Japan Trip - Day 6 (May 23, 2003):

Since we had such a late night last night, we all decided that we wanted to sleep in a little bit and thus planned accordingly. First off, upon waking up for the last time at Eiichi's place, it hit me again how great Taeko and her family have been to us thus far in the trip. And, to top it off, before leaving for Taeko's parents' place, Eiichi came down and surprised each of us with a gift. Knowing how much into sports I am, he gave me a Barry Sanders football jersey. Even after all he has done for us, he still went out of his way to show how much fun they had hosting us. How great is that. Which reminds me that I need to give Taeko my UCLA hockey jersey to give to her brother to show him how much I appreciated their hospitality. And, I still need to give her birthday gift to her.

Anyway, back to the Japan trip. So, we folded up the futons for the last time, packed up all of our stuff and threw it into the back of Eiichi's car as we were planning to meet up with him after dinner later that day, and headed over to Taeko's parents' place for an early lunch before heading out for the day. Taeko made us some ramen with cornbread mixed with bananas and a slice a watermelon as the sides. Here is a picture of Tony getting ready to devour the tasty lunch:



After lunch we jumped on the bus to Fujimino station and hopped on the train to take us to Ikebukuro. This was the last time we ever rode that particular bus/train combo, because starting that night we would be staying in Shibuya with Joleen and Eugene. It's weird to think that we would no longer be staying with the Katanos as they have really made us feel at home. Anyway, getting back to the story, we arrived in Ikebukuro and hopped on the good ol Yamanote line and took it to Akihabara. If you could sum up Akihabara in four words, they would have to be: electronics, video games, porn (though not necessarily in that order). Akihabara is basically a shopping district that seemed to specialize in those three things, although there were stores with other things as well. Most of the stores are set into long, thin buildings that consist of multiple floors each consisting of a certain category of items that the store sells:


(image courtesy of Tony)

For example, if a store specialized in dvds, the first floor might be Japanese films, the second floor imported films, and floors three-six would most likely be porn. We went into an electronics store and I stared longingly at a Sony Plasma TV for a few minutes before Tony and I made our way up to the high-end home theater equipment. I was in utter shock when I looked at some of the price tags hanging off the high-end speakers. Amazing.

After we had our fill of Akihabara, we hopped on the Yamanote to Shinjuku and checked out the red light district. It seemed that every other building was a love hotel or hostess bar. Unfortunately we did not get a chance to check out any of these. :)

After taking the walking tour of the red-light district, courtesy of Taeko, we hopped back on the Yamanote to Shibuya to grab dinner at Porta Portese, a very small, quaint, and excellent Italian restaurant. The head chef and owner of the place was the boyfriend of Miyuki, one of Taeko's friends. There, we met up with Maki and her boyfriend (whose name escapes me right now), Masu, Miyuki, and Yuri. After much beer, wine, some excellent food (the gnocchi was very good), and cool conversation, we parted ways with Miyuki, Masu, and Yuri, and headed off to meet up with Eiichi to get a ride to Joleen's and Eugene's apartment in Shibuya to drop off our stuff before meeting up with Taeko, Maki, and her boyfriend for a night of clubbing. We dropped our stuff off at the apartment and headed out to Fai, a club in Shibuya.

I've gotta admit, I'm not too keen on the whole clubbing experience, and to top it all off, I was still very tired from our day thus far and staying up much too late the night before. Plus, the music at the club wasn't all that great, basically 70's and 80's American music sped up with a dance bass beat. And, to top it all off, everyone was smoking in the joint. But, it was cool hangin out and people watching and chatting with Maki's boyfriend and Taeko. Unfortunately, apparently the talk with Chris didn't go as well as I had hoped. It pains me to see him feeling down, especially when we should all be having a blast while on vacation. Hopefully things will turn up for him.

Eventually, we take off from the club and say goodbye to Taeko, Maki and her boyfriend, and Eiichi, with promises to hang out with Eiichi and Taeko the following day. We hail a cab, and 1380yen later, we arrive at Joleen's and Eugene's apartment, all of us ready to crash. Shawn and I stay up a little chatting with our new hosts, Eugene and Joleen, who were really cool to take us in for the rest of our trip. Chris and Tony have already passed out, and after talking for a little while, I decided to turn in as well.

All in all, a great day. We had some great food, met some cool people, and I was able to do some people watching which is one of my favorite past times. Truth be told, I was kind of sad to bid the Katanos farewell, as staying with them has been a blast. But I did look forward to hanging out with Shawn's sister Joleen, and her boyfriend Eugene, who seemed like really cool people. Till the next update...

Posted 8:47 PM by MZ

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