(no subject)
After a hell of a weekend so today I opted to just stay in, relax, and catch up on work. Thursday I had class unceasingly from 5-9:30. (I'm going to have another 2 hour class in addition to that henceforth also) Afterwards everyone is nice and tired. The trend so far has been to mill around and try to go where others are going. Every day we end up creating 3 or 4 separate ad hoc clusters that will collide, divide, absorb and siphon people from each other for the rest of the night. The ones with steadfast plans end up setting the agenda. Thursday they most seemed to have a mind to drink off the bat, so I opted for the group that was actually going to go eat. Since most people ended up moving to Roppongi (over-priced, touristy, nightlife district - see other post) naturally thats where everyone wanted to eat. So off to Roppongi we went. Some of us had been to Roppongi a half dozen times already (personally my 2nd time). So we went for some Indian food, which naturally cost tourist prices. I was already ambivalent about Roppongi since I'm not a club type; but the bulk of people insist on coming back again and again. A 15$ small Tikki Masala and 9$ pint of beer didn't exactly fill me joy either.
After dinner at about 11:30pm everyone wanted to go out drinking (note that public transportation shuts down at 12:30am). I don't know where people muster the energy to drink every damn night, but I pulled the killjoy card and (very literally) bowed out. Cut me some slack, my wallet was hurting, a cab home would cost 14$, I spent all day moving, and I had work to catchup on tomorrow.
So I caught the train back to Shibuya - just, and thought I would explore my surroundings a little bit. Funny, the concept of thirsty Thursdays must not exist here, because the city (other than Roppongi) was pretty dead by then. Shibuya itself was pretty quiet. I take a pretty scenic route home, so it wasn't totally dead. But you kind of got the idea that teens that were still out were the sort that would be skipping class tomorrow, whereas all the business men had just taken the last train home with me.
One thing Shibuya has in plenty is arcades, a Tokyo experience I definitely wanted to have. I like the games, its been a while since I've seen a proper arcade, this is Tokyo, on the bleeding edge of the technology, and most of all, it would drive Johnny up the wall. So hestitantly, and carefully - I made my way in.
Check the fighting machines:
Like my serious gaming friends, there is an appriciation here for the really technical fighting games. Also Tekken 6 was up, and I thought It would be nice to be one of the first Americans to give it a try. Turns out that these machines actually play against the person opposite. So, naively I put in some yen on Tekken 6 to check it out. Turns out this actually interupted the game of the young man across from me. Pulling out my A-game, I used Jin, with him playing as Julia. What proceeded was a total international beat down. I had my ass-handed to me.
Downstairs they had some sweet Instrument games:
Apparently that stuff is big in Japan too. Notice the really complex DJDDR turn-table Hero thing.
My night ended with some VERY fun drifting in Intial-D 4 (pictured)
After dinner at about 11:30pm everyone wanted to go out drinking (note that public transportation shuts down at 12:30am). I don't know where people muster the energy to drink every damn night, but I pulled the killjoy card and (very literally) bowed out. Cut me some slack, my wallet was hurting, a cab home would cost 14$, I spent all day moving, and I had work to catchup on tomorrow.
So I caught the train back to Shibuya - just, and thought I would explore my surroundings a little bit. Funny, the concept of thirsty Thursdays must not exist here, because the city (other than Roppongi) was pretty dead by then. Shibuya itself was pretty quiet. I take a pretty scenic route home, so it wasn't totally dead. But you kind of got the idea that teens that were still out were the sort that would be skipping class tomorrow, whereas all the business men had just taken the last train home with me.
One thing Shibuya has in plenty is arcades, a Tokyo experience I definitely wanted to have. I like the games, its been a while since I've seen a proper arcade, this is Tokyo, on the bleeding edge of the technology, and most of all, it would drive Johnny up the wall. So hestitantly, and carefully - I made my way in.
Check the fighting machines:
Like my serious gaming friends, there is an appriciation here for the really technical fighting games. Also Tekken 6 was up, and I thought It would be nice to be one of the first Americans to give it a try. Turns out that these machines actually play against the person opposite. So, naively I put in some yen on Tekken 6 to check it out. Turns out this actually interupted the game of the young man across from me. Pulling out my A-game, I used Jin, with him playing as Julia. What proceeded was a total international beat down. I had my ass-handed to me.
Downstairs they had some sweet Instrument games:
Apparently that stuff is big in Japan too. Notice the really complex DJDDR turn-table Hero thing.
My night ended with some VERY fun drifting in Intial-D 4 (pictured)