The Savage Orient

I guess its unrealistic to expect every single day of one’s vacation to be insanely badass adventureville U.S.-of-mother-fucking-A, but after Korea, we kinda expected it. Such was not the case with today, where we barely did shit. I’m serious. What a waste. Yes, that is a turd on a shirt. And yes, the shirt reads “turd”, pronounced in Japanese as “unko” (oonko, not uhnko).

I had been making this giant list of shit to do/see in Tokyo, things that I found enjoyable the last time I was there, shit that I wanted to show David. Shit like:

ghost bar (gothic, haunted-house themed bar where the waitresses dress like sexy ghosts)
Kichijyoji (the park, and this bomb-ass yakitori place, I think its called Iseya)
Ueno (the park, and the area in general - cool people are there!)
Shinjuku/kabukicho
Shibuya/clubs
Akihabara (manga, otaku, maid cafes, electronics!)
Harajuku (shopping, people, fashion, crepes)
Yoyogi koen (and Meiji Shrine) on Saturday (cosplayers!)
my favorite ramen place (located in Shin-Nakano)
my favorite restaurant in general (the place is fucking badass, pics to come later)
plus some other shit, I lost the list…

And, there are things I wanted to do. I have a ton of friends in Tokyo! I wanted to see them all! Well fuck, it seems like almost none of the shit that was on my list actually gone done/seen/eaten/and hung out with. I saw none of my friends in Tokyo, I don’t know what the fuck happened! Japan, in general, was just a big crash that resulted from going too crazy in Korea. David and I missed so many opportunities to do so many things, we actually ended up not liking Tokyo in the end. NOT LIKING TOKYO!?! How…what…why?! Yeah I dunno. Strange.

Today we went to Harajuku for SHOPPINGGG!!! EEEEE!!!! I needed a jacket hella bad. I was so damn cold everywhere we were traveling!!! (below 13°C, always). I’m used to San Diego weather, mang! I don’t even own a jacket. I had to borrow David’s jackets most of the time.

This, is the main shopping street in Harajuku. As you can see, there is no room to move or breathe.

Much to our surprise, we didn’t find much there that we were interested in. David found a pretty cool jacket, but WTF! I was the one who was supposed to find a jacket!

So I remained cold.

After assloads of walking we needed to eat. I suggested Loteria, a burger chain. I remember when I was in Japan last time they released a burger called the “Zepin.” Marcus and I tried to eat it, but it was sold out wherever we went. SOLD OUT? A hamburger? Yes, such is the obsessive youth of Tokyo. The new thing gets consumed by EVERYONE. Marcus and I went to 4 different Loterias that afternoon searching for the damn thing, but it was sold out everywhere. And it continued to be sold out for two weeks until finally some random morning we found a place that actually had a few left. The burger was damn delicious. Not the best in the world, but damn good.

I wanted a piece of that memory again, so David and I went to Loteria. I was expecting to be launched balls first into burger heaven upon the consumption of this magical combination of shit I can’t recognize and meat and bun.

But when we finally got ours, we were disappointed by its size, and even by its taste. It was still a pretty good burger, but not that good, and not that big. WHAT THE HELL SHIT COST LIKE 7 BUCKS (and David paid 9 for a double). Crap. Well that sucked.

We walked down the big road that the main Harajuku street dumps you out on. It was sunset by then, and the sky and the buildings looked really pretty! David and I were pretty amazed how beautiful it all looked. Just then,

******SMASH!!!*******

This dude on a bike crashed into the side of a taxicab in the middle of the intersection we were about to cross.

‘Fool just got up,

grabbed his things,

lifted his bike,

walked past the cop who did nothing,

and took off! Silly.

On the street David and I spotted a UNIQLO, and I was surprised to hear that he’d never been to one. They have one in SF, right? I almost didn’t want to walk in (having been to so many already), but I’m glad a did…..

XWAASHINNG!!

KkSSshrrrrsSHhsh…

I AM TEH TALLEST GUNDAMMM BWAAAAARRRRR

How badass is that? GIANT GUNDAM MODELS! Of course, not as huge as this WHICH I AM SO FUCKING PISSED I DIDN’T GET TO SEE, but well, it goes back to what I was saying about Tokyo. David and I pretty much didn’t do shit. It sucks it worked out that way, because Tokyo is an amazing city, regardless.

Along that same road was an Audi dealership…er, showroom? Mini-museum? It was strange. Its such a big, open, beautiful building. With only a few cars and a few pretty attendant ladies inside. OH WELL WHO CARES IT WAS AWESOME» HERES SOME CAR PORN

OH BABY!

KISS MY NECK, NOW

OH YEAH! LET ME SEE YOUR INSIDES

RAVAGE MY BODY

…And Kostas destroys his pants.

After the Audi dealership and a few…OH WAITT!!! I totally forgot!! I DID buy something today. Actually, it was after the Audi dealership. On the way back to Harajuku station David and I went to a few more clothes stores to see what we could find. I FOUND SOMETHING! Some sick ass, puke-green pants. I’ve been wanting pants in that color for days! Hells yar.

This is a cool ad we saw.

We almost forgot to do the most important thing in Harajuku!

CREPES!

MMMMM BITCH!

Then David needed to use bathroom, so I people-watched the entrance to Harajuku for a while before we headed back to the hotel.

When we got back to the hotel, we looked up clubs in Tokyo. It was about damn time we had a ridiculous, drunk, out-all-night experience in Japan! (last night didn’t count. We went to sleep before the sun was up). We settled on Atom (not my choice, but it had more potential, being that it had multiple floors, different genres of music, and was the cheapest.

We got there and got in just fine. Place wasn’t too packed. Tons to pretty women OH MY GOFD. But they were all smoking. Matter of fact, EVERYONE was smoking. And the one floor that was the most crowded was the floor that was playing old, random Japanese pop songs from the 90’s or something. David and I were totally lost.

The upstairs level was playing hip hop, but it was terrible hip hop, and the entire crowd was standoffish, and not dancing.

We had to wait til midnight for the bottom level to open up, the one that was supposed to play house. Well, we waited, and shit wasn’t house. It was crappy trance mixed with crappy pop. The music was awful. I still danced my ass off, as hard as I could, to maybe get the crowd going? I was the only one dancing for a good 10 minutes before some drunk people came down, and danced far away from me, in their own group.

Damnit, Japan, why can’t you be more open? More friendly? How much more universal of a language can you get than dance? Lets all have fun and dance together!

Sadly, that didn’t happen. Then this washed-out, late-thirties/early-forties white dude stumbled in, with his equally old-looking asian friend, and they started dancing so awkwardly, trying to attract girls. They were so drunk, barely able to function. And of course everyone thinks that the white dude was with me. NO MAN, NO.

Anyways, Atom blew. Too much smoke, no love for foreigners, no love for dance. Only love for themselves, and to some extent, their friends, maybe. Am I expecting too much out of people?

David and I left Atom around 2a. I doodled a map of the location of another club (that had free entrance!) and supposedly spun house until 5am every day. It is called “Oath” and it was only a 20 minute walk from Atom, so off David and I went.

Oath was hidden behind some buildings, but we found it. Unfortunately, NO ONE was there.

I coulda sworn I took some pics of the place? I don’t know what happened to the rest of my photos for this day…

At Oath, David and I just sat down and I talked with the bartender for a while using my shitty Japanese. We drank his specialty - “hot wine,” and lemme tell ya, SHIT WAS GOOOOOOD. I can’t give away the ingredients, but I will one day try to master hot wine like he has. Oh man that stuff was good.

We talked with the bartender for a while, and eventually left around 4am just cause…uh…there was no one there.

When David and I left Oath, we ran for a while. I don’t remember why. It was cold, sure, but I don’t think that was it. Felt more like a catharsis. Just running. We ran and ran…

And that’s it.

camera dump:

Japan - Day 6

Meh, Japan - Day 6