i keep a diary

August 27, 2005

Randon Trip to Japan: Part Two

Saturday, August 27th

We woke up at Rob and Atsuko's place on Saturday morning, and immediately consulted the Saturday version of the "things to do while in Japan" crib-notes Mike D. had put together.
I grabbed an insta-coffee drink and this mystery snack...
...and ate my breakfast-on-tha-go while we waited for the train.
Somewhere along the way, we transferred to the Ginza line and took it to Ginza Station so that we could meet up with Mike's friend Mikie (pronounced "MICKEY-AY"), who he had attended college with in the States (UCLA), but she'd since moved back to Tokyo. (And since our trip, she's moved to NYC!).
I chased this guy around the subway terminal for like 3 minutes trying to snap a picture of his awesome "Asian Bad Guy from a Bond Movie" outfit, but he was as elusive as a real-life Bond-villain and this was the best I could manage. (Linen shorts? White dress socks? Bowling shoes? Wow!).
We met up with Mikie at Maisen: an old bathhouse that's been converted into a chic restaurant that specializes in serving...
...Tonkatsu, which is breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet! (Sort of like the Japanese equivalent of weinerschnitzel.)
food ˆ japanese food ˆ tonkatsu
After lunch we walked around and did some sightseeing in the neighborhood (one building we passed that had all of these great, futuristic cars parked out front).
All of the power lines were above-ground - check out this crazy intersection of wires.
It's so nice to travel to other, less-Puratanical countries where alchohol is not such a big deal. You can totally score yourself a beer from a vending machine in the street.
We kept trying to get Mikie to take us to a vending machine that sells girls' panties that have been worn, but she swore she'd never seen one in Tokyo (I totally don't believe her! I've heard so much about them that I know they must exist somewhere! And Snopes totally backs me up on this, yo!)
The next vending machine we saw stepped it up a notch: Not only did they have regular ol' cans of beer available, they also had super-sized cans, plus you could buy liter bottles of wine and whiskey! (It's pretty hardcore to be able to buy a liter of whiskey from a vending machine on the street).

Earlier in the week, Matt (the guy who ran the English Camp in Korea) had put us in touch with a Japanese friend of his named Yuka, and she invited us all to her beach house that was located in a town called Kamakura (or maybe it was Fujisawa...I can't remember!) located about an hour outside of Toyko by train. We made plans to head out there, but first we had to go to Rob and Atsuko's apartment so that we could pack overnight bags and take...
...a nap. (Hahahah).
The bathroom at Rob and Atsuko's apartment was crazy futuristic. They had a washing machine for clothes - but instead of having a western style dryer, their bathroom had these hot air blowers above the bathtub - so you'd hang up your wet clothes, turn on the hot air and close the bathroom door.
Before hopping on the train to head to Yuka's shore house, I finally made good on my promise to experience another item off of McDonald's "weird foreign items" menu. Let's hear it for the Club House Mac! (It was exactly like a regular Big Mac except it was topped with a fried egg and a few slices of bacon! Which basically means that if my little brother ever reads this entry, there's like a 90% chance he'll be moving to Japan in the near future).
fast food in foreign countries ˆ food ˆ mcdonalds
After filling our bellies with Club House Mac weirdness, Andy, Mike, Mikie and me all hopped on the subway (with some giant cans of malt liquor that we'd purchased to keep the "party going" en route) and headed to Fujasawa/Kamakura (which is pretty much Tokyo's version of taking the subway to Rockaway Beach).

Yuka had told us that there was a really fun beach party going on that night and that we should pick up some beers on the way to her house. So right when we got off the train, we popped into a convenience store to pick up some alcohol and then we nearly lost our minds when we discovered that this particular convenience store also sold...
...FIREWORKS! Check it out: The Mobile Suit Gundam firework pack!
fireworks
...and, er, THIS!
fireworks
Here we are outside of the store celebrating with our bags of booze and fireworks. Hahaha.
We walked to Yuka's house, dropped off our bags and then she drove us right to the beach for the party. We got there a little past 9pm and that shit was already in full effect.
The set up was awesome - right in the middle of everything was a translucent geodesic dome that had DJs and a bar inside.
We staked out a spot on the beach away from the dome, laid down our beach blankets and broke out the giant beers we'd brought.
Sooo good!
Hahaha.
After we'd gotten our buzz on a bit (ha, who am I kidding, we were already buzzing on subway ride out!), we decided it was time to break out...
...THE FIREWORKS!
We'd purchased an enormous bag of what we had assumed were bottle rockets, but upon igniting them...
...they turned out to be some kind of super-sparklers instead.
If we weren't going to be able to shoot them up in the air (and ok, at people), we decided that the only way to make the sparklers in any way interesting would be to light them all at once. Mikie planted like 50 of them in a row in the sand...
...and then ran down the line trying to light them all.
Go, Mikie, go!
After we'd gone through the entire bag of super sparklers, it was time to pull out the big 'works we'd purchased.
Watch yer eyebrows!
After our big fireworks show, I busted out my battery-operated light-up frisbee that I'd brought along (yes, I know, I'm a huge nerd) and we played frisbee in the dark!
flashflight ˆ frisbee
If you're into frisbee at all, you should totally buy one of these. They're amazing. (Especially in NYC where it's hard to find a field that's empty enough to play frisbee - if you have one of these, you just wait until it gets dark and then after all the people leave you can just light this up and you've got a field all to yourself in the dark. It rules.)
flashflight ˆ frisbee
Sweaty Andy back at home base after an aerobic, sixty minutes of frisbee.
Around 11, we decided to leave our beach-blanket home base and check out the scene inside the dome.
The dome was awesome. Inside people were just hanging out, chatting, dancing.
There was a projector showing super-8 films of people doing frisbee tricks that looked like it was shot in the USA in the 70s.
Mikie, Mike and Andy.
Andy took up the bongos and we made some new friends.
New friends!
andy b, mikie
Hahaha. Smooch for you!
kiss ˆ thumbs up ˆ andy b ˆ mikie
Somewhere along the line I picked up another giant can of beer and a bottle of sake. Oooof.
I think it's safe to say that we were all pretty drunk at this point.
I ended up doing shots of tequilla with the girl in the green shirt and then, somehow, she and I ended up on the beach making out. (On the way out of the dome, I remember I accidentally stubbing my toe on one of the tent pegs that holds the structure up and thinking "Ow, that hurt a bit." It wasn't until I sobered up the next morning that I realized I'd broken my toe!!!)
So I'm drunk out of my mind, on the beach, making out with this girl who hardly speaks any English (and I certainly don't speak any Japanese) and all I can remember is that there are like hundreds of photo flashes going off in the background. I had made the mistake of handing my camera to Mike, and he and Mikie had snuck up to where this girl and I were making out in the sand and were trying to take photos of us! But Mike couldn't figure out how to stop my camera's flash from firing, so the first 20 pics he took are all of Mikie pointing at me and this girl making out in the sand, but because the flash kept lighting up the foreground, all you can see if Mikie pointing! Hahaha.
Mike finally figured out how to turn off the flash, but didn't manage to capture anything incriminating (or even discernible, for that matter).
He did, however, manage to create some pretty sweet accidental art.
Mikie and Mike walking along the water's edge.
A little after 2am, we decided to call it a night...
...so we hopped into Yuka's car and headed back to her place.
Hahaha. Me, Mikie and Andy squished into the backseat.
On the porch back at Yuka's.
Mike read a magazine...
...I played with Yuka's chiuauas, and then we all called it a night.

Sunday, August 28th

Check out the bad-ass room I got to sleep in at Yuka's place. I felt like I was in a Tarantino movie! We woke up a little after 11am the next morning and decided to...
...walk from Yuka's house to a nearby beach (different from the one we'd been to the previous night).
Best car-theft deterrent ever.
We went through this long tunnel that took us underneath a mountain, and when we came out the other side..
...we were right at the beach! (I think this is Kamakura Beach).
We walked all the way down the beach...
..til we reached to boardwalk where we reunited with Matt & Lara (who'd put us in touch with Yuka!).
We ate lunch and had tropical drinks...
...and I inspected my now-quite-swollen broken toe. Ouch!
After lunch and some relaxing on the beach, we walked back to Yuka's...
...where I spent the next 90 minutes playing with her two long-haired chiuauas!
Hahahah.
And then Yuka drove us all back into town so that we could catch a train back to Tokyo. The dogs came with us and we laughed about how they both liked to sit on her lap when she drove. One of them pretended to steer the whole time...
...while the other dog kept an eye on the rest of us passengers.
In town, we stopped for a quick bite to eat a yakitori hut that Yuka recommended...
...then we waited for our train. (You are here).
On the train ride back to Tokyo, the dude sitting next to Andy kept falling asleep and accidentally resting his head on Andy's shoulder. Every few minutes, he'd wake up, realize he'd been napping on a stranger, get really embarrased, and try to stay awake. But then like two or three minutes later, he'd start to nod off and end up back on Andy's shoulder. It was fucking HILARIOUS.
Mikie, Mike and I were sitting in the seats across from Andy watching this happen and we were hysterically laughing the entire time.
Eventually, Andy just gave up and leaned forward so that the guy would have a nice soft shoulder-pillow to rest his head against and let the dude sleep on him for the entire train ride. Awwwww, what a sweetie!