I woke up at about 8:00 AM to the all too familiar now rumble of Dissident’s air passages, a noise which had started in mid-sentence at about 4:00 AM (shortly after Dissident got back from Gaspanick) and hadn’t let up since. I quickly put my headphones on and injected some music into my skull. The room was as dark as a tomb. I showered and made my way over to Starbucks for some caffeine and breakfast. I then found a little peaceful garden area to enjoy my breakfast. A little grey cat came at me from inside a bush, meowing for food. I offered him some of my almond crunch roll, but he was holding out for meat so he lay down dejectedly and watched me eat. Whenever someone walked by us, he would scream at them from the bushes and make them jump. He was a cool cat.

I went back to the room to see if Dissident was stirring, but he wasn’t, so I grabbed my laptop and went in search of free Internet. On my way out of the hotel I heard some hurried footsteps beside me as I approached the automatic door. I moved aside a little and let the person go through the door first. A cute little Japanese woman whizzed passed me and speed-walked out the door. She made it about 20 feet in front of me before her culture forced her to stop, turn around, and says to me, “I am so sorry sir, I am in a hurry.” I tell her no problem and gave her a bow. She bows back, spins around, and darts off. In the male-dominated society of Japan, men go through doors first.

I found another little garden nook and got lucky with a slow but steady wifi connection. I caught up on all of my emails, both work and personal. I then tried to post an article but it was taking forever so I said forget it and checked back with Dissident. It was now 12:30 PM or so, and still the throaty rumbling emanated from the room. I make a little purposeful noise and woke Him up. This is what that looks like:

He slowly grumbled to life and eventually we were out in search of food. Dissident grabbed some more cash from the ATM inside 7-11, and we made our way down the block to a little eatery. We sat down at the counter and were handed English menus. Dissident got some kind of hamburger curry dish, and I got cat food. That is, I ordered tuna sashimi – raw tuna on a bed of sticky, white rice and seaweed with some chives on top. The soy sauce they gave me did wonders in hiding any fishy taste of my fish, and I ate it up like a local. So far, I’m still alive and well. Dissident kinda regretted his curry choice because it was a bit spicy for morning-after-drinking food.

We then went back to my garden wifi hotspot and posted a few articles and such. It took hours because the connection was so damn slow. By time we were done, it was like 5:00 PM. We then went back to the room to drop off the gear. Dissident didn’t feel 100%, so he sat in a chair and read while I typed up about our un-eventful morning. By 6:00 PM or so we proclaimed our hunger and boredom and left the hotel, bound for Shinjuku – eye pain capital of Tokyo. If you are subject to seizures, stay at least 20 miles away from Shinjuku. At night, many streets seem brighter than daylight, with flickering and flashing thrown in for good measure. But I’m getting ahead of myself. To get to Shinjuku we first had to take a short trip in the subway. Even luckier, we could take the line from the station just outside our hotel. That is, the entrance to the terminal was right outside our hotel. The actual line we needed was a kilometer away, underground, up stairs, down stairs, up stairs, down stairs, and through long corridors with obtuse and random lefts and rights thrown in.



Tired from the walk, we got onto a subway car that was already full and then watched in amazement and horror as more people piled in at the next few stops. Dissident told me to take a picture, but I couldn’t get to my camera without getting too friendly with a few people. We emerged from the subway dazed and confused. And hungry. We saw a Wendy’s and a McDonalds shortly after surfacing. Relax, we went past them. We then saw an English pub, but we decided against that too. We then stumbled on an upscale looking place called Kirin City. We were shown to a table by the side wall and our drink orders were taken (beer). After our small, half-foam beers arrived we decided on our order (steak). We waited for the waitress to take our order but she never came. Our stomachs gurgled in hunger, but no one cared. We stared at the waitress for a solid ten minutes but we were aggressively ignored. We tried standing our food menu up, but that didn’t work. We tried standing the drink menu up on top of the food menu, but that only got us looked at by other patrons. Dissident was about to set something on fire and I was contemplating a tackle of the waitress when, quite by accident, she caught my eye and was forced to acknowledge us. We placed our orders and received our food about a half hour later. By this point we were hungry enough to eat our shoes, which is why we were so very disappointed when we saw that the plate of food we each got was roughly half the size we were expecting, and even more disappointed that the steak was too. We each received about six quarter-sized pieces of meat, and six french-fries. The steak was amazing and it made us cross. The fries were excellent and they too made us angry. We finished our meal hungrier than when we started. Fed-up, or rather not fed-up, we paid our $40.00 bill and stormed over to McDonalds for a sense of quick satisfaction.

Now full, we struck out in a random direction to explore the city. Shit, we went back the way we came. We struck out in another direction, but we already saw that part. We dart off in another direction and pass the subway exit we had come out of. Shit. We work out with certainty the direction to go and are rewarded with a block of new stuff, followed by somehow ending up behind us. What? We made some more turns and finally broke free of bazaaro world. We later saw a map of the area and discovered that is was bound by a triangle, which explained things a little.

Now in the vicinity of Kabukicho, we started seeing signs for “Sexy Bar” and other such places. Shortly thereafter we were repeatedly asked by black guys if we wanted to see titties and drink beer for free. Shockingly, we repeatedly answered dishonestly and said no. We’d been down that road last year and knew it to be riddled with potholes. Your drinks are free, the girl’s drinks are very much not. Extra stuff gets put on your tab. Soon you are hammered, broke, and never saw one titty – not even a nip. When you emerge back into the street to find a cab, you are swarmed by more black guys promising to get you laid and a free cab ride home afterwards. We didn’t go that far last year, but one can speculate that it too would not be quite as promised. No thanks, no titties and free beer for us Mr. black man. By the way, this seemed to be the sole occupation for black men in Tokyo - odd.


We realized after we took this picture that it is the same shot that is featured in "Lost in Translation" in the opening of the movie. Neat.

By 10:00 PM, our feet were rubber and so were our minds. The part of my brain just behind my eyes was getting sunburn from the city lights. We called it the quits. A quick ride and a long walk brought us back to the hotel. We, of course, hit 7-ll on the way. Dissident got a dough ball stuffed with meat, and some meat on a stick. Back in the hotel, we listened to music and chronicled our adventures for you guys until the wee hours of the morning. Yawn. Goodnight.

P.S.

It was really hard to say no to titties and free beer.