Japanese People Love Gaijin In Kanji T-shirts

I didnt bother making a blog post about 2 weekends ago cuz I pretty much just stayed around where I live and drank with friends. Nothing much to talk about.

This weekend was pretty good stuff though.

On Friday for work, I had to go to Maebashi for the Gunma prefecture English speech contest. One of my students won the regional one so he advanced to this competition. I went there with one of the English teachers at my school in his car, as as a result, I parked my car at Gokan staiton. I contest didnt end till about 5 pm and it takes about one hour to get back to my town. As a result, I figured it wouldnt be worth going to Tokyo at this point so I made plans to drink with Andy in Takasaki.

When I arrived in Takasaki, I met up with Andy at the station and we quickly ran into a couple of other ALTs from Gunma. They had plans to meet up with a bunch of other ALTs and all go drinking at an Izakaya. There ended up being like about 10-12 people and we went t this awsome Izakaya that Andy had been to before. They had GIANT BEERS for only like 300 yen. It was totally worth it and the food was pretty good too. After a little bit, Emmet arrived and Andy was nice enough to go get him from the station to show him where the place was.

After that, most of the people in the group went and did Karaoke for a bit. I busted out Rhapsody - Holy Thunder Force as my first song and it was pretty ammusing because I guess this was the first time any of these people heard someone wale "hit my golden shield!" at the top of their lungs.

After Karaoke, we went to another bar and drank some more and eventually Andy, Emmet, and I went back to Andy's at around 4:30 am and passed out.

On Saturday morning, Emmet and I woke up and after we each took a shower, we got ready to head to Tokyo. Andy said he had some things to take care of around Takasaki so he said he would meet up with us later on.

We took the train to Tokyo. On the way, when transfering at Akabane station, I checked this month's Arcadia at the bookstore in the station and was disapointed to see that there were hardly going to be any GG tournaments at all this month. I guess it still is off season. Tournaments for most games in general seemed to be pretty scarce. They were having some tournaments at Fukaya in Saitama its really far out of the way and probably wouldnt end up being that big anyway.

Eventually we arrived at Mikado in Takadanobaba. I was fiending pretty hard to play some Guilty Gear cuz I hadnt played in like 2 weeks and had only been playing some online SFIV at home. There wasnt a ton of comp there but there was enough to get games in. I ended up getting a 23 win streak until I eventually lost to a Johnny player who beat me after many attempts.

Emmet played a little 3S but was getting sick of playing fast. He wanted to go to some international party again but I didnt feel like going. He convinced Liz to go with him so at around 5 pm he headed out to meet up with Liz and go. Not long after, he called me saying he screwed up and the party was on a different weekend, so he said him and Liz would be coming back to Mikado.

Theres this one guy who posts on dustloop under the handle Raviloli. He is from North Carolina and says he used to play with Frank the Tank and stuff. He contacted me earlier saying he was going to be moving to Japan soon so he wanted to meet up with me. I dont know him at all but he reads this blog and said he wanted to chill so I figured why not. He showed up at around 5:30 or something like that at Mikado. He introduced himself and said his name was Sam. Soon after, he sat down and we played some games of GG. I think we probably played about 7 or so games. He plays as Potemkin. I dont think I lost a single round but later he told me that he is mostly a Melty Blood and Street Fighter IV player and has only been playing fighting games for a little while, so he doesnt play much GG. Im sure he could get good if he plays a lot though.

I would have been down to play some more games, but while we were playing, Liz and Emmet returned. They wanted to get some food, and I was getting hungry, plus I didnt wanna make them sit around and wait for us, so they went on ahead to a nearby Mexican restaurant and we met up with them shortly after.

The restaurant was called the Cantina and is right down the street from Mikado. I found out about it before but this was my first time going there. It ended up being happy hour while we were there so I managed to get like 3 tequila cokes within the half hour of happy hour that was left when we were there. Cant beat half price drinks. I ordered a Taco combo meal. The food was pretty good but honestly didnt taste all that much like authentic mexican. Maybe cuz the tacos didnt even have meat or sour cream in them. Liz and Emmet split a quesadilla and it looked a little more legit. If I go back there sometime, maybe I will get one of those. The prices werent bad so I could see myself going back there again sometime.

The plan tonight was to go to Mogi's birthday party at Current later. When we finished eating it was still fairly early so we decided to go get a bottle of whiskey and drink it between the 4 of us before heading to Current, so we did exactly that. We sat out on the roof balcony area of Liz's apartment building and killed the bottle in about an hour or 2. There were some people studying in the lounge room right next to where we were sitting outside and some random girl just showed up out of nowhere wearing a full Pikachu costume for whatever reason, so I got a photo of that shit hah.

I got word from Andy that he wouldnt be making it out to Tokyo after all since he was feeling kinda tired or something so then the 4 of us headed out to go to Current.

We got there a bit early, maybe at around 10 or so. The place was already pretty full espessially for how early it was. Gradually it filled up and just about most of the major regulars I would expect to show up to this party ended up coming. I had a good time talking with lots of people and everyone was doing a lot of dancing. Chibi Testament was there and was getting pretty agressive with Emmet but then got pretty emotional after he wasnt really interested. I probably shouldnt go into too much detail about it though. Other than that, it was a great party as I would have expected. All the elements of a big party were there like running out of glasses for beer and having to use plastic cups, peeing outside in the secret bathroom due to long bathroom lines, and a few people taking their shirts off (though this time no girls did it unfortunately heh). Sam loved the place and seemed really excited to be there, and Liz ended up staying out all night with us for once instead of taking the last train home which also rocked. She had a fun time dancing a lot, espesially with Piko (who Emmet said looks like Remy from SFIII which I found to be quite hilarious). I was surprised that Mogi didnt get very drunk this time though. Last year he was totally sauced after drinking like a whole bottle of Jack Daniels, but this time he was working pretty hard behind the bar all night.

After the party was over, it was time to go to PSY. Liz left to go home and Emmet was nowhere to be found and wasnt answering his phone, so Sam and I headed to PSY.

PSY was the same as always on Saturday night at 5 am. I got a beer and about 3/4ths of the way through it, Emmet calls me saying hes finally on his way but cant find the place. I went to go find him outside and eventually found him. He said he like went to some random bar like towards the end of the party all alone cuz I guess he does random shit when hes drunk. It was kinda annoying cuz when I went back inside PSY they took what was left of my beer and dumped it I guess, but it was about closing time anyway. So from here, we got some McDonalds breakfast which rocked as always. While we were eating at McDonalds, Emmet started randomly hitting on some chick sitting next to us. I was pretty drunk so I hardly even remember how it started but he ended up talking to her (with some translation help from me) for a while and then I think he finally got her number or something like that. After that, Sam went home and Emmet and I went to the manga kissa.

After waking up on Sunday morning at the Manga kissa, the plan was to do some shopping. Ryoko's birthday is coming up soon next month, and I also still havnt figured out my Halloween costume. First we went to Donkihote to see what kinda costumes they had. They had some OK ones but most of them kinda were just really generic and a lot of them were a little pricey. I browsed a bit but decided to hold off on buying one from there just yet.

We headed to Shinjuku station and Emmet tried to get his backpack out of a locker he put it in the day before, I guess if you use it longer than 24 hours you have to pay again to open it even if you have the key or something... either that or the locker was broken. Emmet put in 300 yen to get open it, put some more stuff in, but then he closed the door and it locked on him again and he had to pay AGAIN but then some chick totally jacked the locker while we were figuring out what to do so he ended up having to carry all the stuff with him. We searched the whole station and every single locker was full. Probably because this was a 3 day holiday weekend and lots of people were around.

After that, we went to Harajuku for shopping. When we got to the station we found a locker and I split it with him cuz Harajuku is crowded as fuck and I didnt want my bulky backpack with me either. While we were in the station, some random american dude came up to us and was asking me where to go to see all the weird people in cosplay outfits and stuff so I pointed him in the right direction.

Then we went on the main shopping street and it was just a sea of people as it often is on that street. The foot traffic moves at a snails pace. We went into several shops and I found a few nice gifts for Ryoko. At one of the shops where I bought something, the sales clerk had probably like over 50 piercings in her face! I never thought that shit was very attractive but it certainly was interesting to see.

We stopped at this one store that had some interesting T-shirts. Emmet decided to get one of those very touristy looking t-shirts with kanji on them. He had no idea what it said but it was a black shirt with bright pink kanji and he wanted it so he bought it lol! Out of the 4 kanji on the shirt, I only knew the meaning of 2 of them so I asked the sales clerk what it meant and she told me it means something along the lines of "I want to be a comedian". Emmet quickly changed his shirt and put this one one instead (he had an undershirt so he didnt have to like get bare chested in public to change it). I, on the other hand, actually had a shirt with kanji on it too, but mine was the Hori T-shirt that I bought at TGS. On the front it has the Real Arcade Pro logo and a stick with buttons and on the back it says in big red kanji, something along the lines that translates to "bring on the next challenger!". To someone who doesnt understand the context, I guess this just happens to be hilarious to most random Japanese people. Appearently it was so hilarious that these 2 random girls came up to me and asked me for a picture of my shirt! So I figured, why not, and let them take the picture. Then they noticed Emmet's shirt and started laughing even more and took one of him too. Then they started talking with us for quite a while. They were pretty hot so it was all good. They asked if we had myspace and I just gave them my name and email and told them to send me a mail sometime if they wanted to go drinking (pretty much so Emmet could try to mack on them later or something). I think the whole random gaijin wearing kanji shirt thing must be pretty funny to most Japanese people and I can understand why. Most people in Japan walk around with t-shirts with ridiculous Engrish on them and I always have a good laugh at it, so its kinda like the same deal I suppose.

After that, Emmet and I got some awsome pizza and then did a little more shopping and headed back to the station to get our stuff. I wanted to get at least some game time in so we headed back to Mikado and I played some more GG. There were more people in general there this time and a few well known players were there like HH, Inoue, FAB, and some others but I didnt get a chance to play those guys. I did have a really close match with this one Anji player and I was surprised to see that it was Kunihiro after I lost. I talked to him a bit and he asked me about what was up with Las Vegas Shinjuku and I told him I think its completely gone. He said he also heard rumors about a relocation but didnt know any information about it either.

(As I am typing this, it reminded me to check their website and I just found out that it seems the DID relocate to the big building with the movie theater right across from where they used to be located, now on the 2nd floor! I will make sure to check it out for sure next weekend!)

Also, at some point while I was playing at the arcade, I got a random email on my phone from Chibi Testament asking me what "masturbate over you" means in Japanese. Where the hell does she come up with this shit!? And why does she ask ME?!

Anyway, we played games for a bit but Emmet once again was getting a bit burnt out on playing. I could have played a little longer but I had enough for now I guess. There was nothing really planned for tonight, but I left my jacket at Current the previous night, so we headed back there for a couple beers and to get my jacket. It was pretty dead but it was also early and there were actually more people there than I would have expected. We mostly just chatted with Mogi and stuff.

Emmet really wanted to check out Club Pure in Shibuya and couldnt make it there last time we went, so I agreed to go with him again since they have a good price of 3500 yen for all you can drink all night and it would save me money. We headed out there and we ended up being like some of the very first people to arrive. It was completely dead at first but then it filled up a bit more as time went on and the girl to guy ratio was actually pretty good. Unfortunately this time they didnt have any pole dancing chicks. Once again, some girls saw Emmet's shirt and started talking to him. I would have never imagined it but that shirt really does seem to be a good way to get chicks to talk to you LOL!

The drinking at this place tonight was just absolutely rediculous. Open bar can be a dangerous thing. Every time Emmet got a drink, he would ask for a shot of vodka with it. He did this for maybe the first 10 drinks he bought. After a while, the bartender asked how he was still even standing up. Emmet told me he went and threw up in the bathroom like 4 times while we were there!

I, on the other hand, wasnt drinking any shots, but I wanted to make it a personal goal to see how many different drinks I could have within the course of the night without drinking the same thing twice! Back at Current I already had a glass of red wine and 2 beers so wine and beer was covered. So at Pure, every time I ordered a drink I made a note of it in my phone. This is the list of all the drinks I had that night...

Red Wine
Beer
Tequila coke
bloody mary
white russian
gin tonic
tequila sunrise
rum coke
long island iced tea
sex on the beach
margarita
whiskey coke
moscow mule
fuzzy navel
screwdriver
pina colada
spumoni
vodka coke
mango sentinal (tequila and mango juice, I made it up lol)
rum pineapple
7 and 7

...thats a lot of fucking drinks. I think I might be an alcoholic. At least I saved money by drinking like 15,000 yen worth of alcohol for like 3500 yen! My wallet wins but my liver loses.

Most of the rest of the night was a blur and im not surprised after seeing that list. I remember we were talking to some Korean chick and then we got McDonalds after the club closed and some random Frenchmen were there and the Korean chick came too.

I woke up the next day at a manga kissa in Shibuya after like 8 hours of sleep but didnt feel very refreshed at all. I took a shower and then we headed out. We got food at this Hawaiian hamburger place called Lua Aina or something like that with really expensive prices but the burger was really good. Emmet got a giant beer cuz thats how he deals with hungovers. We ended up checking out a few random arcades in Shibuya but they all sucked. I played a few games of SFIV at one of them and got some wins but then this beastly Sagat beat us a couple times. We then left and decided we would go to Asakusa.

Asakusa is a great place to buy traditional Japanese stuff. Emmet wanted to check it out cuz he was looking for a tengu mask for his Halloween costume. I actually had never been there so I was down to check it out. We saw some awsome stores and took some cool pictures. Unfortunately most of the traditional style shops closed early at like 7 pm, so then we just walked around for a few hours to kill time cuz I wanted to take the last train home to save money. We had a beer and some curry which was good. A few more random people commented on Emmet's shirt (he was wearing it again today for whatever reason) and I still couldnt figure out why this shirt was so interesting but it must have happened at least like 3 more times today! If anyone knows why this shirt is so interesting to random Japanese people, please tell me cuz id love to know.

Anyway, on the way back home, at the station to go transfer to Ueno, Emmet threw up again cuz I guess he ate too much Curry. That was like the 5th time within 24 hours. Once we got on the train I passed the fuck out and was just dead tired. This weekend totally kicked my ass... waaayyyy too much drinking. I think im gonna take it easy for the rest of the week.

Next weekend is Loud Park! It should be epic as hell so I cant wait!