Street (like….one of the busiest streets I have ever seen in my life!) and took the elevator to the 9th floor. Our landlord handed us the keys and let us cross the threshold.
Shit dude, the anticipation was killing us! What did the place look like? What kind of mess were we about to get ourselves into? Renting an apartment overseas without seeing any pictures from someone we don’t know? We were crazy! Insane! Fools!
BAM our place!
Holy shit niiice man!
view from my window…kinda neat!
But wait wait wait…where the fuck’s our furniture!?!?
To be honest, we were so stunned the apartment wasn’t some rat-infested disease acquarium, I don’t even know if we asked about the furniture, but the landlord said it would all be coming soon. Ah who cares! We had beds, roof over our head, and a toilet, in Hong Kong, life is sweet.
After getting settled in, we headed out for Ikea (just down the street!) to buy some bedsheets.
Oh shit it was closed! What the fuck it’s already 11p??? Time flew man. We arrived in Causeway Bay around 5:30, I don’t know how 5 hours passed like it was nothing but uh….damnit! We had no bedsheets!
Oh well, right? We were in Hong Kong! WE DIDNT CARE!
Hungry, we set out to explore our area, to find food and cool things to photograph.
Our first meal in Hong Kong came courtesy of New Bangkok Thai restaurant. It was the only place we could find open that late, hah. It was so hard to find a food joint that was open at this time wtf! We were really surprised, we thought Hong Kong never slept!
Anyways, it was a really good first meal. Such good food. But we didn’t know if we could trust the water. David took the plunge and I reluctantly followed.
After delicious food time, David and I walked down some random side street and found a market!
and next to it, hella people were outside, sitting on lawn furniture, eating in the middle of the street!
what a cool area! Too bad we had just eaten, otherwise we would have stayed. A lot of those people were drinking and eating and laughing and were really openly friendly towards David and I! So unlike my experience in Japan, it was crazy! This street, this moment right here, made me feel confident that I would find friends in Hong Kong. My social anxieties were relaxing. Even though they were a little intoxicated, I could still feel their warmth, I could feel their happiness, their open spirit. Before coming here I was so worried that I would be living the same reclusive, stale life I had had in Tokyo, but my fears immediately dissolved on this street. At 2am on a Thursday night somewhere between Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, I felt welcome.
Before calling it a night, David and I did just a little bit more exploring around our area. We were stunned by the things we saw. Dilapidated buildings underneath constructed, modern architecture, rusted windows nestled between fresh paint, bamboo spines and twisted scaffolding, and dripping air conditioning units forming puddles on street, placed so perfectly so as to bounce light from distant towers into my gazing eye. I have never seen anything quite like this before.
It’s the Hong Kong alleys that drew our attention the most. So much character, so much personality here. I have taken so many incredible pictures of so many different alleys while I have been here. I want to do a series on alleys. I want to take pictures of them during the day and the night, and compare the two. I bet they’ll look completely different! Sigh….ever since coming here, I have become so inspired in the arts, photography, cinematography, writing, dance, music; I have such a huge list of projects I want to do, I doubt I’ll even get to realize even a handful of them :/
Whelp, that’s it for Hong Kong - Day 1. David and I slept on top of our towels that night. But it’s ok, cause Hong Kong isn’t that cold, and I felt warm inside.
The Dread - Teaser 2
The Dread - Teaser 2 from Eddie Kezeli on Vimeo.
While I think about my next move, here is another teaser for you guys.
Hong Kong has kept me pretty damn busy. And going to sleep at 7am kinda kills most of your day the next day. There hasn’t been a single night here that I’ve been to bed before 3, and most nights I don’t see the pillow until after 4. I gotta change! There’s such an awesome world out there to be explored.
Today marks the beginning of my second month in Hong Kong. I’m sorry that I haven’t even gotten around to updating my blog with Hong Kong love. I’ll work on that tomorrow. For now, I’m going to keep working on the movie until it’s time to eat dinner and go out.
I’ve split my movie project into two separate projects. The first two and a half minutes are done (and pretty much have been done forever), and I won’t even be looking at it until I finish the second half.
Imagine yourself making out with someone. Now imagine that you two are actually alligators. Boy, that would look funny.
Tokyo I love you again, Japan - Day 8
Like, are you fucking kidding me?! That’s so fucking beautiful!!! (more on this later…)
The day started out like any other badass day should, with a ROTATING SUSHI BAR.
Eat up motherfuckerrrrrrrrr!!!
I only managed 10 plates, I felt so weak. It was all cause I ate this nasty stuff:
Anyone know what it’s called? It’s hella gross. Its like…all creamy inside, it made me think I was chewing through a spider’s butt or something. So nasty!! I hella lost my appetite after eating one. …but that doesn’t explain why I ate two….plates.
After incredible sushi explosion time, David and I set off for Ueno Park, hoping to get some good hanami action going.
Upon arrival, the bartender from Oath (where we went two nights ago) hella recognized me out of the crowd, came up, and said whats up! So awesome! Like I tell everyone, my favorite thing in the world, more than ice cream, pizza, money and dreaming, is running into people I know, unexpectedly. So…yeah cool!
He pointed us in the direction of hanami, and off we went.
Holy shitballs there were so many people!!! Fuckers, get out of my shot! ARG!
Dude, there were so many people with DSLRs there. Like, everyone in Asia owns one, but I’m not sure they all know what they are doing. I’d see random people here and there holding a full-frame, $2300 Canon 5DmkII (or 1D) with a shitty 18-55mm kit lens that sells new for $115. Why would you do this?! How about you spend $1500 on a 7D, and you’ll have $800 left over to buy two good lenses! It’s really the glass that matters, not so much the camera. And beyond that, it’s the photographer that matters, not the lens nor the camera. I’ve seen stills by a good photographer taken from a disposable camera that look better than the majority of pictures I’ve seen from amateurs with DSLRs.
Ok, rant aside!
We wandered around some more, and came across a cool little market smashed between some trees.
And here’s some wooden blocks with blessings or wishes? There was a temple nearby.
I hadn’t seen many white people that day (surprisingly!) until we found this temple area. Then they swarmed from all angles! Here’s one of them now. As you can see, it’s an old British grandmother teaching a small Asian boy the proper way to fondle a breast.
He seems intrigued.
Dude, there was this badass tower chillin in the distance, but David and I couldn’t find a way to get to it. There was always a building or a gate blocking our path. We hella wanted to check it out! Oh well. So we turned the other way….
And found this really pretty area! Love the green and the pink combo, TOP STYLE!
But then I became distracted by this badass old Asian lady.
She was lighting and maintaining a fire, for some reason I dunno. I couldn’t capture any good angles of her and fire cause I spent most of my time recording video of it. She looked hella hardcore in my video, pictures don’t do her justice.
LASER EYES ACTIVATE!!!
After I got tired of her, David and I did more walking. We came across these stairs that led down to a street and…some water? Lookin’ pretty badass, lets keep going…
Dude, shooting from the top of these stairs, at sunset, was just so freaking cool. Too bad I’m a shitty photographer and couldn’t get any good pics (plus, my lens is hella slow, and the GH1 is no good after ISO 800). Blah…
At the bottom, by the water, we were greeted with this.
Like, are you fucking kidding me?! This looks surreal!! Like a shot from a video game. It was so damn pretty!!
Bah I suck at taking pictures of people…
Oh man, I took so many cool pictures at this spot. I wish I had time to go through and process them (all the pics you see here are straight out of the camera), cause I bet I could make them look even better! Oh well, kudos to mother nature for being so damn SEXY.
Dude, and the ducks playing in the water around this time? OHMY GOD SO AWESOME! Seriously, these pictures are straight out of my camera. It actually looked like this, in real life. OH MY FUCK THE COLORRRSSS!!! Too sexy.
This is how much the colors changed in just 10 minutes. From orange to blue. It was so beautiful. And….and black ducks!! So pretty.
We walked through this other marketplace, and were taken to this road that cut through the water leading to the other side of the lake.
It was fucking stunning. The sunset, the trees, the water, oh my god… My pictures don’t do it justice.
You know what sucks (but made me laugh)? I told David last night to charge his camera. He responded with “ah, I got enough batteries, don’t worry about it..” Yeah well guess what. His camera died before we even exited the park. He missed the sunset, the ducks, the trees, everything. He was so angry at this point. I did feel sorry for him…BUT THEN I LAUGHED BWAHAHHAHAH
Since it is hanami season, that means all of the Japanese people go out, find a nice sakura tree, thrown down some blue tarp, buy a shitload of alcohol, and drink themselves into oblivion. DAMNIT! I so wish I could have done that while I was there, instead of casually observing. I’m such an asshole for not contacting my Tokyo friends.
Here’s the view from the other side of the lake. It was getting really dark by then, and my poor, slow lens couldn’t keep up. Still, it was an incredible view. I’d fly to Japan again in a heartbeat if I could experience one more time the beauty I witnessed on this day.
————
For the last two hours David and I hella needed to pee, but we were so overwhelmed by the things we saw, we forced ourselves to just deal with it. Alas, at the end of this road, we both turned to each other and said, literally at the same time, word for word, “Dude, I hella need to pee.” And when we say hella, we mean it’s a fucking la emergencia.
We ran from convenience store to convenience store desperately trying to find one with a bathroom. None had one! WTF!!! I HELLA GOTTA GO FUCKER!! We ran down the street, across to another, here, there, everywhere, but found nothing! We were so damn close to just peeing right there in the street (there were no alleyways WTH MAN!) Our last resort was to bolt for the nearest train exit, and hope we could find something there. I sprinted down the stairs while David waited above, not ready to jiggle his bladder that much for a lost cause. Frantically searching, heart racing, genitals aching, the most beauty I had seen all day revealed itself before me; the men’s bathroom. “I FOUND IT!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs at the staircase hoping the sound would travel up enough to alert david of my discovery, as I leaped like a gazelle for the nearest porcelain sanctuary.
AAAAAAAHHHhhhh……
With bodies renewed, we decided to explore some more this area we ended up in. There were a buncha massage/beauty parlors on thus street. One sign stood out from the rest:
Uh, I only know enough Japanese to make out the words “10 minutes” and “have the ability to.” So if i am reading this sign correctly, you can apparently get a sex change, via facial massage, in only 10 minutes. Oh Japan…
After more wandering, David and I decided it was time to head back to Shinjuku and maybe call it an early night. We had at 9:30a flight to catch TO FUCKING HONG KONG the next day, you know.
When we arrived in Shinjuku, we realized that we had barely eaten a thing all day. We were starving. So began the search for food.
I mentioned before that I suck ass at searching for food places in Japan. I just don’t know enough kanji, and I think that finding decent food places is really hard to do here, in general. You just gotta experiment. Problem is, David wasn’t feeling that adventurous, with his palette, nor his wallet. I can’t blame him I guess, Japan has been hella expensive.
I found a Haitian place that looked really bomb, but David didn’t want to spend 900 yen on dinner. He wanted somewhere cheap. Well, all we could find were pretty much izakayas, and at places like those, the bill racks up quick. So, bust.
We walked around and around these 3 streets, going in circles for almost an hour, indecisive and hungry. I didn’t want to go to a really cheap place cause I didn’t want to eat crap food, David didn’t want to go to the hella expensive place cause he didn’t want to spend money.
At this point we actually started getting really angry at each other. We both just wanted food, but no one would compromise. David, when he gets hella angry, just gets quiet, and boils. Me, I’m more open about it, but neither of us were doing anything for each other, we just got more and more pissed off.
I told David before this trip that he had to promise me something - that we’d never wander around, indecisive, looking for food. It creates anger and wastes valuable adventure time. It divides people. It happened real bad when I was in New York for the first time with my good friends. We were all hella pissed by the end when it took us a full hour to find a food place that everyone was satisfied with. I don’t want that to ever happen again. I just want the trip to be happy!
Well, it happened again. And David and I were at each other’s throats, silently.
We finally decided to go to a Salzeria (spelling?). It’s a chain restaurant that offers a lot of different, poorly-made foods; salads, hamburgers, spaghetti. It actually was a fairly decent compromise between price and selection, if one ordered right. But fuck that, I’m eating hamburg.
It was actually really tasty, but you can tell that the ingredients are hella shitty. David and I talked it out for a while. Yeah. Good man-talk. No more anger. Hos and beer and shit. And meat.
After food we went back to the apartment. I had heard from the bartender/manager at Oath that a really good place to go for house music (and possibly house dancers) would be Loop, which was not too far away from the Shibuya train station. It’s supposed to be a really popular spot.
David didn’t want to stay out all night, so this is where we parted ways. Around 10:30p, I set off for Loop!
First order of business was to get money, cause I was all out. The ATMs weren’t working in Shinjuku, so I tried some around Shibuya train station. Again, none of them worked.
I went to a few convenience stores and again none of the ATM machines would give me any money! I was getting worried about my card. Finally some dude helped me and told me I should try the 7-11 across the street; how their machine should work with my card.
It was starting to get late, and I didn’t want to arrive at the club too late, lest it be packed. I heard it was quite tiny and can fill up really fast. House girls, house girls, yes!
So I ran across the street, dodging traffic like a fool, trying to get some damn money so I can get on with the rest of my night! Tired and angry from the search, I just pushed random buttons on the ATM machine, I just wanted some damn money, I didn’t care how much! Just give me something!!!
And then it did. 50,000 yen to be exact. HOLY SHIT I DIDN’T WANT THAT MUCH!>!! Fuck fuck go back in!!!!
Damnit. That’s a ton of money to be carrying around. And the exchange rate is soo bad… ahhh…..
Oh well, on to the club, and the best night of my life!
The directions I wrote down were pretty specific, but I still got lost. I wandered up and down this street looking for the club, but I couldn’t find it at all. I asked at many convenience stores, and no one knew where it was. I asked people on the street, and again no one knew where it was. Finally, I remembered I wrote down the number of the club. Finding a phone booth was another challenge, but eventually I found one.
I called the club, and I actually busted out some pretty decent Japanese explaining to the dude I was lost, what was around me, and how to get to his place. He gave me directions, and said it was right next to some university. So I asked around for the university until eventually I was pointed in the right direction. But, again, I still couldn’t find the place.
After more wandering and more asking, I finally popped into a different 7-11 and asked a dude where Loop was. He told me it was pretty much right next door, just a few shops down. He said find the stairs and walk down.
Problem is, there were no stairs!! And no sign anywhere for this Loop. No people queuing outside, no nothing. I ran back inside to 7-11 thinkin the dude was crazy or I was crazy that I couldn’t find it. He said it was literally less than 20m down the road.
Oh my God. It was.
There was no sign outside. And in order to see the sign from the street, you’d have to be standing at the door, eyes squinted, focusing on the 12-point font sign that says “Loop.”
Through the door and down some stairs was a dude sitting at a podium, collecting money. I told him about how much trouble I had finding the place. He laughed. I didn’t hear much noise coming from behind the door, so I asked him if anyone had shown up just. “Just you” he said.
WHAT!?
JUST ME!?
The hell, the dude at Oath made believe that I was going to go to the most poppin’, insane-awesome, you’ll-never-forget-this-place-in-your-life type of house club. What a liar!
The bouncer told me that it could pick up later on in the night, around 3 or 4. Huh? 3 or 4 you kidding me? ….GAH!!!
Anyways, I came this damn far, I wasn’t about to leave without going in. I paid the entrance fee (sigh…) and went forth.
Sure enough, it was empty. Actually, there were two older Japanese dudes talking to the bartender, and that was it.
They were all really nice people, and we all talked about some stuff in mixed Japanese and English. So reminiscent of many of my bar interactions the last time I was in Japan…
One of the guys was actually the DJ, DJ Nori. He was really cool and was happy to hear about my passion for house dance and house music.
To ease my disappointment of not seeing any house girls like I had fantasized, I decided it was a good time for a drink! Started off with a gin and tonic….
Then I had a gin bear (?) I don’t remember, it was recommended by the bartender, and was some other kind of gin drink. Cool.
Then I had another gin drink. Downed it real fast.
Then DJ Nori went up and I danced, by myself, to house music for a few songs.
Then I went back to the bar to order another gin drink, but then I saw this sign:
OH HELL YEAH FRESH BANANA JUICE!!! ….and liquor!!? HOW CAN I GO WRONG!!
BAM there it was. It looked and tasted exactly like my mom’s banana drinks, only with alcohol. It was sooo delicious!
As I was enjoying my banana drink, this sloppy white girl and her flamboyant friend came stumbling in. They started talking to me, telling me how they were from New York, on vacation, getting drunk every day, went to jail earlier that day for stealing bikes, fuck the cops, blah blah blah. Wait went to jail!?! Stealing bikes?! In Japan?! I wanted to punch them. They are the worst kind of tourist, despicable humans, treating the country they are traveling in like some personal playground, an outlet for all of their hedonistic, repressed desires. You want to go to a place like that? Try Thailand or Mykonos. In those places, it is encouraged. In fucking Japan, you are supposed to show respect. Don’t fuck with the locals, don’t fuck with the cops, don’t fuck with their system, because if you do, then nice caucasians like me get persecuted for your mistakes. The Japanese are such nice people! They won’t steal your shit, they won’t get in your way. Why would you fuck with them?
I wanted to slap them both.
Then the sloppy girl starts smoking in my face talking blah blah blah about I can’t remember/don’t care what.
I wanted to throw my chair at her.
After what felt like forever, her talking about herself and the dude and all the trouble they get into and something about a DJ she met last night dropping her off at Loop, and not having a ride nor a place to stay (and wanting to come back with me?) I don’t know. But after all that talking, she starting hating on my banana drink.
Hell fucking no, woman. That’s the last straw you cheap whore.
Every fiber of my (then intoxicated) being wanted to jumpkick them in their stupid faces. I wanted to at least tell them off. I certainly wasn’t going to waste my banana drink by pouring it on her. So, I found my composure, finished my drink, interrupted her in the middle of her retarded, self-absorbed story, and told her, “I’m going to dance, bye.”
So then I danced.
I hadn’t noticed, cause that sloppy girl was taking up my space, that a few more people had wandered in, and were dancing on the floor…mostly girls. Hmm…
I had a blast dancing to some really good music. When the DJ started playing this, I nearly shat myself. This song was so big when I was dancing in SD, it felt so good to hear it, thumping through some bigass speakers, mixed with tribal beats, underneath a disco ball, on top of some good, dark floor. Holy crap I felt free.
After a ton of dancing, I headed back to the bar for another drink. This time, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted, but the DJ’s friend whom I spoke with briefly earlier recommended to me a China Blue.
It had pineapple juice, lychee liquor(!), and some other other stuff and holy crap it was good! I mean damn!
I sat and spoke with the DJ’s friend for a while. He had some good insight on Japanese culture.
Somehow I struck up a conversation with one of the girls at the bar. Her and I talked for a good while about a lotta different things…it was really fun!
I went back to the dance floor to dance it out a bit more. She joined and some other people did too. All in all….like 5 people, hahhahaha.
By this time I was pretty damn intoxicated.
None of the pictures really came out that well. It was just about pitch black in the dance area. I was only able to snap one decent pic
The vibe, I gotta tell you, was hella strange. And this is kinda how it goes down in a lot of Japanese clubs (except for the crazy, big, westernized ones). People just kinda dance, by themselves, in their own space, never intruding in on other’s spaces. No interaction on the dance floor. No vibing. The feeling was just so awkward. I could hear the lonely shuffles of people’s feet between thumps from the speakers. They all dance, looking lost, lost in some emotional purgatory between happiness and sorrow. What is with that? It was so troubling to me. I tried dancing near some girls, tried putting some smiles on their faces. They laughed, sure, but I didn’t feel right trying to make them smile. Argh, I don’t know how to explain this situation any better! It really is something one would have to experience for themselves in order to truly understand.
But, in my memory, that shuffling stands out more than the music itself, its empty echos as close at the feelings seemed distant.
So, that was my Loop experience. Talking to the bartender revealed that it’s packed on the weekends and certain days. On days like today however, it rarely finds crowds larger than 6 or 7.
I left the club around 5ish, and took a cab back to the hotel. I arrived around daybreak, just as David was getting up.
We packed our things, printed out our e-ticket, wrote down our landlord’s contact info, and bolted for the train station. Oh yeah, we were late. We had 25 minutes to run a 15-20 minute walk, uphill, with full luggage, buy a train ticket, find the express train to Narita, and make it to the platform before it left.
We barely made it, yet again.
On to HONG KONG!!!!
LET THE HYPE MACHINE BEGIN!
The Dread - Teaser 1 from Eddie Kezeli on Vimeo.
“That’s it?” Well, if you go to the vimeo page for the movie, you can watch it in HD. What else were you expecting, yo! My movie’s too damn short to have a full-on trailer with a sexy voice. Sigh….someday… :p
I’m going to shove a few of these teasers down ya’ll’s throats before the release, because:
1) It gives you something to look at
2) It raises your expectations higher than I can ever hope to meet
3) It buys me more time to finish
Q: But Eddie, how can you possibly need any more time to finish your movie? Isn’t it only like 5 minutes long?
A: SHUTUP I JUST NEED MORE TIME.
I discovered a special little technique that will effectively make my movie more insane. Having played with it a little, my mind ran wild with what I could do with it. Sadly, at so late in the editing process, I can’t go too crazy with some things that I want to try, I really do just need to finish the damn thing. But not before I at least try one or two whacky things out.
Again, I fear that I am straddling the line between scary and funny. I am too worried that I will cross to the other side with this one. :/
A quick test of what I want to do showed promise, but it also looks hella cheesy. Gah…
ANOTHER THING!
Really, what’s taking me so long is all Hong Kong’s fault. This place is just too damn awesome. On top of that, David and I found our way into this amazing group of people, silly people, crazy people, who love life and just do random things all of the time. Even with full-time careers! They’re such incredible people, seriously. We are so damn lucky to have met them all.
Unfortunately, all of the fun things we have been doing with these people has kept me from making much forward progress on my movie. I just started editing the finale a few days ago, but haven’t had much time since, and likely won’t have too much time til the middle of next week. We’ve got so many badass adventures planned.
Here’s some of us on one of them now!
They keep yelling at me to log on to facebook and add them. They’re all hella addicted, haha.
But gah….I’m just trying to finish my movie before I indulge myself with anything else. Facebook will be too much of a distraction, and I’ll never be able to finish! Sorry everyone. Sorry my friends. I am obsessed with this movie and I have to finish it. I really do appreciate the comments I have been receiving.
Oh and. The reason you may be reading this post on facebook right now is because it automatically posts this entry from my blog’s RSS feed. I actually have no idea how this shit looks on it. I hope everyone can see the pictures and movies I link!
Much love,
Eddie
Post with 2 notes
SHIBUYAAA, and bittersweet memories, Japan - Day 7
Ed note: Sorry. I got hella long-winded with this post. Its just….so damn many memories for me, of what feels like a past life. For those of you who don’t know, I lived in Tokyo for 6 months, and it changed me, more than anything else in my life.
———
Didn’t get to sleep til almost dawn again, took too long to get our asses out of the door, trying to figure out what to do/where to go. We decided on….SHIBUYA!!!
Busiest intersection in the world WOO!!!
Actually, it wasn’t that busy today for some reason. Still pretty packed tho! Look! Cute Japanese girls in the wild!
I thought this chick was famous, so I tried taking pictures of her. I don’t think she is tho, cause no one was really paying attention. Then they yelled at me to stop taking pictures. Weeaak.
Just then, I took off my shirt and started flexing.
..and no one cared…
Just then, I ran into this girl who I went to school with when I was living in Japan. She….had stayed there ever since! Lucky. She wanted to hang out, but David and I were on a mission. Oh yeah, IT WAS FUCKING FRESHNESS BURGER TIME.
This.
Is the best damn hamburger you will ever eat. Yes. I’m serious. Better than that garbage you thought was awesome at your friend’s BBQ that one time. Better than the four Jumbo Jacks you ate one night when you were high. Better than biting into the coke-sprinkled raw ass of a cow and winning the state lottery twice. Freshness Burger.
Only problem is, shits hella expensive. That burger alone costs 5-6 USD. BUT OH MY GOD ITS SO DAMN TASTY.
David and I people-watched at Freshness for a while, and talked about crazy shit. Neat!
Then we walked like THIS for a while.
And I snapped up some pictures of crowds. I love everyones faces!!! That one dude is like “yeah!” and that one chick is biting her lip (and looking at me!?), and the other is wiping her nose…I love crowd photos!
Shibuya is home of the AWESOME Ghetto Happy Dining. Place is great. Best fried spicy chicken I’ve ever had. Sadly, we didn’t have the time to go there :(
There was some dumb TV show being filmed in one of the buildings on the street, and you could look in and see the audience and the performers. What’s big in Japan right now (…er…was…and still is?) are comedy duos, usually two dudes, and usually one is fat, and the other is skinny, and they make fun of each other. I don’t know how you’re going to find a fat person in Tokyo, tho. They just don’t exist (unless they’re whitey!)
David and I did more walking, more exploring…more memories of my Japan experience coming back. It was pretty defeating. I longed for those days… I wished to again speak Japanese so easily as I once did…. :(
Sad crap aside, check THIS awesome slice of heaven out:
That’s right. What you see here is a girl in a foot cast, with only 1 crutch (because she needs the other hand free for her purse/shopping bags), and one high heel. Awesome. And such is the extremity of beauty in Tokyo. This woman cares so much about her looks, that she won’t let a cast and the need for two crutches prevent her from looking as fine as she can be. You go girl.
In addition, check this: women, in Tokyo, dress to the 9’s before they go to the gym. They’ll be in skirts, makeup, high-heels, fancy lingerie, the works, then go to the gym, change into gym clothes, work out, shower, get dressed, do their makeup all over again, and walk out of the place as fine as they walked in. Amazing!
Oh and see the girl on the left? That’s how almost every girl carries their purse/bags here. What ever happened to convenience, practicality, and over-the-shoulder? I dunno. It’s pretty crazy; Tokyo’s obsession with looks.
At least, this is just one foreigner’s opinions and views. Sure they look pretty. Like…all the damn time. But…at some point to me it just looks like vanity, and the illusion is destroyed.
Oh well, not like it’s happened yet. hah!
After a buncha walking, David and I needed to poo, so we b-lined it for the nearest department store. Along the way,
This woman burned two holes into my soul.
..I nearly lost it.
Those eyes…
Anyways, we pooped in some random department store…..
THAT JUST SO HAPPENED TO HAVE AN INDOOR SOCCER FIELD, OUTDOORS, ON THE FREAKING ROOFTOP!!!! 10 FLOORS UP!!! How sweet is that?! FUCK YEAH! David and I hella took pictures up there, and daydreamed about playing on that field until some dude yelled at us not to take pictures.
What the hell, Japan? You all come to America and take a million pictures a day, and then you tell me I can’t take a picture of a freaking soccer field? Bah! Humbug!
I kinda like how this pic turned out. That’s all…
HOLY SHIT YELLOW RAIDEN!!! RUNN!!!
For dinner I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant in Tokyo, this place in Shinjuku-sanchome. We took the subway. Several of the subway exits in Shinjuku are packed with street performers at night. We came across this girl:
I’m such a sucker for Japanese female solo singer/guitarists. I mean, who isn’t? You? YOU HAVE NO SOUL!
The song we stuck around for was so pretty. I got video of it all, and I really wanna cut the footage I shot in Japan to her song. I tried going to her website to find an mp3 of it, but her site sucks. Its all stars and cute fonts and shit. What crap! Gimme your damn music woman!
Aaahhh….the OIOI building (left). Sewn so deep into my memories is this street…
What’s awesome about my favorite restaurant in Tokyo is that I’ve never remembered how to get there. All I know is you walk down this random street that takes you into a few alleyways full of restaurants and bars. And the one I’m looking for is the only one with vegetation on the outside.
HOLY SHIT THERE IT IS!!!! Oh ガーリックステーキ how I’ve missed you!!!
This place, when I used to live in Tokyo, served garlic steak with a side of steamed asparagus and carrots for 700 yen. At that time, that was like $6.80. No tax, no tip! So cheap!
Todays exchange rate sucks way more than it used to, and it doesn’t cost 700 yen anymore. ITS 800!! NOOOOO!!!
It’s ok. It’s ok. The memories are worth it.
Inside you’ll find brick, wood, nice rustic decor, good lighting, warm atmosphere….oh wait shit this place is hella a date place!! Shit I totally forgot about that….. uhh….awkward… sorry David.
Everyone is treated to this bowl of crackers mix before their meal. And you know what? THIS IS THE BEST CRACKERS MIX YOU WILL EVER EAT EVER. EVER. I don’t know what it is about it. I asked the guy last time I was in Japan what it was, and he wouldn’t tell me. Shit is so damn bomb. OH GOD SO BOMB.
It arrives!! The steak I’ve been waiting my whole life for. wait wha-??? where the fuck’s my asparagus and carrots? What the shit?? Fries?? WHAT HAPPENED!>??!?!
Oh well. At least it was all hella tasty. Not as good as it used to be, unfortunately, but still tasty as hell.
I used to know the owner there. This funny old man. He and I would talk every time I’d visit. He didn’t recognize me anymore, tho. He did pause for a second when I was looking at him, but I didn’t bother to approach, he was really busy. Memories….. :’(
At the train station we thought we’d take retarded model pics of each other in front of this light column. We looked pretty gay hahaha.
OH SHIT WAIT!!! See those pants? Yes? Those are my badass puke-green pants I bought in Harajuku!! Aren’t they awesome? hell fucking yes they are. And, they’re slightly shiny. I win.
For some reason I only have (or only took?) one pic of David in front of the light box. He looks pretty stupid, which is why I’m posting it here, ahahahah.
Check out these Japanese chicks! Crazy ass doll status!
I decided David should at least see Roppongi once since he’s in Tokyo. So off we went!
It was actually pretty lame (look, a black dude!), so we kept walking down the street and eventually ended up in Roppongi Hills. There, we saw….THIS!
AAHH IT RAPES USSS!!!!
Then we had a sexy, intimate, private photoshoot with Tokyo Tower (glowing penis in the distance)
OH YEAH BABY!!
——-
After a lot of picture and video taking, David started bitching about being hungry (actually I was too). So I decided to shut his fucking mouth up with a trip to my favorite ramen joint in Shin-Nakano. There, the bowls are HUGE. Like, you feel like dying half way though, but you power through anyways because its so damn delicious.
NGAH!! The memories!!! I used to talk to that dude all of the time!! I used to be a pussy and could never finish his giant-bowl ramen (a HUGE insult in Japan). But, as I explained to him, I was a foreigner, and stupid, and had a small stomach. He used to know my order - ramen, half soup (お水半分). One day I remember I walked into his place and ordered a full bowl. “OOOHHH CHARENJI!” he replied. I was all “GANBARU!!” When I finished, he was shocked! and he said “LEVEL UP!!” hahahahaha oh memories…. :(
oh my god there it fucking is!!!! GAH!!! I’VE BEEN DREAMING ABOUT THIS EVEN MORE THAN THE GARLIC STEAK!!! BEST RAMEN IN THE WORLDD!!!!
uh wait, wait a minute…..the bowl is smaller than I remember…. OH SHIT! I ordered the smaller bowl by mistake!!! NOOOOO!!! Shit.
Oh well. It was still bomb as fuck. It was enough to satisfy us, but it wasn’t the samurai-crippling portion I had used to conquer.
Unfortunately, the guy there didn’t recognize me, either. Or maybe not. He paused for a sec when he saw me, but nothing more was said. Perhaps nothing needed to be said. I told him the day before I left Japan the first time, that his ramen was the best in the world, and that I would be back one day to eat it again. This was my moment. I felt free…
———
Being that we were in my old neighborhood, I had to flag my old flagging pole, for old time’s sake.
I actually haven’t flagged in a really long time. I suck now.
Shin-Nakano is close to Nakano, a place that has a few really cool bars and restaurants, even open late! (it was 1:30am around now). So off we went, walking to Nakano!
I took a different route than I am used to, and we got lost for a bit. BUT! We ran into…
FUCKING OPTIMUS PRIME!!! Hell yeah this is real!! So badass!! I got video of them turning into giant, mechanized bi-pedals, but their laser beams erased my camera.
Aaahh wow Nakano, you’re so pretty at night!!
Since we got lost, we ended up on the other side of Nakano train station. I had never been that far down that road, and I was surprised to see so many people out that late at night (I’m used to seeing practically none in that area).
Fuck yeah late-nite hanami.
We eventually ended up at Nakano Cafe. I love this place. The vibe is always so good, and the people working there are really nice. Actually, I think the same people still work there. This one French dude was still there. He was always really cool. He didn’t remember me, either. Am I that forgettable? No one seems to remember me!!! Bah… balls. We left around 3am.
You know the significance of this picture? I took the exact same one my last night in Japan the last time I was here. It just happened by chance that David and I ended up walking along the same road back to Shinjuku. I didn’t even realize it was the same road until I came across this bridge. My last night in Japan the last time, I was walking back from Shin-Okubo (Tokyo’s Korea town), in the opposite direction we were heading now. I took a picture to commemorate this moment. It was in the same direction as the other picture. The timestamps of the picture I took today and the one I took so long ago are almost identical, just separated by two years, and only a few days.
What a weird feeling it gave me. It felt like standing on a bridge between who I used to be, and who I am now. The world around me seemed like it laid suspended in time, just waiting for my return, waiting for me to make a choice. I stood at the same spot I stood all that time ago, and gazed in the same direction. The last two insane years of my life dissolved away in this moment as I stood beside my past-self, looking deep into the darkness below, and dizzily at the lights above. It seemed, then, that not a lot had changed, that not a lot was different within me since that sad, sad day of my departure. I was still lost in Asia. I still didn’t feel welcome in Tokyo. I still didn’t understand Asian culture, nor its people. I can list so many life-changing events that have happened in my life since my return from Japan, but all of those seemed so distant in the face of my past and my present Asian experience, my Savage Orient.
I am not sure what lies ahead of me in my life, and I stopped thinking about that stuff long, long ago. I had grown accustomed in San Diego to just gliding along. I was too comfortable there, and I enjoyed my life and the people in it too much to be concerned with the future.
But now it has all changed. I have changed. All because of this bridge, and this memory. Despite my insurmountable Asian ignorance, I keep feeling the call to return.
Sadness, and Courage! Hong Kong - day # i haven’t a fucking clue
Hmm, which to start with first? I’ll start with sadness, and end in a positive note! (oh hollywood..) Skip to the picture if you just want the happy!
I met a cool girl at this club last weekend. Called her today to hang out. David and I met with her in Tsim Sha Tsui and got some drinks. She’s really pretty and funny, but the whole night was awkward (well, I’m just awkward in general).
Never do anything in groups of 3
When you’re walking on the street, there’s never enough space for three people to be lined up, so someone always has to lag behind or jump in front, and in either case that person usually misses the conversation. And it’s usually me!
We thought she was going to bring her friend. Life is so much better when your group number is evenly divisible by 2. Otherwise, someone is always left out. That’s why I hate that dumbass Garden State movie (SPOILERS): At then end when the girl and the dude are making out and the other dude is just standing there? Bullshit. Cause that dude has always been me. Even numbers, or peace out.
Language Barrier
I don’t speak Cantonese, David really wants to speak Cantonese, English isn’t her first language, and she just got a tongue ring, so….it was just hard talking in general. Especially for me, cause I’m awkward and stupid. David tried being a good friend and filling any awkward silences with conversation, but that ended up just isolating me even more, cause the conversations would often dissolve into Canto.
He kept punching me to sit next to her as we went from place to place, but I totally didn’t get it. Plus I wasn’t feeling a good vibe, so I didn’t want to force myself on her and make things awkward if she wasn’t interested. He tells me I should stop being a baby and just take a damn risk in life.
I think all the awkwardness was just in my head. And then I made it come to life. So so stupid…
The two of them ended up talking with each other more than I talked with her. It’s that damn language barrier! Or something I dunno…
The night ended with “bye!” and that’s it. Not even a “lets hang out again sometime.” I’m pretty sure I’ll never see her again. My heart was feeling really empty the whole trip back to the house. David and I actually got in a huge argument over all this. We were yelling at each other pretty loud in the streets, at the station, on the subway…it was crazy. We were really mad at each other….over a buncha stupid shit. Its funny, we had a very similar argument two days ago, roles reversed, over some other girl, hahahahah. Yup, that’s us. Like brothers. But this kind of shit just bring us closer together. AWW HOW CUTE JUST LIKE A HALLMARK CARD
NOW ON TO THE GOOD NEWS!!!!
YYYYYEAHHHHHH!!!! LOOK AT THAT GRASS!!!
WOOOOOO!!!!
WHATS THE EXCITEMENT OVER I DONT KNOW!!!!
Oh yeah, I just showed David THE FIRST TWO MINUTES OF MY BLACK AND WHITE MOVIE and he was really fucking impressed. Like, really! I hope he’s not lying just because I had that fucking shotgun pointed at his head.
He had no complaints. Nice! He just….enjoyed it!!! And said it was creepy!!! Even though he was there when I was filming! YESSSSSS We talked about some of my shots and the pacing and SFX and such, and it seems like I got across exactly what I was trying to do (at least, for these first two minutes I should him. The rest of my film could suck for all I know…), and I made it entertaining! ^_^
This truly gives me the energy to finish it. It’s so satisfying when you hear someone actually enjoy your work; the crap you’ve stressed over so damn much. GWAAARRRR ULTRA POWER CUBES!!!!!
So good news for anyone who cares. You will see this movie, somewhere in the near future.
Goddam I hope people like it.
GAH! TOO MUCH HYPE! TOO MUCH PRESSURE! MUST SLEEP AND DREAM SOME SCARY DREAMS!!!
Speaking of which, ever since I started making this scary movie, I’ve been having nightmares every night. I almost never have nightmares!! Get outa my head.
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