Japan Update Four
Here's an abridged update since LJ just ate my previous entry and I'm running out of time.
In the evening, after checking out Ginza and Chook's apartment, we went for Yakiniku on the 35th floor of a building in Ebisu. Normally, these places are very ritzy, but this one let us in anyway. Suckers. For those of you unfamiliar with Yakiniku, the concept is that you order slices of meat and cook them on a grill set in to your table. Yes, I got to play with both fire and meat. It was delicious and made me want to cook my meat. I think I'll do that for my birthday. I also promised Mike that I'd cook it for him when he was back in the states. Once we were done, we were all meat-drunk and happy. I learned how to complement the wait staff in Japanese. It was nice. Upon leaving, we stopped to take in the view of Tokyo from the 35th floor. It was amazing just how large this place really is. We could only see a few square miles of it, but what we did see was still larger than downtown Minneapolis. This place is goddamn huge.
After leaving the building, we headed towards Shibuya fueled rumors of an arcade with a deejay. Since where we wanted to go was just one train station away, we decided to walk it. It turned out to be a very nice walk with an interesting bonus mid way through. The walk was slightly hilly with the standard, pleasant architecture until we came across what appeared to be a transformer humping the top of a building. We were all startled and confused and moved down the street to get a better look. Turns out that it was a design school with a very interesting design. Several pictures were taken. It looked wildly surreal.
We arrived at the arcade, but found that the deejay was no longer there and the dance pit had been replaced with UFO catchers and Capsule machines. We were sad. But Gut got to play the Taiko drumming game and I got to play a game that involved swinging around a foam katana. It was still a good time despite the lack of good music and club-style lighting. Gut played a UFO catcher and got a plush Taiko drum. At that point, we were all tired an decided to head out. On our way we passed several lingerie pubs and "Karaoke" bars. I use the quotation marks because your standard Karaoke bars do not have bouncers out front that look like they could kill you with a thought.
More later.
In the evening, after checking out Ginza and Chook's apartment, we went for Yakiniku on the 35th floor of a building in Ebisu. Normally, these places are very ritzy, but this one let us in anyway. Suckers. For those of you unfamiliar with Yakiniku, the concept is that you order slices of meat and cook them on a grill set in to your table. Yes, I got to play with both fire and meat. It was delicious and made me want to cook my meat. I think I'll do that for my birthday. I also promised Mike that I'd cook it for him when he was back in the states. Once we were done, we were all meat-drunk and happy. I learned how to complement the wait staff in Japanese. It was nice. Upon leaving, we stopped to take in the view of Tokyo from the 35th floor. It was amazing just how large this place really is. We could only see a few square miles of it, but what we did see was still larger than downtown Minneapolis. This place is goddamn huge.
After leaving the building, we headed towards Shibuya fueled rumors of an arcade with a deejay. Since where we wanted to go was just one train station away, we decided to walk it. It turned out to be a very nice walk with an interesting bonus mid way through. The walk was slightly hilly with the standard, pleasant architecture until we came across what appeared to be a transformer humping the top of a building. We were all startled and confused and moved down the street to get a better look. Turns out that it was a design school with a very interesting design. Several pictures were taken. It looked wildly surreal.
We arrived at the arcade, but found that the deejay was no longer there and the dance pit had been replaced with UFO catchers and Capsule machines. We were sad. But Gut got to play the Taiko drumming game and I got to play a game that involved swinging around a foam katana. It was still a good time despite the lack of good music and club-style lighting. Gut played a UFO catcher and got a plush Taiko drum. At that point, we were all tired an decided to head out. On our way we passed several lingerie pubs and "Karaoke" bars. I use the quotation marks because your standard Karaoke bars do not have bouncers out front that look like they could kill you with a thought.
More later.