Hopefully I can write these a little faster.
the kimonos - No Modern Animal
We got off the train at Shinjuku hoping to find a love hotel we had previously stayed at and been pretty happy with. The problem is we didn't know exactly where it was. I had a relatively good idea of where it was in Kabukicho, but having played so much of the Ryu Ga Gotoku series, my internal map of the real Kabukicho and the fictional Kamurocho kept getting mixed up.
I was keeping it straight but it was hard. We headed to the east edge of Kabukicho then cut back towards it's center. It ended up being just about the first love hotel we saw. So that was convinent.
In my constant research of all things I tend to check the rules of love hotels. It's surprising how often "No Prostitutes" and "No Yakuza" is on there. Particularly when the hotel is right in the middle of well, Kabukicho. Usually 2 girls will be okay and might even have a special event or price. Gay men are most of the time SOL.
Same hotel but back in June 2011. That time I watched
Inception on their 42 inch TV. Pretty nice place all around. I even kind of managed to check my email. I then tried to check the ole SB forums and it crashed the weird proprietary browser. We managed to pass out and I again woke up around 6am and dealt with jetlag until the girl also woke up.
We got an email from Renfrew saying he'd meet us in Nakano. I hoped he was exploring the North side. It turns out he was exploring the south side. That's where I used to live and their isn't much but an arcade he'd have no chance of finding and a bunch of stores that wouldn't be open before 11. Nakano lives between 11 and 8pm. Luckily it has a Don Quioxte (on the north side) to be open some absurd hours like 10 to 3am. If you need something, DQ probably has it.
Pictured: a completely unrelated to the conversation vending machine.
Renfrew immediately declared that I had left him to die and it was an experience he didn't want to repeat. He then couldn't give a lot of negatives as to what was exactly wrong with leaving him in an internet cafe. He wished he had used the shower since he felt disgusting. I should have offered him some face wash at that point, as I think about it a week later. He'd eventually tell me he'd stay in an Internet Cafe again, given similar circumstances. I would end up wishing I had stayed in an internet cafe.
Octopus Army consistently has the world's greatest Tshirts. Too bad they only sell them in rapper sizes. White person conjecture but I'm pretty sure it's true. Oversized clothing became the style in hiphop because for a lot of the poor families were getting hand me downs that they didn't quite fit. Eventually people started buying oversized clothing. I worded that dumbly and overly safely but you get the point. What I'm saying is I'm a skinny rail of a man and not going to hide it under clothes just barely hanging on my body. Also that they make me feel like I'm wearing daddy's clothes.
Armed with some breakfest baked goods we took the one flight escalator from the Nakano Broadway's first floor to the 3rd. We discovered that the Broadway was still waking up and the largest part of it, Mandarake wouldn't be open until 12. So we had an hour to spend in something that was only half awake. We watched the girl ask a bookstore about a magazine I had seen about. We then got to see 3 employees go, "Where the fuck is it?" Meanwhile a shopkeeper for an old toys store asked me:
"Weeere our yuu furamu?"
"a-me-ri-ka"
"(in Japanese) oh you speak Japanese?"
"I guess I do."
"Your Japanese is really good. Are you fluent?"
"Not really."
Which is the truth. Another theme of this trip is my Japanese completely and utterly failed me. I just couldn't make words come out. It was intriguing this time that 95% of the time the employees would actually address me in Japanese which is different from before. Maybe I look more Japanese now? (OH MY GOD MY DREAMS ARE COMING TRUE (sarcasm)). I guess dying my hair brown then it magically becoming blond-oh hey a picture of Renman and Rude Dog.
Oh hey guess I never mentioned.
I asked the girl to make me a scarf for Valentine's Day. She'd never made anything like that before. To make sure she had to have it when I arrived, I didn't bring a scarf. I was pretty happy when I put it on the first day. It kept me warm, even if it's completely useless in Texas now.
All 3 of us lost money on this machine. Basically it spins the roulette. If you get a total of +5 you win the prize. It never happens. The addreline spike from it is always worth 100 yen though. We had an almost heart attack moment with a UFO catcher where R won a PS3 and then he didn't.
After wandering a half dead broadway with no purpose, it was 12 and it was time for Yami Yami. We were joined by my ultra good friend U1.
Chicken Tomato Spinach + Cheese + Eggplant curry. Double Roue. Half Rice. Cilantro on top. God Damn Amazing every time. Oh you got to get it karaguchi (a spiciness level). If you get it normal spiciness you won't know why people that keep coming back keep coming back. It's one of the places I miss most while in Texas. Actually I miss all of Nakano a lot. Speaking of which it's not fully open! That meant Renfrew and I nerded out while the girl and U1 got dragged along.
Pe'z - hanafubuki
Thankfully the movie poster store was in the same place as it was six months ago. The fun thing about the broadway is even after living there for 3 years you'll still be unable to remember where things are or maybe the place just moved to a different floor. Also that it has a Warhammer 40K store. And maid foot massage. And expensive watch shops. And shops you can buy TMNT figures still in the box, then watch the random SB guy you're with tear open the box to get at the figure and you hear a fanboy have a heart attack on the other side of the country. That wasn't this time though.
R went back to buy French Comic Books in French. I made a 15 second powerful journey to try and find Dark Souls/Demon Souls Doujin. I then had to run out screaming. I don't have the constitution to look for that sort of stuff, or the fetishes. Then it was time to get R to the bus. the girl and I made plans to meet with U1 for dinner. I told him to make all the arrangements because I always dragged him around and he would always look boring but unconcerned.
Back on the train we left Renfrew with good tidings and good hopes for his year as an ALT. We headed south to check into our first actual hotel of the week. Hotel Gracery in Tamachi.
It gave me 3 nights of not having to worry about my suitcase, was close to a station on the Yamanote, and had a laptop I could use to check my email. In other words: I should have just stayed there the whole 10 days. Knowledge for the future. With nothing to do until dinner and not doing anything was obviously an option I grabbed the girl and started walking.
I had forgotten and was quickly reminded Tamachi is incredibly close to Tokyo Tower. We didn't go up to the top, but we did explore the giftshops on the bottom floors and fail to win an angry Kirby from a UFO catcher. We also failed to buy any souvenirs. Around this time we got an email to meet U1 at 6PM at the Marunouchi Building. That sounded mildly expensive. I began to seriously worry that because of BIG NEWS he was going to treat us to an expensive meal. It turned out he had just found
the delicious.
We met him and his lovely Finnish girlfriend for what was surprisingly great tacos and enchiladas. The guacamole was freshly made by a mexican (!) who said he loved San Antonio and the um.. uh... (Please don't say Alamo because then I know your a lying piece of..)...La Cantera. "And I like going north to the outlet mall in San Marcos." "Hell man I graduated college from San Marcos."
After the meal we had a long search for a place to have coffee. I then let them borrow my copy of Drive. I had tried to watch it with the girl at La Festae, but she got easily distracted. They promised to watch it. I told them again how impressed I was with the the film and the Mexican food we just had. Later the girl and I would realize that there was absolutely no beans on the menu. Back when Shibuya had a Mexican restraurant and before it closed, it took beans off the menu because the Japanese just plain didn't want them.
The area around Tokyo station is a clusterfuck. There are about 6 stations in a 15 minute walk radius. They are all cris-cross and covering each other. Somewhere in that pile is a horribly scary straight tunnel that goes on for far longer than comfortable. We might have ended up in that tunnel that night. Both couples did end up going home safely though.
Next time: I walk to Kawasaki! Did you notice I didn't have a lot of appropriate pictures for today? guess I was having too much fun to remember to take pictures! yay!
to Part 4
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