1/21

Our final day in Tokyo, for all intents and purposes. First we labored through an unnecessary long class. After that we had the day to ourselves. Jason, Jason, Alex and I went to Shibuya to do some last minute shopping and scout a place to have our expensive dinner on USD's dime. We found a restaurant that looked good and more importantly was walking distance from a Karaoke place, massage parlor, love hotel and numerous bars. You never know where a night in Tokyo might take you, and we like to keep our options open. Don't judge.

So after returning to the Olympic Center and taking a flask of Jack Daniels to the face while watching Step Brothers we headed to dinner. I have to say one of the better things to come out of this trip for me is my reunion with an old friend, Jack Daniels. Jack had been my liquor of choice since I began drinking, but after a series of painful, very unhealthy, nights that led to alcohol poisoned 2 day long hangovers, I ended that relationship. For years even the smell of Jack brought back memories of being too miserable to leave the bed while I threw water up on myself on the top bunk of my dorm room. In Tokyo, my options were limited to generic brand Vodka (cheap Vodka has since catapulted itself to the top of my must never drink list) generic Gin (my gin experience is limited, and acquainting myself to it in a foreign country could have been disasterous) and Jack Daniels. I bit the bullet, bought the Jack and it worked. The time apart served us well, with Jack working to facilitate the kind of drunken, near-blackout debaucherous times of old while keeping the hangover ranging from non-existant to very manageable. Welcome back Jack.

Anways at dinner I continued to indluge myself with Jack, of the Jack and Coke variety. After a hit and miss dinner food-wise (Udan pasta with bacon was good, sea food au gratin...not so much) the waitress gave us a 'gift' of cold sake served in a wooden box. Upon forcing down my boxed sake (which is in fact worse than boxed wine) we headed over to Karaoke. Karaoke was all you can drink, so we had the Moscow Mule and beer flowing. After belting out some Europe "Final Countdown" and Sinead O'Connor "Nothing Compares to You" with Jason (those two songs pretty much sum up our friendship) Scrilla and I passionately performed LL Cool J's timeless "I Need Love." Weidner and Scrilla (a.k.a. 2 Much Flash) held it down as well, slowing down the hits for everyone to take in their off key but, but passionate take on K-Ci and JoJo's "All My Life." Hardly a dry eye left after that performance. Karaoke ended when Martina Navartilova fell on the table, spilling drinks everywhere. I think she fainted when Jason and I released the homosexual magic that is Sinead O'Connor, but who can blame her. Anyways, after Karaoke we left the girls behind to have one final swan song in the bars of Tokyo. After narrowly escaping a beat down at the small hands of numerous Japanese men (thanks Lyall) we found ourselves in an empty bar, where I proceeded to keep the Jack and Cokes rolling. My memory of this is beyond hazy, but if my memory serves me correctly, we left after obliging to overpay to the two bartenders because of their implied Yakuza ties. The last thing any of us needed at that point, so close to home, was to be indebtted to one of the world's most notorious organized crime outfits, so we left peaceably.