Wow

Ok, let's go back to Friday. I took a nap in the late afternoon and woke up around 7pm. Then Barry and I drove to Mito station to meet his friend Kiel. We picked him up and drove to an Izakaya. We sat around eating and drinking for a few hours. It was a nice little place. His friend is really cool. British, so he has a great accent and is really funny. He's very adventurous food-wise. He ordered horse. Thinly sliced pieces of raw horse. Bleh! And when I laughed at a bunch of the stuff on the menu that sounded worse than eating my own vomit, he told us that he'd tried them. Egh!

Anyway, after that we drove around and walked through a back street area and looked at some different pubs. Nothing was really busy, for some reason. We also went up all these stairs and found this really awesome little shrine. It was super cool. Because it was late at night, I couldn't ring the bell or anything. I was sad. I'll have to go to another shrine soon.

After that we went to a pub called the Drunken Duck. It wasn't overly busy, but it was ok. We had a few drinks there. Except for poor Barry because he was driving. :) I think we stayed there for an hour or two. It was kind of relaxing. Then after that we decided to head home because we had an early morning the next day.

Ok now yesterday (Saturday) was insane. So insane. I woke up at 9am to go to Japanese class with Barry. Then after that he dropped me off at the Jusco by his house so I could buy a truckload of bandaids. Unfortunately my leather ballet flats had destroyed my feet the day before and I was in for a lot more walking. And I had to wear heels that night too. So I got my stuff, bought a chicken katsu lunch and went to the apartment. I spent the next few hours getting ready. This was difficult because I had to make sure I was ready to go walking around Tokyo and then to the club after. I couldn't really bring much with me. All I brought was a bag with my heels and my ipod for the train ride. Ok, so we went to catch the 3:38pm train and we missed it by like 5 minutes. Then, we caught the 4:06pm train to Mito station and met Barry's friend Kiel. From there we got on the train to Ueno station. That was about a 2 hour ride. It really wasn't that boring. So that was good. Then we went to Ebisu station and then took the Hibiya line to Kamiyacho station. From there we walked to Tokyo Tower. It was so pretty. By then it was about 7:30pm and already dark. It was nice to see the tower lit up. It's a total knock-off of the Eiffel Tower except it's apparently 13 inches taller. So now I can feel like I went sightseeing in France as well. The cost to get in was 820 yen. The view from inside was gorgeous. I took lots of pictures and video. The mascot they had was really weird. There's 2 actually. Two weird pink, pointy-headed brothers dressed in like beach wear. I found some weird shit in the gift shop. Boob-shaped pudding, anyone?

After that we went to Shinjuku for a little bit, but we decided to kind of scrap it and then we went to Shibuya. We went to a place called The Lockup. Ever since I saw Barry's pics of it on Facebook I wanted to go. It's sooo awesome!!! You go downstairs and then the door looks all creepy. You walk in through this cavern-like area and see this guy in an electric chair. When you step on a certain spot he starts shaking and moaning. Then you walk more and this barrel thing pops open with a really loud noise. Then you see an alien body lying in a case in a cage. Then you continue down the hallway until you get to the area where the hostess is. She sends you to the waiting area. Then she talked to us in such a perky, cute way, but we couldn't understand part of it. But it didn't matter because she was so cute. Lol. And all the staff are dressed in costume. The hostess was dressed as a sexy cop. There were others too. Some were dressed in striped prisoner outfits. Lol. Me and Kiel got handcuffed and led by her to our cell. You literally sit in a cell to eat and drink. Haha. It was brown and looked dirty and stuff. So awesome. And it had bars on the door. The menu was awesome. Wish I took pics of it. The drinks came in test tubes and flasks and capsules. We ordered a bunch of food and drinks. Soon after we got there, the lights went completely out except for one black light above us. So it was almost pitch black and then a light kind of was flickering/flashing on outside the cell in the hallway. The whole place looked like a cavern. All the walls looked like rock. There were probably like 20+ cells. This place was huge compared to what you thought it'd be. Anyway, the lights were flashing and then audio started of this scary guy talking and this lady kind of being afraid. Then like death metal music started playing. It was so crazy. Can you tell how much I loved this place?? That continued for a looong time. Then I could hear chains rattling closer and closer. Then this guy dressed up as Michael Myers pops into our cell and goes right up to Barry's camera and into our faces. Then he poses with Kiel for a picture and starts rubbing his man-boob. Hahaha. Then he leaned forward like he was gonna grab me and I just laughed harder. Then he made his exit. I have all of this on video, but I'm not sure I can post it here. I'll try again. The music and audio continued for awhile after that. Overall the whole thing lasted like 10 mins or so. Then the lights came back on and everything went back to normal. I wish something like that existed in Winnipeg. You have no idea. This is where my camera died, unfortunately.

Ok, so I should mention that walking around Shibuya was amazing. The streets are amazing. The people are amazing. Tokyo people are so styling, it's not even funny. The clothes, the hair, the makeup, the crazy-ass fake nails. I'm in love, I think. After the Lock-Up we went to a place called Club Atom that we had gotten discount cards handed to us in the street for. Barry and Kiel had already been there and liked it. We went in, put our stuff in a locker and paid cover. Mine was 1000 yen and theirs was 2000 yen with the discount. That includes one drink. That's roughly 10 and 20 dollars (a little more). The drinks were not so good. Well, my big problem was that rye wasn't even on the menu. I ordered a cuba libre first because that was my best option. Then I asked about rye and they said yes. However, as soon as I saw the plain bottle that had a big burgundy label exclaiming simply "Rye", I got suspicious. It was soooo gross. Eventually I finished it and moved on. But that's not important. When we first walked in it was amazing. The place was absolutely packed. It was already about 12 or 12:30am, I think. People were pushing and you could barely move. There were 3 floors. The bottom floor looked like a cave. There were green lasers and video screens and trance music. I really liked it. The main floor was all white and not very exciting looking, but it was where all the action was happening. It was also techno, but it had club mixes of popular songs, too. But not like your latest top 40. Just recognizable song pieces. They played Confusion from Blade and I just about died. The top floor was hip hop and we didn't really bother with it. It was too full anyway. I didn't mind, though I would've liked to have danced to Koda Kumi if they played her.

We started out by hanging out on the lower level. Just kind of chilling, drinking, watching. I wonder how long it takes the Japanese guys there to get ready. Almost all of them looked like they walked out of magazines. Crazy hair and everything. The girls were so dressed up too. Not like Winnipeg at all. So impressive. Anyway, then we went and mostly hung out on the main floor. We managed to get on the dance floor and start dancing. We had to watch out for the other white people (guys) because they were soooo sweaty. And kind of stinky! Ew. There were female dancers on mini-stages on the sides of the dance floor. The main ones were just wearing skirts and sequined bra tops. Nothing too risque. There was a main stage at the front of the dance floor where the many different djs that night did their stuff. Everyone watched the dj because it was like a show, seriously. When DJ Ozawa was on, the ToyBoy dancers took over from the girls. These well-developed Japanese guys wearing small and incredibly interesting Samurai outfits got on the mini-stages, one on each. The outfits were sparkly red and consisted of a headpiece, kind of like shoulder armor and some kind of short, skirt-like bottom cover and boots. But it wasn't a skirt. It was small. Very small. And the top stuck out in an interesting way. Anyway, that was their entire outfit. They were totally shaking it and they looked great. Finally, finally there were guys doing what girls are always doing. The one by us was really fun to watch. Haha. Then, they totally took off their skirt-thing and danced around in sparkly red thongs. Hahahahaha. Good times. Sadly, they had to leave after awhile and the stages reverted to their former female occupants. I didn't think the dance floor could get more packed, but it did. To the point where I could pretty much only move up and down. And I felt like I was grinding with the person ahead of me and behind me. It was weird. Then the guy behind me did start trying that out. And it was creepy, so I left. Haha. I went for a walk to the hip-hop level, but it was still busy and they were only playing A-kon. So then I went to the lower level and went to wait in line for the bathroom. Then, a guy started talking to me in line. So we got booted out of the line by security and I talked to him instead. He wasn't Japanese, but Brazilian. Of course. But I like Brazilians, they're suuuper nice. So I talked to him and his friend for awhile. It was super weird because he couldn't speak English like at all. So the whole time we were speaking Japanese with a little Spanish mixed in. I ended up hanging out with him for the rest of the night because he was so charmingly Brazilian. He's a Muay Thai instructor. Crazy! And his name was Gleicon! Crazy! Anyway, the bar closed and I went outside to meet up with Barry and Kiel again just in front of the place. It was 5:30am and it was totally light outside. Wow. I didn't even do that in Vegas. That bar kicked Vegas' ass. I was in severe pain due to my shoes, so I changed into sandals and was still in pain. I think I was actually limping. So we went to McDonald's. There were so many people passed out and sleeping at the tables. It was so funny. From there we went home. I tried to sleep on the train and I did a little. But I kept doing the head-bob and one time my head flew backwards and smacked into the wall. Ouch. Plus I felt retarded. Then once we were back at the apartment I checked my email, ate something finally and then passed out at about 10:30am. I got up at about 5:30 pm.

Now it's 7:18 and Barry's making yakisoba for dinner. I think we're just going to rent a movie because nobody's up for more partying yet. It's still recovery time. Brutal. But so worth it. (More pics to come)