cup of bacon... hold the pickles.

This past weekend, I took off work Thursday and Friday and went to Tokyo. Why not:)

I went with my friend Tyler, and we took the night bus there, which was alright. We watched Gran Torino on the ride up there, and were completely exhausted and grumpy when we finally got there so we went to an internet cafe for a nap. Undoubtedly one of Japan's better ideas, those internet cafes. They have slushies and vending machines with french fries and rice and other random things. They also have bathrooms where when you open the door and walk in the toilet lid comes up automatically. And the seat is heated. Amazing. But yeah internet cafes. They're pretty cool. A lot of people go in there to nap, they have couches and bean bag chairs and whatnot. Very nice. That night, I don't remember doing too much. I think we went to Shibuya and more or less wandered around. We had Indian food that was pretty good. I bought some really cool fake glasses that I wore around and they made me look artsy. We tried to go have some wine at this place, but it turned out to be one of those places where a bottle is at least $100 so we had a fun little gaijin walk of shame out the door to a cheaper bar. We went first to a Gaijin bar and then ended up at a Mexican restaurant, that actually wasn't really Mexican it just said it was.

The next day was my shopping day. Tyler had some things to take care of before leaving Japan, so while he dealt with paperwork, I went back to Shibuya. There's a big 8-story (10 counting the basement) mall thing called Shibuya 109 that is awesome. I am now broke. I hadn't bought anything exciting since coming to Japan, so I allowed myself a bit of a binge. It's actually really awesome that I have ginormous clown feet and can't buy shoes in Japan, otherwise I REEALLY would have been in trouble. The main point of my shopping was to buy clothes for the 'White Party' we were going to later that night. To all my friends at the Cheesecake Factory- believe me, I thought it was hilarious that I was going to attend a white party. I almost called Cassie to ask her to super-fast deliver my fabulous Cheesecake Factory Standard Issue Apron for the occasion... with customary center crease :) I did find an awesome pair of Japanese tights, they're white with all kinds of emo, pseudo political writing on them. They're so dramatic and I love them.

So yeah... shopping for 3 hours, then I ran to meet Tyler... he knew about this boat ride around Tokyo Bay... a booze cruise type thing, but kind of a family thing as well... and it was only about $25. Pretty sweet. We got to ride around on a boat at night (yes, I was ON A BOAT) and see all of Tokyo and have free beer and it was fun. Afterwards, we met up with one of Tyler's friends from Oshima, and got changed in our White outfits and went to a club for the party. It was pretty fun... lots of people including a random Japanese guy in a velvet jacket that was awesome. There was no last call (which is good, as trains stop running around midnight) so everybody stayed at the bar til 5ish, when the first trains start running. We did take a quick break and run to Macudo (McDonalds) to enjoy double cheeseburgers and ebi burgers (shrimp burger). We got back to Ikebukuro around 6:30am, fell asleep and slept for a long time. Then went somewhere and bought an iPod touch (that's right, I now have officially joined the 21st century) with sweet dalmation print headphones, and headed out to Kamakura. We wanted to go see the Daibutsu buddha thing, but after falling asleep at 6:30, there was no waking up before 3pm so we got to Kamakura too late. We did go to the beach... yay! It was the first time I've ever been to a beach in Japan, and it was pretty cool. The water was super warm. I forgot my bathing suit though :( so I couldn't go swimming, but it was nice just to hang out and people watch. Some Japanese kids sitting near us were playing this game that was kinda like trying to break a pinata, only it was a watermelon instead and they had this really scary looking sharp stick. They would get blindfolded, then spin around the stick and try to smash the watermelon that was sitting on the ground. It was crazy watching them stumble around with a pointy stick in the sand. Prolly not the smartest thing for them to do but its whatevs. We stayed there for the rest of the evening. I saw the sunset, moonrise, and moon set. There were a bunch of restaurants and vendors and whatnot on the beach, and my favorite was this place that sold 'American style bacon' where you basically just ordered a cup of bacon. I'm really glad that's what American Style is. A cup of bacon. That sometimes comes with pickles. Haha aaaah Japan.