Sayonara Japan

So let me start this post by breaking the bad news to you. I failed. I failed myself, I failed all of you, but most of all I failed America. I did not find and purchase any Engrish t-shirts. I want to especially apologize to my good friend Sean Brogan as this was my ideal gift for you from my travels and I know you especially would have appreciated a broken, japanified statement across your chest. Oh well, now I have a reason to return.

The good news is that Dan and I had a wonderful last day in Japan. We woke up after our rousing evening out with the King of Matsumoto to play Badminton with some of his students and his boss Mas. It was fun, for me at least (Dan's a little badminton-challenged). We also played some basketball which was also fun but a bit different. For what seemed to be mostly reasons relating to the famous Japanese respect, very little defense was played and there was almost no contact. Also they didn't really check the ball up between possessions, a phenomenon Dan and I did our best to explain but didn't really attempt to force on them as a rule. It was definitely a great morning though no good for my blister ridden feet (though I performed valiantly regardless, like a proud samurai warrior).

After badminton and then lunch we hopped a train back to Shinjuku where unfortunately Dan's friend from training could not be reached and thus we split a hotel at the same place i stayed my first night. We hit the town and decided that I could not come all the way to Japan and not get sushi so we found one of Tokyo's many famous sushi-conveyer belt restaurants. Essentially several sushi chefs stand in the middle of a large, oval shaped counter with a conveyer belt going all the way around. Anyone can come in and sit down and simply wait for an appealing plate of sushi (always two pieces to a plate) to come around with different styles of plates marking differently priced sushi. I had a few fishes, something that might possibly have been octopus and a delectable crab (two plates worth). As I was getting full the two of us decided that in honor of our good friend Zach Capp, as well as to satisfy our own palettes we needed to have some eel before we left. Unfortunately we hadn't seen any so I decided to take action armed only with an extremely limited but somehow effective Japanese vocabulary. I caught the attention of the nearest chef with a polite, "Su mi ma sen" (excuse me) and then simply asked, "Unagi-ke" (Eel?). Problem solved (I felt very worldly). And on top of it all it really hit the spot (thanks Zacho!).

Despite the fact that the streets were very busy with people eager to celebrate the coming day's work-holiday entitled "Happy Monday" we didn't really find much success with any bars. We went into a few but never stayed long at any. One of the first we went to we found because a black guy on the street tried to hand us a pamphlet to it and I simply asked where it was. Instead of giving us directions so we could find it later he insistently took us there, where we then felt pressured to pay the 1000 yen cover (about $10) that thankfully came with a free drink. The bar was called Casablanca and there weren't many people there (though it was early). The interesting thing about it was that as we were led there and again as we left we noticed that we had been led into a red-light district of sorts. Filled with a fearful curiosity we walked the greasy streets but avoided the signs and hawkers offering girls, good times, pretty reasonable prices and "hookers" from one very blunt man. At one point a very scary looking and oddly tall Japanese prostitute tried to solicit herself to me quite aggressively. Not desiring to be hassled I grabbed Dan around the shoulders and said, "No thanks, this is my boyfriend." Horrified she responded, "You Gee!?! You Gee?!?!" We kept walking until we returned to a less scary neighborhood.

Having pretty much given up on the bar scene, and not wishing to walk anymore (at least I didn't) we were enticed into one of Shinjuku's many arcades. There, we found several floors of loud, Japanese video games, most for 100 or 200 yen per play ($1-$2). The first floor was almost entirely made up of claw games that were, if possible, even bigger scams than american claw games with prizes varying from Japanese plush toys to boxes of Ritz and Oreos. Other floors had Pachinko (of course), virtual horse racing, strange strategy games that involved moving cards around on a horizontal screen, and all kinds of arcade games. Dan and I were most delighted by Mario Kart 2, not exactly like our Mario Kart as most noticed by the fact that I played as Pacman, and a Rambo video game that was just Stallonishly awesome.

As we walked home, ready to call it a night, not more than two blocks from our hotel we heard strange and joyful Japanese singing coming up from the vents of a basement level bar called B Wing. Thoroughly intrigued we had to at least take a look. There we found a winding-down Japanese girl's 22nd birthday party. We also met a nice bartender, a Chinese guy with the American name Jared (don't remember his Chinese name) who pretty soon got us singing Karaoke, another requirement of my Japanese adventure that I almost missed out on. Apparently when the Japanese normally do karaoke it's not like our karaoke with one performer at a time in front of the whole bar but rather several smaller karaoke rooms that you would go to with a group of friends. The idea of Dan and I alone in a karaoke room singing to each other did not appeal to either of us, thus we had not yet done it. Fortunately this was set up a bit more like our karaoke and so soon we were singing "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice, which brought on the request of "Lose Yourself" by Eminem and eventually (you guessed it) "Mr. Roboto" by Styx.

Though the new friends we found enticed me into staying out later than I had hoped, I was glad to have something a bit more eventful happen on my last night in Japan. Overall Japan is really a crazy place. It's much cleaner and more modern than India which is nice, but there's also much much less English and much much higher prices which is not so nice. I think that this just shows that I'll really like the next leg of my trip, Singapore, which is clean and modern (if not futuristic) like Japan but should be more affordable (I'm not sure about the language there, but at least I'll have a fluent tour guide with me).

(Note: As you may have noticed my Japanese posts have had a serious lack of visual content to help you through the drudgery that is reading a Matt Portman piece. Relax, there are plenty of pictures that I will put up as one big gallery once I get some solid internet).