A cup o' chai latte

*Update August 25*(*Note, J = Jason Red Hat, Jason = Jason Band) So yeah, it's Mid-Auguast and I'm at Nepal now from Japan. This summer's Japan trip was definitely different, and yet very fun.. so without futher ado.. The August Japan Trip--
Prologue
The big day, leaving the USA for 4 months. I headed to the airport and went to the check-in counter when... I forgot my passport!! hahaha Good thing I live 5 minutes away from the airport.. so anyhow, got my passport and everything else went smoothly.
Day 1
First day I arrived it was pretty fun. Loooonng train ride but I got to Ikuyo`s place fine, Shaunna was there (another JASS person who is working at an orphanage in Japan over the summer), I had no idea she was there so it was quite a surprise =P We then went off and set off some fireworks. After that we took the train to Akabane and we had okunomiyaki (japanese pizza, pretty good stuff u make yourself on a pan) and I drank lemon sour (alcoholic drink), then we hit up Mosburger (they had this really good Mos Star burger or something like that, Yakiniku meat with patties made out of rice), then came home, hung out and slept. One major worry was that I didn't get to meet up with John and them because they didnt know how to call Ikuyo's place (they didn't know they were supposed to dial 0 before the #) o.O well its all good because the next day...
Day 2
We went to Shinjuku at noon and signed on a internet cafe to check e-mail, and it just so happens John signed up on the internet 10 minutes after I did. So we chatted and sorted everything out. So in the meantime me, Ikuyo and Shaunna went to karaoke for 2 hours. That was pretty fun, afterwards we went to a bar... and... Ikuyo got... pretty out of it =p, she was laughing and screaming really loud so I had to help her out of the bar while Shaunna was like -omigod- inside. But it was pretty amusing. (Ikuyo had like 5 shots of Sake, we had like 8 and then cocktails). Afterwards we met up with Vic and them outside the Gap at Shinjuku. Ikuyo was still pretty out of it, but we decided to go back and drop off everyones stuff and then head out again. So we waited by the train station while everyone went to run errands to the bathroom. Vic sort of just disappeared, he was trying to find a -drink- or so he says =P. Rushing back, hungry as heck, we drop off the luggage and go back out to Shinjuku. We went around looking for places to find food at midnight there at Shinjuku. Turns out the only places really serving food still open are Izakaya's.. now I actually wanted to try one of those places out before hand, but I didn't really think I'd be able to then and there =P It's basically like... a pub with more and better food. (Drinking establishment + nice sit-down restaurant in one.. interesting place =P). So while we were piecing together the menu, we ordered a few rounds of hot sake and Ikuyo proceeded to order some food for us. Vic, being untrained in the manners of etiquette started pouring sake for us and was about to drink while Ikuyo and Shaunna were ordering o.O guess it can't be helped since his family never eats together and his parents don't teach him manners.. guess that's our job hahaha.. but man, Vic sure gets excited when sake is around lol. So we got some pretty good food, squid, salad, chicken karaage, japanese fried rice, and drank quite a lot of sake. Vic was burning red and everyone else was pretty jolly. I was kind of dying b/c of the bar earlier too hahaha (well not horribly, I was still relatively normal ^_~). So after that we started to go look for "The Code," a popular club Mike (SCU) recommended me since Shaunna wanted to dance. We asked some Japanese guys sitting at a park (well I asked, since every1 else wouldn't yet) and this one guy who looked Korean who was drunk and an ass was like "go that way and get out of here," and I was thinking wtf o.O But then Shaunna came up right when he said that and asked his friend and his friend started telling us, but we couldn't really understand. So Ikuyo came by and started talking to the friend, but then that Korean looking guy started whining at us "Where are you from? Hong Kong?" no.. I came from America.. "Really??" yea... "So what about you? (Directed at Ikuyo) How come you speak Japanese?" "I am Japanese..." "So why the hell don't you know your way around huh?" blah blah blah, soon we just left him and walked to where we saw lights and people were going. We walked down the club alley and immediately since girls were w/ us, Jamaican guys and random club associates tried to get us into their shoddy empty clubs. Being solicited was rather funny at first, everyone keeps thinking I'm from Hong Kong, and Vic is our "leader" hahaha. Somehow some Canadian guy named "Abraham" who was soliciting us came and tagged along, but instead of soliciting further, he was going to give us the "real down low" on the Guam club. So basically we found out from him all those clubs are empty as hell and they're trying to solicit people in the streets (yeah, I doubt Japanese locals would go to those shoddy looking clubs when places far nicer are down the street). So then we eventually found ourselves in a big open area where all the homeless in Shinjuku happened to congregate. Some kids were singing real loud (not badly) and playing the guitar. Immediately I looked at Jason and he had that twinkle in his eyes.. haha. So we walked down, no luck with the code, and we walked back up and decided to ask one of the people hanging around if Jason could use their guitar to play some songs. One of the older guys (40s-50s) looked like a nice guy and wasn't using his guitar, and so we stopped by and asked. Jason picked up the guitar and proceeded to play, while Vic and J sang with him. It sure impressed the old guy, so we ended up hanging on the steps there and chatting with them... for the rest of the night hahahaha. I guess other people were impressed too because people would just walk up to us and hang out =P Later on J told me to look up and there across the street from us was The Code in really really big letters 4 stories up.. hahaha Well it was 3:30 already and the Code closed at 4:00.. so it was kinda pointless to go. So we just stayed and hung out. Abraham stayed for quite a bit chatting with Ikuyo before he got up and left. Hanging out with the homeless sure is a different side of Japan than what we normally see. Some teenagers were playing ball in the streets, sliding across them (i thought that was really disgusting), and there were some freaky cross-dressed people trying to promote their club or karaoke joint or strip joint or something. and of course u have like 1 or 2 prostitutes running about. Later on we decided to take a walk to look for the restroom, and we ended up going to this public one that was pretty dirty. Vic was screaming cuz while he was going to piss, he looked to his left and realized everyone in the street could see him.. what a dork =P We got some onigiri at a thrift store and went back to Jason and John who were still over with the old guy with the guitar and a few of his friends. Daylight was breaking and Japan was switching it's gears from night-life to the regular business life. We were all very dead, so why were we still up? To catch a glimpse of the famous fish market in action of course! So we walked around train stations trying to find our way to Tsukiji, the fish market.. we ended up taking the subway (many many steps x.x) since that was the only way. So by the time we got there at 6:15, we thought it'd be over. Instead we go over there and found out that there was no market that day since it was some holiday!!! Talk about bad luck! So we went back to Sashiogi (Ikuyo's home) and stop by Akabane's Mosburger along the way. I sure do love those Mos Star =P. Shaunna had to go back to work at the orphanage so she took a taxi with me and Vic and got her stuff at Ikuyo's and left. (Kind of sad that she didn't wait for Ikuyo to come to say goodbye, but we were all kinda dead and she was in a rush). The rest of us went home and crashed...
Day 3
We woke up around noon to try to get lunch at that spicy ramen place that I've hyped up... I asked Ikuyo what she was going to do that day and she said she'd just tag along with us. So we took a train to Ebisu which took quite a while.. so we thought it'd be closed by the time we got there... when we did get there, the sign for the hours showed it WOULD have been open... if it wasn't for the HOLIDAY >.< ARGHHHHH!#%!L#K%H!L#%KH we ended up eating at one of those quick ramen stores and I got some pretty delicious Katsu Curry. Then we headed off to Akihabara and looked around the electronic and anime shops. It was pretty interesting, but I felt kinda bad cuz Ikuyo looked utterly bored. We finally went to the SEGA arcade and John played some Initial D, and then later he and Ikuyo played this funny Tyco Drum game which seemed to be the latest rage of parapara ddr game. Oh, I did see that Brightstar digi cam Tenshi sent me a webpage of a while back (credit-card sized digi cam.. pretty neat, now only for $108 =P I actually would have gotten it if I wasn't going to Nepal since I'd be spending more money there and I'm going there for 4 months). We went over to Shinjuku and walked around for a bit. I went to RockinMusic and found piano scores for SENS's best album ^.^ Then we went to virgin megastore to the internet cafe. I was sitting around waiting for a computer to open when Vic was like.. look over there at that girl! and I'm like.. what girl? then John muttered Oh, you mean the one with perfect skin? I look over... wow! hahaah yeah, she was quite pretty, model type, too typical for John so he said. J actually went up and was going to ask to take a picture with her.. but all he asked was if she spoke english and she just sort of looked at him and shook her head.. then he came back over to us o.O Man, these guys need a lesson in persuasion =P Well it seemed like the wait would take forever so we decided to leave. Ikuyo seemed kind of o.O by now. When we got to the train station back home, she lost her ticket, so the guy asked us where we came from. Without thinking I just blurted out the truth (I'm pretty honest as most of you know who read this.. which sometimes is a bad thing..) So she had to pay like $5 more than if I said Omiya (the closer big train station). Yeah, she looked REALLY peeved about that. So yeah.. it just got really weird. We went home and it was like dead silent.. after a while I asked if she wanted anything to eat, she said no. So John and I were going to proceed in cooking whatever they bought at the grocery store while I was asleep in the morning. She went over and said it's ok, she'd cook. So her and John started prepping food (not enough room for me at the counter, and John is a more experienced cook anyhow =P). We ate, things seemed a little better now thanks to John helping her out. But I think she was still pretty mad at me. She fell asleep on the couch so we all went to bed. Me, J and John slept upstairs... funny thing is it was so hot that John and I both ended up stripping down to our boxers and that probably scared J pretty badly in the morning hahaha. John later remarked he liked staying at Ikuyo's place better than his cousin's because Ikuyo's place was "hardcore Japanese" (it was like what you see in those dramas were they still in small houses where the father is in his wife-beat using a ghetto fan to fan himself) =P Apparently Ikuyo went to see her cousin or something that morning, she came back and still seemed pretty peeved. I told her we were planning to goto Harajuku and Shibuya that day and asked what she wanted to do. She said she'd go with us.. so as we started preparing to leave... she started sniffling a lot while reading Rolling Stones in the living room.. me and Jason were kind of like.. uhh wtf is going on.. and then she started sobbing pretty hard, and pretty soon she was in full-blown balling crying mode. So yeah.. it was kind of random, so we were in a predicament.. What to do? We had a meeting outside Ikuyo's place after she sort of collapsed on the ground. Since we didn't really want to waste anyone's time, we decided to leave Ikuyo's place and stay at John's uncle's place in Yokohama. We went in and waited till she was sort of normal. She got up and said she was going to go look for work that day. We gave her a thank you letter (thanks to slick John for having the letter and suggesting we write it) and then told her the news. After that she kept on insisting on calling for a taxi for us, but she lost the number. So after a while, we decided to walk with all of our luggage to the train station (15 minutes away). It seemed like centuries since we all had lots of stuff and I was lugging around a duffle bag (stuff I was bringing to Nepal friends.. grrrr), my bag, and my suitcase. Not to mention in Japan it's really humid and usually averages around 90 degrees... yeah, I was dying =P. We got on the train and everything went fine, so after a long train ride we arrive at Sakuragi-Cho (yeah, sakuragi like the slam dunk guy, bet you want to go there danny! ^_-). Turns out that outside that train station was that famous scene from Love Generation with the electronic billboard. Apparently Vic got inspired by this and wanted to go meet girls! lol. Since it was raining heavily outside, we got an umbrella and went off in pairs to the designated waiting spot for John's cousin to pick us up. J decided to go walk by himself in the rain (he started walking without knowing where the meeting spot was.. baka =P). Vic was on his way to get him, but apparently saw a cute girl without an umbrella and ran up to help her hahahah (yes, for vic it will always be girls over friends! j/k =P). He ran up to her and must have been a scary sight cuz he said she was starting to run away from him. But when he made his intentions known, she was very grateful. Vic being happy with this small victory wanted to hang around the station helping girls get across.. but alas, John's cousin came.. hahah. So we all stuffed in John's cousin's car and drove over to their apartment. This was quite different from Ikuyo's place as it was very modern and had nice AC =) After we settled in we went downstairs because John's other cousin came over to show John his Skyline R32 with a R34 engine that he bought for under $20,000. Yeah, it was pretty nice looking, and everyone oogled over the car. The engine sound was pretty nuts in comparison to the weak stuff over here in America. After that we went to look for a place to eat. Chatting with John's cousin, I found out Yokohama was famous for it's China Town (I wanted to eat famous stuff of Yokohama, but not particularly Chinese...). We ended up at a Ramen shop and had some really really good ramen. Afterwards John's cousin took us to an arcade (we were supposed to go Highway Battling but it rained.. so that was off). Over here we saw... Initial D Arcade Stage for only 100 yen! We huddled there playing a bit, then we asked John's cousin how to get one of those cool Initial D cards that everyone who plays seems to have. So after figuring out how to get it from the machine, we all had our own custom cars and it just became addicting to keep playing to score points to upgrade the cars. Not to mention that game feels just like how you would imagine it would feel from the anime. We played for like, 4-5 hours straight! It was nuts hahaha. We also played pop-n-music (think DDR with your hands), took 5 of us to pass a level.. then we saw a guy who played hardest level by himself.. it was sooooooooo crazy. We played a few other games like the gundam game with 4 of us (John and I kicked arse =P). John's cousin must have made his wife very happy cuz he won like a million little gifts from those machines. During that time, when Jason, Vic and I went out to get a drink, we saw a Tomoko (brilliant green) look-alike on the corner. She was really cute.. ddaymn =P When the arcades closed at 1am, we went to a random restaurant to have some late night dinner. I had Katsu curry again, delish! ^_^ John went for a ride in the Skyline with his cousin while we ate. After that we went home and hung out.. everyone ended up staying up until 5 or 6am.. crazy people.
Day 4
We woke up and John's cousin got out some dim sum for all of us. That was really nice of them. John got packed up and was going to head off to the airport. We were going to catch the train to Shinjuku to stay at some hotel. Vic went with John to the airport to see him off and told us he would meet us by the Gap at 6. So we proceeded to head to Shinjuku. In Sanagawa, the train to Shinjuku on the Yamamote line had some problems, we got there 30 minutes after they had problems, and they said it would be fixed by 3pm (30 minutes more). 15 minutes later we took the train the other direction to the next train stop and amazingly transferred at that station to go the way we wanted to go (apparently they fixed the train). So we arrived at Shinjuku and got a taxi to goto Century Hyatt. Over there J inquired about the price ($250/night), and judged it kind of pricey. So i went over to the conceirge (very cute girl) to ask about hotel prices and what not. She went ahead and called every hotel in Shinjuku and told me the prices. So after that we decided on staying at Prince hotel ($200/night but right next to the train station, and later we would find out it was right next to all the night life hahah). After checking in, we ended up taking a picture with the bell-girl cuz she was not bad looking and not to mention I had a perfect opportunity to ask her in Japanese. On our way to Virgin megastore, Jason and I saw 2 girls singing at the Times Square there. He went over and we listened to a song and he bought a single. So then we went to Virgin megastore to sign up on the internet real quick, and then headed to the Gap at 6. Vic didn't show... well we had an appointment with Ikuyo at 7 so we just ended up staying there hanging around while thousands of people walked by us on their way to and from the train station. I went to go take a picture of J and Jason when all of a sudden, I turn around and saw Ikuyo sitting next to them. She was carrying the purse we gave her as a present too. Guess that means she wasn't mad at us anymore =P (Later on also we were walking and she was like, want to listen to this? and handed me an earphone and we proceeded to walk together for the next 15 minutes or so. so yeah, we were hitting it off again =P) We waited a little bit and then headed off to Tsunahachi to eat. The line extended all the way outside the building, and I had this gut feeling so I told everyone to wait there while I went off towards the Gap. Arriving there, I saw a touristy looking guy with a backpack sitting by the steps, it must be Vic =P So we found him, and he came over to dinner with us. Since I was treating Ikuyo, I ordered the nicest set and we all ordered lots of sake. Ikuyo had 2 cups and she was already pretty giddy, so we decided she probably shouldn't have anymore. The others on the other hand, just kept downing sake. Vic being extremely excited as always was drinking cups every other minute! Yeah we have some great pictures =P Everyone was in a pretty good mood when we left the restaurant. I decided that they all needed to see Shibuya at least once before they left, so we headed off to Shibuya after dropping off Vic's stuff. Ikuyo wanted to come along to, so it seems whatever happened the day before was in the past. We arrive at Shibuya, exit at the main exit... and Jason and Vic's jaw immediately dropped to the floor. We were standing at the middle of the busiest intersection in the world, and they were dumbfounded =P So we proceeded to head down the popular street where everyone was. Lots and lots of Japanese teens and young adults, and of course, Vic and co. were happy cuz lots of cute girls =P We went to HMV to look at some music, then came back and walked further down the street. Some guy who sort of resembled Hideaki from SOS chased Ikuyo down and was like 'ano... ima isogashiin desuka?' (umm, are you busy right now?) Yup, typical pick up line over there. She said she was w/ us and left the poor dejected guy. We proceeded to goto a Karaoke place (Vic and co were quite apprehensive so far as to how much fun they would have at Karaoke). We got in and ordered some drinks (Vic had a Monica Syndrome, Jason had a Monica something, I had a Moon Freeze, and J had a Grand Blue) and proceeded to sing. Ikuyo is really really into karaoke so right away she was singing (and me being the only one who could read Japanese usually ended up singing with her). Then the alcohol started kicking in and Vic went off (he sure can hit those falsetto notes). During one of the songs he and Jason were sharing a mic, Vic just took the mic out of Jason's hands and went off, it was hilarious. So yeah, by the end of the hour, everyone was having lots of fun (I'm not sure about J, but he seemed ok). It was time to catch the train back to Shinjuku. On our way to the station, we saw a big group of really cute Eggs (Side note, Ikuyo had a magazine called Egg, and it was all about Eggs and their latest fashion. An Egg is one of those Japanese girls who are extremely tanned or put on darkish makeup while having some white makeup [usually around their eyes] on their face. Some of them look really weird.) We really wanted to take a pic with this group but we were rushing to the station. So we said our goodbyes to Ikuyo and headed back to Shinjuku. When we got there, we decided to go on an egg hunt =P We ended up just walking wherever people were walking... and somehow ended up going through the red-light district. Lots of people came to solicit, and I was in the lead so I just pointedly ignored everyone. But they were quite persistent, so I resorted to 'YADA! YADA!!!' hahaha, it was quite amusing. We made a huge circle and ended up back by The Code and the homeless hangout. There was an Egg meeting spot there but that was all it was. They met there and left immediately. Jason swore there was a secret Egg hideout somewhere, but alas we never found it =P There WAS an Egg (not a terribly cute one) sitting by herself, so I went up to ask her but she was pretty dazed and stoned.. so yeah, didn't really get anywhere. After walking around for a bit more, we headed back to the hotel. We proceeded to watch CDTV for a long time, and chatted while we all got ready for bed. J went off outside in the rain by himself and started going into super depressive introverted mode o.O Oh well, we went to sleep.
Day 5
Time to leave Japan! So sad so sad, but we were running out of money anyhow =P We had our final lunch at a ramen place across the street from our hotel, and took the train to the airport. Over there we said our goodbyes (I was heading off to Nepal, and Vic, being full of bad manners was going to walk away without waiting with me for the Terminal 2 Bus to come while Jason was o.Oing at Vic =P). I caught the plane fine and went to Thailand, where I had to wait for 11 hours before the next flight to Nepal. I occupied my time by going to the bookstore, reading books, eating club sandwiches, and sleeping on the plastic chairs with my blanket I took from the earlier flight. What was kind of scary was when I woke up in the morning, one of the guys who worked there came up to me and kept saying 'you are such a young and handsome boy!' in a broken Thai accent... all I was thinking was.. omg pedo o.O hahaha. Oh well, a compliment is better than no compliment I guess. So the time finally came and I caught the plane to Nepal. As I flew towards this familiar country, new adventures were about to begin...

posted by Dan @ 8/17/2002 04:47:00 AM