Japao: It's like Korea, only bigger, better, crazier, and sans kimchi

Yeah, Yeah, I know that I haven't finished posting about the Korean vacation and here I am blabbering about a trip to Japan, but its fresh in my mind so I'm gonna say to hell with chronological order and just go for it. This trip to Japan was unique compared to all my other vacations in that I had done absolutely no planning whatsoever for the trip. As of last Tuesday, I wasn't going to Japan since I was gonna save up my money for a trip to Thailand (titty baths!!!) in February. As of last Wednesday, I was going to Japan since I was informed that I would be forced to teach classes over spring break during the time everybody is going to Thailand (that makes six weeks of camps...most teachers do 2-3 weeks. Lucky me.). As of Thursday, I wasn't going to Japan since a ticket wasn't purchased because it was assumed that I wasn't interested in going to Japan. As of 5:00pm on Friday, I was going to Japan thanks to the dogged persistence of Amy with the Korean travel agents and my mad ATM money transfer skills. As a bit of perspective, I took the 8:00pm train that very night to Seoul in order to get to the airport in plenty of time for our Saturday departure at 9:10am. Doesn't leave much time for prepping/planning what to see now does it? On the upside, I had no demands of the trip beyond that it be more enjoyable than sitting for 4 days alone in my apartment. Fuck, taking a trip to Omro, WI would be more enjoyable than sitting in my apartment...errr, well, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. But you get my point.

Given the hurried nature of our quest, we invariably ran into additional walls that may have been traversed given more time to prep. Our first hurdle came rather early. About 20 minutes into our train ride to Seoul, Amy happened to mention passports for some reason or another, and it then dawned on me, “Ohhh, yeah, you need those things for international travel...”. Idiot. After considerable deliberation, it was decided that I would break from the rest of the group and head back to Yangpyeong to retrieve it. I'm just glad I realized it before we had reached a point of no return. You know, like customs at the airport on Saturday morning. We arrived in Seoul at 8:45pm, where I promptly hopped the 9:00pm train back to Yangpyeong, while my compatriots jumped on the last airport bus at 9:00pm for a night spent at the airport. I arrived back in town at 9:50, grabbed my passport and was on the 10:15 train back to Seoul. Why all the hassle when I could have easily just remembered my passport? Simple: I love trains. No need to Freudian analyze that statement (I guess you could if you wanted to). Once back in Seoul, I traveled via subway to the West side of Seoul and settled in for the night at the Anytime Motel (again...ohhh, right, I haven't actually finished the posting about the Korean vacation so you have no idea that this isn't the first time in this lovely motel). Several hours later, the party was reunited and sitting on the plane awaiting takeoff for Japan. But, as as it becoming the standard for this trip, there were bumps along the way. I had left my hotel so that I would arrive at the airport about 2 hours before my flight was scheduled to depart, just to be safe. Unluckily for me, Korea finally decided that it was gonna get some snow this winter and everything ground to a halt as a result. Now, I didn't see anything particularly frightening in the amount of snow piling up. Sure, visibility was low, but for any Wisconsin driver, especially this winter, you would just brush it off as a near daily dusting. Not here. Here it was a national emergency. Which I guess I can understand, given how terrible some drivers are in perfect conditions. For example, my vice principal put her car in the ditch when there was no snow or ice or anything resembling difficult conditions. I may never know how that happened. So rather than arrive before 7am I arrived somewhere around 7:20-7:30. Immediately it was off to the immigration office to purchase my entry visa so I can get back into Korea upon return. This was a nightmare, as people from every which country trying desperately to get the hell out of Korea. After waiting much too long for a sticker and stamp that took only 30 seconds to acquire once I reached the desk, we were off to customs. At this point it was already 8:40, which was cutting it mighty close. Thankfully, the weather worked to our advantage since when we arrived at the gate only 10 minutes before the scheduled takeoff, they had yet to begin boarding. After several hours of waiting on runways, air travel, and subways, we emerged at our hostel in Asakusa. We were in Tokyo. We were in Japan. Bitchin.

Since we didn't reach our hostel till 4 or so in the afternoon, it didn't leave much time for sightseeing, so we decided to meander at Sensoji Temple right next door to the hostel and then head to Shibuya for some clubbing. Our planning was complicated by the fact that we had forgotten our Tokyo guide book, so we had no idea where anything was. (Shakes head). We really aren't very good at this whole travel thing. While at the temple we enjoyed chocolate covered bananas (I love traditional Japanese food!!!) and the suggestive photographs that ensued. After devouring our “bananas” we moved on to sushi dinner, which brings us to my first conflict with Japan. Obviously sushi is always expensive and never filling even if you subsist entirely on air and water (I'm looking at you Maria), but for fatties like myself, nothing in this country was big enough to fill me up. I routinely ordered 2 meals at every restaurant in order to keep from wasting away. Didn't do wonders for the pocketbook, but what choice do I have? Having consumed an entire Japanese family's worth of food, we moved on to Shibuya for some drinking and clubbing. We had one particular club in mind, since they had a price to get in the door but that entitled you to unlimited drinks. Sadly, this price was 3,500 yen, roughly 35 bucks, for guys and 1,500 yen, 15 bucks, for women. Damn it, women get all the breaks. Why god? Why did you have to curse me with this white skin and male gender (though the latter still under debate, depending on who you talk to)? What have those things ever done for me? Getting the club however, was the great issue of our times. As expected, navigation was difficult, as nobody ever gives good directions, if you are fortunate enough to find someone who knew English. No worries, as Tokyo is a true international city and one has only to wait for a few minutes before stumbling upon a foreigner. Our savior came in the form of an Iranian who has been living and working in Japan for 18 years, since age 22. We chatted about Iran and the Middle East while munching on gyros on our way to the club. Sometimes life is really wonderful like that. Once at the club, we realized that nearly all the patrons were foreigners and that is so not our style. We hate being able to talk to the people we dance with. Eghhhh, communication. As if. We eventually found a club more to our liking and settled in amongst the Japanese. We observed an unusual thing within this club. Back in Korea, the girls merely have to be in existence and be white and they will have plenty of Korean men sputtering out any and all of the English they know. In Japan things were quite different. There were girls and there were boys, but they never mixed. Sure there were a few couples that danced together, but on the whole, the fellows showed up with their male friends and danced by themselves, while the girls did the same. We were there for at least 4 hours and I did not once see a male approach a female and begin dancing with her. This unsettled Max and myself as we started to wonder if the men knew something we didn't know. Were all the women carriers of the dreaded herp and clap? Were they all succubi, sent from hell to enslave the male sex? Did they all smell kinda funny? Were they even women at all? Were they biters? What could it be? The likely answer is that all the men were in fact, more masculine looking women. My evidence of this is simple: the line for the guys bathroom was out the door while the girls bathroom had no line. What kind of evidence is this you ask? I shall tell. The line wasn't for the toilet, it was for the mirrors and the sinks. These “men”, if you can call them that, were lining up to adjust their hair and wax their eyebrows and such (didn't see the latter but I can only assume it happened). As a special incentive to draw in women, since the draw of finding and dancing with a man are out of the equation, the club offered free hair styling for any women. The girls naturally loved the club, what with free hair care and the ability to dance without the fear of some ugly guy saddling his piece up on them. I was confused.

Sunday began fairly late, obviously. In a nod to Sunday post drinking days of yore, the group headed to....Denny's. I was stoked for the Lumberjack Slam. All that food, that delicious breakfast food I've been missing for months. So imagine the broken heart I suffered when we discovered that Denny's in Japan are fairly classy. No Super Slam, No Super-duper Slam, No Lumberjack Slam, just the slam of my head hitting the table over and over in frustration. The food was still delicious, but I had to order 2 dishes again and it cost me closer to 13 dollars. They at least still had the adorable old lady waitresses, they just were Japanese, naturally. To recover from my heartbreak, we decided to visit the Imperial Palace to see what we could see. Turns out, not that much. The structure was really cool and all, but you can't actually go in, so you have to settle for shots from around the perimeter. Still a really cool and relaxed place in the middle of the hustle and bustle of central Tokyo. After the palace we chillaxed at Hibuya Park just down the street. Having achieved serenity, we moved to the electronic chaos that is the Akihabara. We first decided to wander through their 11 story electronic goodness shop. The sheer quantity of stuff made the electronics markets here in Korea look downright sad. I was really excited to walk out with some sweet stuff, until I saw the price tags. 3,000 yen (about 30 dollars) for a CD? No thank you, even though they had a music section just for video game music and naturally most of the section was stuff by Square Enix. And I had found out that Korea doesn't let any porn or stuff like that in, so so much for all the tentacle porn and hentai I was gonna buy. Which left me with a lot of cash left to spend. Regardless, I passed on principle. After the all that madness we needed some release, so appropriately we found our way to one of the 5 story porn/adult goods stores. I had never realized how spoiled we were in the States until I came to Korea and realized that places like that are nearly nonexistent. Damn conservative culture. Anyways, we slowly made our way up reveling in the multitude of “things”. It was a bit much for my virgin mind, but thankfully, the more “experienced” members of the party were able to answer my questions (“Ohhhh, so that's where that goes...interesting). We were only able to get to floor 5 as the amount of hentai (why does this stuff exist? If you can pay money to watch a real women do almost anything, why would you then choose to pay for a video of a cartoon character doing the same thing?), and costumes (women dressing up like Naruto or the chicks from Neon Genesis Evangelion just weirds me out), and the pictures of customers in their purchases (women got 30% percent off if they let the employees take a picture of them in their outfits....creepy in itself, but some of the women naturally shouldn't have their pictures taken in anything less than a moo-moo and a paper bag. Any more visible body outline than that and people could go blind. Seriously, Japan what the hell? Since when did you have fatties?) was just too much. I must in this case defer and pay heed to the masters of filth, Rounds, Busha and Jason. You are the masters and I have no doubt you would have easily ascended to the sixth level then bemoaned the establishment as being pedestrian. Someday, I may be able to ascend to your level. After leaving the filth, we headed to the only thing that could possibly be better than sex: video games. Ohhh, the arcades. 5 stories of electronic wonderment. I badly desired to try my hand at their DDR machine but I decided against it, in order to preserve what little dignity I have (hahah, laugh if you want, I don't care) and also to preserve the dignity of my motherland. By failing on this stage I would have disgraced America and more specifically my fellow practitioners of DDR from back home. I'm sorry John. Someday, someday. I instead settled for the Guilty Gear machine outside of any peering eyes, thanks to the Street Fighter 4 machines that occupied everyone's attentions (yeah it looked sweet). After several rounds of success then crippling annihilation at the hands of Slayer, Faust and I moved on. Before we headed home for the night we suffered another near disaster, as Amy realized she had forgotten her camera. Thankfully it was right where she had left it at the arcade. New camera or keep on playing Street Fighter 4? Lucky for Amy, these Japanese men had their priorities straight. Later that evening we tried fugu for dinner. Expensive, kinda tasteless, but really cool. As expected.

Monday saw us heading to Ueno to take in the park and its museums. As you can see from the pictures or the videos up on YouTube, the park was a nice mix of Western park and Asian traditional gardens/shrines. The highlight was clearly the one man band named Hiro (at least that was the name he had on his sign), who managed to play ukulele, flute, drum and bells at the same time, and sound damn good doing so. I posted a video of him so you can listen to the auditory orgasm that is his music. He was handsomely rewarded for his troubles by yours truly, since I had a bit of cash left over (no go on the porn, remember?). We wanted to check out some museums, notably the Tokyo National Museum and the Tokyo Modern Art Museum, but sadly, they are always closed on Monday's. Having failed in our great quest for knowledge, we moved on to Harujuku for some shopping. Well, shopping for the girls. For me, it was more of a “Why would anyone buy this?” and “Do people actually wear this shit?”. Needless to say, I found Japanese fashion very “postmodern”. I use the word postmodern here because I hate postmodernism and think that is drivel. So basically I'm using “postmodern” as a synonym for awful, stupid, etc. In case you needed me to spell it out for you. Although I did walk out of Harajuku with a T-shirt of a Bear, wearing Wolverine style claws, slashing Ronald McDonald across the face. I can only imagine what Stephen Colbert would say about this particular shirt. Either way, I like it. It's no emo carebear, but it will do. We decided to bring our Japanese adventures to a close with a trip to the skyscrapers in Shinjuku, where all the major players in Tokyo are situated. Our timing for reaching the subway was perfect as it allowed to take part in one of the most beautiful of human spectacles....rush hour in Tokyo. It was like a mosh pit, except everyone was much smaller than me and most were much weaker than me...I loved it. The train rolls up and we can see that the windows are fogged up because people's faces are so close to the glass, then the door opens and people literally fall out. The new sardines make their way in, then it falls on the subway pushers (attendants whose entire job is to make sure the doors close at all costs) to make sure everyone fits. Only problem is that the pushers were pushing 50 or so and Japanese...obviously. So not that strong. We got separated from the girls as we decided that there was no room for us on that particular train and we would wait, meaning that we would get on first next time and be subject to pushing from all directions. We made our way in and after considerable jostling, found ourselves a cozy spot. Max and I got quite close and personal, which was awkward at first, until I explained that it was only a roll of 50 yen coins in my pocket. The beauty of these close quarters was that I literally couldn't fall down. I tried, but there wasn't even enough space for me to move anywhere. It didn't feel that cramped to me, maybe because I had the air above 6 ft all to myself, whereas everyone else had their head up my ass, literally. Things got a little strange when the Japanese guy next to me started rubbing/playing/running his fingers over my hand. Course this wasn't the first time I've received attention from the Japanese men. I neglected to mention earlier, but while at the club in Shibuya, I received considerable attention from one very drunk Japanese male. When he arrived at the table, keep in mind all the girls were still sitting with us, he immediately began talking to me and only to me. He drunkenly wandered away at times only to come back and chat me up again. Lucky me. See, I originally laughed at Collin when he got asked to go out for a coffee by a man and accepted, not realizing what “getting a coffee” actually is. Now I realize that our respective sex appeals are just so incredible and so intense that they transcend gender and sexual persuasion boundaries. Clearly we are doing something right. Shinjuku offered some pretty sweet views of Tokyo as a closing crescendo to our time in Tokyo. Having seen what we wanted to see, we headed out from our hostel at 11am the next day, and arrived home, at least I did, at 10:30 pm.