Spring Break 2010 part 3 (the final sretch, and the truth discovered)

Here's the final chapter of my long Spring break series of updates...

Saturday, April 2nd

If memory serves me right, this is the night were at the manga kissa, I ended up having to share a double mat room with Tony. It ended up being really small and there wasnt much room but there wasnt really any other options cuz its all they had left. After showering and getting ready, we (Sam, Emmet, Tony and I) left. This time, we didnt meet up with Rob and Andy right away because they had plans to go to a Morning Musume concert today, so we would meet up with them later.

Also, the night before, Sam found some random hat on the street and decided to keep it. He was now wearing it. I thought it was a bit gross but he said he washed with soap in the sink at the manga kissa and let it dry all night and it was totally fine so thats cool I guess, lol!

In addition, upon waking up, Sam realized that he was missing his apartment key. He suspects that he might have left it at Club Pure. He had plans to call them later and get it back, but unfortunately he was never able to.

The plan today was to go to Osaka castle. We started out by grabbing a beer and walking around looking for Nanba JR station. We knew we had to get to Osaka-jo eki by JR trains so we figured it would be the easiest way. While we first started walking around before we even barely drank our first beer, we came to the realization that we were actually STILL a bit drunk from last night. We figured we might as well just let it ride, so we continued to drink all day. We walked around quite a bit trying to find it, and ended up drinking lots of beers while trying to find it as a result. Eventually we realized that there didnt seem to be a good way to get there from where we were at without going back to Umeda, and we also realized it was getting to be almost 5 pm. Emmet checked some tourist Japan guide book he had and it said in there that Osaka castle closes at 5 pm, so we figured we might as well just save it for tomorrow. As a result, we ended up spending most of the day just walking around Osaka, exploring various areas, and at all times we had a beer in hand.

At some point, we stopped in front of one of the supposedly most famous takoyaki stands in Osaka and we got some takoyaki and just ate it on the street sitting down chilling and drinking our beers watching hot chicks walk by. There were these 2 hot girls in cowboy hats working to promote some girls bar so Emmet and Sam were flirting with them for a bit.

After everyone ate we continued to walk around and drink. I kept a good buzz throughout this whole time and never really got sloppy drunk at all so it was a nice relaxing day.

Tony, on the other hand, was a different case. Tony had like maybe one chu-hi. Then, Emmet kept offering to buy him some more. So gradually, Emmet keeps buying Tony more and more Chu-hi, and sometime around the time when we walked into DenDen town, Mr. Chu-hi had come back in full force! Whenever I think of him chugging from his tallboy 8% chu-hi can, I just cant help but hear the Popeye music in my head.

Now I dont know how many he had, but it was WAAYYYY more than he probably should have had. Tony is naturally kind of loud sometimes which can be a bit annoying, but now he was just like really loud, and slurring his words, and couldnt even hardly walk in a straight line. He then started just rambling on about how much he likes fat chicks. I never knew this about him before, but he said that one day he was online and saw a fat version of some regular size anime character and he was like "oooh wow yea! This is very interesting!" and he somehow stumbled on the "weight gain community" online in which people discuss how much they like fat chicks and trade pictures. Most of this is actually centered around fat drawings of anime characters, and my brother found some artist who goes by the handle Gain-over. This guy takes pictures of regular anime drawings and draws ridiculously obese versions of them. Some examples my brother spoke of were Ibuki, Jill Valentine, and Sakura. Not only does he love these pictures, but he loves them SO much that he commissions the guy to draw them for $30 a picture! LOL. This is the site that the artist Gain-over has is pictures up on. Give it a look if you are curious (Mr. Chu-hi ASKED me to link this on my blog so have at it! lol).

He also kept going on about how there is like different categories of fat chicks like BBW (big beautiful women) and SSBBW (super size big beautiful women) and so on and so fourth. He also said that any regular size woman is just a potential fat chick! LOL! You can see a video of this here. Emmet recorded it with his phone.

For like the next 2 hours or so, we walked around DenDen town with Mr. Chu-hi slurring his words, stubling around, and just straight up going on random rants and rambling about how much he loves big fat anime characters and shit. We asked him how fat he would get and I asked him if he would do 400 lbs and he was like "sure!". There were MULTIPLE times when he straight up would just stumbled and fall face first in front of him on the ground, but he would get right back up like a champ and kept talking about fat chicks. He even fell on some bikes a couple of times. One of the times he fell over, some dude looked at him like he was ready to start a fight or something but luckily the guy left Mr. Chu-hi alone.

We went into a conbini at some point to get some more beers (except for Mr. Chu-hi cuz we cut him off after he pretty much got this wasted) and while he was in there, he like fell into a shelf and knocked over like a bunch of stuff and the shelf fixture came right off! I apologized to the store staff and helped them clean it up and fix the shelf. Nothing was actually broken or damaged but I felt kinda bad (though at the same time I couldnt help but find it hilarious). The staff wasnt upset at all which was cool.

We also went into a few stores to go shopping for nerdy DenDen town stuff like anime figures and manga and all that good stuff, and while we were in there, Mr. Chu-hi kept bumping into stuff so we made him go wait outside and sit down for a bit. He didnt actually do any real damage to anything at least.

Eventually it was obvious he needed to get sobered up so Sam bought him some coffee and sandwiches but he didnt want to eat it, but we made him anyway. He plopped down against some closed garage like door on the side of the street and shoved like the whole sandwich in his mouth and kept rambling about fat chicks. You can see pictures of him engulfing his sandwich here and here. This picture is him expressing how much he loves the big beauties with a mouthful of combini sandwich! And finally, this one just speaks for itself... And finally heres another video!

He also threw up multiple times. There was a point where he was just throwing up spit, an he threw up once on a pillar and there was like this big stream of spit hanging from his mouth to the side of it. It was gross.

The shenanigans continued for a bit longer, but eventually Mr. Chu-hi began to run out of steam. We kept a good eye on him to keep him out of trouble so fortunately nothing really bad happened to anyone.

Eventually we got a mail from Rob and Andy saying their show was over and that they wanted to meet up. We met up with them at the infamous cheese curry place that Rob always raves about in his blog. I must say... this shit DOES live up to the hype! Best cheese curry I ever had in my life. That shit was broken! If they had one in Tokyo I would probably eat there all the time as well. The prices were good and the portions were generous as well!

Unfortunately while we were eating it, Mr. Chu-hi was being couldnt manage to control his voice volume and was getting a bit obnoxious so we had to keep him under control a bit. I never mentioned it before, but he doesnt really know any Japanese but his favorite fucking word in the world is mizu (water). Every time we go to any bar or restaurant he just says "mii-zuu!" really bluntly. He certainly had his share of "mii-zuu!" while we were there.

After eating we apologized to the staff on the way out for him being a bit obnoxious. From there, we headed to Athena to play some games. I played a few matches of GG against this really good Eddie player who was there with who I am pretty sure was Kadeko, the well known May player. Despite the fact that I had been drinking all day, I paced myself well and just had some food, so even though I had a good buzz, I was in a good state to still play very well and we had some great matches. He won more than I did but I still held my own against him well and most of the matches were really close anyway. He was the only one who was playing so I just played him a bunch.

At some point, Emmet points out to me that he hasnt seen Mr. Chu-hi in a while. After my match ended, I grudgingly got up from the machine and went to go find him. I searched all 6 floors of Athena multiple times and checked both bathrooms. He wasnt there. Then we walked around a bit outside to see if he was out there but we didnt see him there either. I was afraid of another repeat Disneyland experience except this time he was wasted as hell... After searching for a while, I eventually found him in the corner behind the GG cabs on the other side from where I was playing (behind the Eddie player) passed out on a chair. He was probably there the whole time. That was a big load off my chest, so I went right back to just playing more GG.

After a while, it was getting late, so I woke up Mr. Chu-hi and we all headed out. We were planning to go back to RockRock tonight to go drinking, and this time Rob and Andy were going to join us. Mr. Chu-hi, however, was too tired and wasted, so we brought him to a manga kissa and checked him in for the night. I told him to just stay there until we went to get him in the morning and that if he needed to renew his time to just do so and mess around on the internet (maybe he looked at fat chicks).

From there, we went to Rock Rock. This time they had another Punk event night except they were playing all kinds of stuff anyway which was cool. There were more people than last time and also less foreigners and more girls overall so it was much cooler. They charged 1500 to get in with one free drink. Current often has covers when they throw events but since I (and usually anyone I am with) am VIP status just cuz they know me so well, I never have to pay. I didnt mind paying really though.

The night there was a lot of fun. I made the rounds and talked to various people. I was talking with Sam and Rob near the entrance for a bit at some point but Rob didnt stay long cuz he was feeling tired and isnt much of a heavy drinker so he left early. There was a lot of dancing going on much like at Current so I did some of that too. Since I had been buzzing all day, my foot didnt really bother me that much, plus we were taking it easy sorta too, so I figured I would be fine dancing, and for pretty much the whole night, I was just fine. I talked with Yoko a bit again too. My main regret was that I totally forgot to contact Kunko (the girl who is friends with Chip who lives in Osaka and comes here a lot). I dont really remember anything else extremely worth mentioning other than it was a good night, so you can just look at the pictures.

We stayed till closing and then went outside. As we were sitting on a ledge outside the bar, Andy didnt look like he was feeling to well and threw up sorta discreetly. This was the very first time I EVER saw Andy throw up. I guess he must have had a good time drinking. He seemed to be ok though so thats good.

Pretty much from there, we walked back to the manga kissa and checked in. This time I was able to get my own booth which was good.

Sunday, April 3rd

I woke up today and instantly regretted doing all that dancing because now up to this point, this was the worst condition that my foot had been in. I dealt with it anyway and took a shower and got ready. Once we all got up and checked out, we met up with Rob outside and then went and got Tony, who was just chilling browsing the internet. He seemed fine and somehow didnt have a hangover which I dont understand cuz hes a lightweight and an inexperienced drinker and 8% chu-hi is notorious for giving hangovers.

From there, Rob suggested we go to get some burgers so he took us to Kua-aina Hawaiian burger place near Nanba station. They have one of these in Shibuya and I ate there before with Emmet. It was pretty good (but a slight bit expensive) so I didnt mind going there again. We all ordered food except for Emmet who just got a beer. Andy ended up only taking a few bites of his burger cuz he wasnt feeling too well yet, so as we left, I suggested that Emmet take the burger and eat it on the way instead of just leaving it there to get thrown away so he did, and he ate it.

From here, we picked up our plans of going to Osaka castle from yesterday. This time Rob led the way so we were able to get there easily. Turns out we did have to go back to Umeda afterall.

When we arrived at the station, there was a sort of hanami festival going on. There is also a big live music stadium in the area and I think there was a concert happening so there were tons of people and tons of small stands selling food and drinks everywhere. We were getting short on time and it was approaching 5 but we figured we might as well just try.

As we were walking towards the castle, we passed by this big group of elementary student age kids, and they all seemed to be on a baseball team in uniform. As we passed them they all started excitedly saying "Hello hello!" to us. They were acting as if we were some sorta celebrities (not so different than how the little kids act when I go visit elementary schools either). Rob and I being ALTs were pretty used to this so we were happy to greet them all and shake their hands. Tony was confused LOL. As the rest of the guys (Andy, Emmet, Sam) who were walking behind us caught up, the kids mobbed them too and asked us all to take some group photos. I didnt get any with my camera but here is one from Emmet's camera.

After that, we continued walking and passed some stuff like an old man doing puppeteering, and some other old man who had an iguana. We eventually made it up to the castle. The outside of the castle looked really cool. It turned out it was opened till 7 pm so we had no problem getting in. We started off by going to the top floor and there was a nice view of the area around the castle. As we walked down to each floor after that, it was mostly just diagrams of stuff and old pots and artifacts. It was kinda cool I guess but got a little redundant. (just like this blog, zing!)

We spent a bit of time in there looking around. Eventually we all met up by the gift shop on the first floor. I had to use the bathroom. When I got out, everyone was gone, so I figured they went outside. They were waiting a bit of a ways from the castle entrance. As I was walking towards them, I noticed that Tony was not there. They said to me that they thought he was with me, which immediately caused me to physically face-palm at the fact that I now had to go do a repeat of Disneyland again for real. My foot was still hurting really bad but I walked back up the steps to go find him anyway. I eventually found him talking with a police officer trying to call me on a pay phone! I bitched him out for not paying attention and getting lost somehow again. He seemed to think it wasnt his fault but if everyone else managed to stay together and he didnt, obviously he needs to pay more attention.

Anyway, after that we chilled out there a bit and had some beers and relaxed while Andy took some pictures. It was getting late and Andy had to catch his Shinkansen back to Tokyo soon so we walked to the station together. We rode the train back to Osaka station and from there Andy parted ways with us.

After that, the rest of us went to Yodobashi cemera cuz Tony wanted to buy some more souvenirs and Rob wanted to buy an ipod touch. Rob and I helped Tony find the stuff he wanted and then he bought like some Gundam figure, a plushie WaLuigi, and a Hokuto no Ken figure. I bought a PuyoPuyo plushie for Ryoko cuz she loves that game. Rob got his ipod touch so everything went well.

After that, Rob had to get going so we said bye to him. From there, we had time to kill so the 4 of us had some beers by the 7-11. Tony had some more Chu-hi because he wanted to get drunk enough to fall asleep on our bus back to Tokyo but he was worried about a repeat of yesterday so he didnt really get drunk and held back.

After that, we went to get Ramen and it was really good. We didnt have much time after that till our bus came, so we had to head to Osaka station and get ready to leave. I was gonna buy some omiyage for my co-workers (as its customary to do so when you travel far) but we ran out of time so we just got on the bus.

This time we didnt have quite as good of seats. I was buzzed but wanted to get more buzzed so I resorted to double snusing extra strong Snus. Sam did the same. Tony had trouble falling asleep at first but eventually did manage to pass out, and he did so in a forward leaning position because there was no seat in front of him, just the guard rail for the stairs. Once that happened, Sam and Emmet started dropping 1 yen coins down the back of his pants and I took pictures of it LOL! He didnt wake up at least, and he didnt even know they were there till I told him later the next day, hah! Sam, Emmet, and I most played 3 player Mario Kart on DS. Emmet was owning us at the regular racing because he knows all the broken snaking tricks. Then we played the vs mode with the balloon battle thing and I came out slightly ahead in the end but it was sorta even. Then Emmet went to sleep so I played Sam in PuyoPuyo till we got to the first rest stop. At the rest stop, I was able buy my omiyage but unfortunately they didnt sell alcohol. Once we got back on the bus, I pretty much fell right to sleep.

Monday, April 4th

We arrived at Shinjuku station early in the morning. Emmet pretty much just went right home cuz he actually only took a half day off work and had to be there by 12. Sam, Tony, and I went to McDonalds to get breakfast. I also had to kill time cuz I needed money from the ATM and my bank sucks so I have to wail till past 8 am. Sam also needed to kill time cuz he had to take care of some business regarding his apartment key. While at the McDonalds, Sam saw some crazy old man in the smoking section rocking back and forth rambling to himself. Also, when we were ordering our food, some senile old man with bad hearing was trying to order in front of us in line, and you could tell the cashier was doing her best not to like slap him cuz he kept like making her repeat stuff like a zillion times and kept like changing his answer from what he wanted to where he wanted to eat and stuff. It was sorta funny and annoying at the same time.

After we killed enough time there, Sam got on the train and left, I got my money from the ATM and Tony and I got on the train too. We originally were thinking about going to Studio Ghibli museum but it was raining kinda bad, we were both exhausted, and my foot still hurt.

We slept most of the way back to my town. For the rest of the day we kinda just hung around and did a lot of nothing. Ryoko came over and hung out too. Nothing much else to say about this day.

Tuesday, April 5th

This was my last vacation day before going back to work. I decided to actually use this day wisely so I made an appointment at a different hospital in my area to finally get my ulcer checked out thoroughly since as of now it was mostly just a diagnosis from symptoms. I had an 8:30 am appointment and Ryoko came along too cuz she didnt have work till like noon.

First they did an ultra sound scan of my stomach. After that they used a camera. This processes sucked! They first made me drink this like Novocaine-like substance. Then they put it up my nose and let it sit for a bit. Then they jammed a rubber tube all the way through my nose to where it connects to my throat. They then did this again with a WIDER tube. I guess this was to get me ready for the grand finale, in which the doctor came in with a small camera that was on the end of a long black tube. They then proceeded to shove the camera all the way through my nostril, through my throat, all the way into my stomach! By this point, the Novocaine was staring to wear off so I could feel it in my throat, which caused me to throw up. Luckily I didnt eat breakfast since they said not to eat before the checkup, so I just vomited a lot of spit. They then pulled the whole thing out till I calmed down, and then put it back in AGAIN! This time I tried my best not to throw up but couldnt help it so I just kept throwing up spit WHILE this tube was shoved all the way down my throat. They managed to get the pictures they needed with the camera and eventually took it out. I must say that this was one of the most uncomfortable medical procedures ive ever had to go through, but in the end im glad I got it done.

After waiting a bit, the doctor called me in and went over the results. So it turns out I dont have a stomach ulcer at all. I have an ulcer in my esophagus. Some ulcers are a result of a bacteria called H. Pylori. Mine, however, is just a result of stomach acid burning my esophagus. I have pretty much suffered from acid reflux (aka GERD) my whole life, so I have always had really bad heart burn problems. I guess its just gotten to the point where it has burned it enough to cause serious damage. The doctor said this probably will never fully heal, and he says that the damage level is between a B and a C on an ABCD scale with D being the worst. So for the rest of my life, I pretty much have to take a pill every morning (proton pump inhibitor) which will suppress the level of stomach acid my body produces. Ive taken these before but they always gave me bad diarrhea side affects so I stopped and just used tums. Hopefully the stuff he gives me wont really do that. Its supposed to be stronger than what I have been previously been taking so I hope it works well. He did say, however, that I can still eat any food that I want but to simply avoid eating foods that cause too much stomach acid like an abundance of meat, and that I should not over eat and try to eat a bunch of smaller meals more often. He also said its ok to drink alcohol but to just not go too crazy with it. That was a big relief to hear cuz if I had to quit drinking for the rest of my life... well it would suck ball. I also asked him about snus and he told me to quit using it. So from here on I am pretty much done using snus. It sucks cuz I have a bunch in my freezer still, I guess I can just give it away. He said theres no signs of cancer so thats good, but sometimes these ulcers can increase the risk of getting esophagus cancer so im going to have to be careful to take care of myself. If anything, at least now I am more informed about my condition so I feel better overall even if it is probably never going to fully heal.

After that I had lunch with Ryoko at a restaurant, she went to work, I went home and took a nap, and we spent the rest of the day much like the day before just relaxing.

The next day I drove Tony to the train station before work and he made it back just fine. I offered him some chu-hi but he didnt want to have one more for the road!

So thats the end of my long spring break. If you read the whole thing then thanks for taking the time to do so and hopefully it was somewhat entertaining.

I'm gonna miss having Mr. Chu-hi around because his antics are extremely amusing. Sometimes hes a little overly loud, says some pretty stupid things, and is a bit immature, but hes a good guy at heart. I give him a lot of shit but its for his own good. Hopefully he will grow up more soon.

Today is already Friday as I am typing this so I will be heading back to Tokyo for more games and drinking as always. Ill update again next week. Feel free to leave comments!