Ginza Party / Metal Event

On Friday after work, I headed to Tokyo again for the weekend. I rode up there with Emmet. on the way, we ran into 2 other JETs, Helen and Brooke. We rode the train with them as well. They had separate plans than us though. Both of them were going to be involved in a special fundraising event for the Tohoku Earthquake victims. Basically, a bunch of people would be walking around the permeter of the entire Yamanote line (the busiest train line in Tokyo). I think they had something like 8 hours or something to finish but I cant remember exactly. The Yamanote line just runs in a big circle that goes around most of central Tokyo. I never heard about this event prior to hearing about it from them. You had to be pre registered in order to attend. I think its pretty cool that they are doing this though. I hope the event raises a lot of money.

Emmet and I got off at Takadanobaba. I grabbed some quick BK and then we played games at Mikado for a while. Nothing really noteworthy to mention but I got some fun GG matches in. Oni was now unlocked as a playable character along with Evil Ryu in SSFIVAE, so Emmet played a few matches of that. I didnt get around to trying it out.

We left for Current sometime around 10:30 I think. From there, we headed to Current. It was pretty dead there tonight but at least Chris ended up showing up. We stayed for one beer and then decided to check out PSY. Unfortunately, PSY was also pretty dead. Chris has been trying to quit smoking but started again today. I kept bumming his cigarretes and finally he just gave me the whole pack before leaving. I hope he manages to quit. I have no nicotene dependancy and I want to keep it that way so I try to only smoke a few on occasion when im drinking.

Emmet and I decided that Shinjuku bars were looking pretty dead tonight so I agreed to go with him to Roppongi. We took a cab there. Emmet had some coupons to get into some place called Opera or something. Some club. The coupons were good for 2000 yen to get in with 2 drink tickets which is reasonable. We walked around trying to find the place for ages. I dont know Roppongi that well and all we had to go by was some crappy map on the back of the coupon. I asked a bunch of people and they all kept pointing us in different directions. Eventually we got to a point where peoples answers were pretty consistant as to where to go, but when we finally got to the street that they said it would be on, there was nothing there.

We got sick of walking around by this point, so we just decided to give up and go to 911, another club with free entry but over priced drinks. I made sure to bring in a hit flask of whiskey to make up for the over priced drinks. 911 was pretty boring but then again i dont really like clubs much to begin with. Emmet dumped some weird old awkward chick on me that started talking to him lol. I pretended I couldnt speak Japanese and told her I had a girlfriend in English. She still sorta just stood there expecting me to make conversation so I sorta just gradually got away hah. After a bit of time at 911 we decided to just go to Gas Panic even though I dont really like this place at all. However, its also free to get in here and I even got away without buying an over priced drink so whatever. It was already pretty late so I only had to kill like another hour and a half here until the trains started to run. I made a half ass effort to do a little dancing and killed time and it went by pretty quick. Emmet ended up leaving with some chick.

Once 5 rolled around I headed back to the station to go back to Shinjuku to sleep. Unfortunately, I fell asleep on the train and missed my stop and wound up all the way at the last stop on the line. As a result of falling asleep so much, I didnt get to the manga kissa in Shinjuku until like 7 something. Good thing I didnt have anything in particular I had to get up for the next day, so I slept till about 1:30 pm.

After I woke up Saturday afternoon (I was woken up by Emmet callling me), I waited to use the shower and went online for a bit. After showering, I met up with Emmet at Shinjuku Sportsland and then we got some quick food. After that, we headed to Mikado. Mikado was pretty dead at first so I was a little worried that there wouldnt be much comp today. As the day went on it improved slightly but never got crazy packed. Emmet had plans to go to another international party today. This time it was one of the ones in Ginza. He had plans to go with Jason, one of the guys who goes to Current who lives in the US and works for an airline, so he gets free flights and visits Japan once in a while. He would be around this weekend. He showed up at Mikado to meet up with Emmet and hung out for a bit while I kept playing GG. Emmet was trying to convince me to go as well. I was pretty much 50/50 on the fence about it. On one had, I felt like playing GG. On the other hand, Mikado wasnt too packed, Emmet had coupons to get us in for 2000 yen for all you can drink, and Jason was going too so I figured it might be fun. Also, they would donate 500 yen to the Tohoku Quake charity for every person that went, so it was even more incentive to maybe go. Jason showed up after a while and hung out while I played some GG. After playing GG for a few hours, 6:30 rolled around and Emmet said they had to leave and asked what my final decision was. I was in the middle of playing a match so I told him to just flip a coin cuz I was honestly 50/50 on if I wanted to go or not. After the coin flip, it ended up deciding that I would go to the party (I saw him flip it so I know it was legit). So, I won my last match and we headed out to go to Ginza.

We arrived there a little bit late. At first, Emmet couldnt remember where the venue was. Some random Australian dude came up to us asking if we were also going to the party and we said we were. Then, Emmet remembered the way. The Australian guy didnt believe him so he went to ask some random dude and we just kept walking. We arrived at the evavator to go inside and then the Australian guy comes up and Emmet said to him "Hey, we were just making fun of you, you should have trusted me". The guy didnt seem to mind. We got up there and the dude asked if we had the coupons to get in for 1000 yen. We had ones for 2000 yen but were surprised that a 1000 coupon existed. The guy said he gets a special rate for coming so often or something. The coupons are just email text messages you show from your cell phone, so he forwarded the message to Emmet while we stood in line to help us out and get us in for 1000 yen. Then, Emmet tried to forward it to me and Jason but it wasnt working for some reason due to size limitations. So, the Australian guy sent it to me as well. Then, I tried to send it to Jason but it wouldnt work for me either but by this time, Emmet was already inside so he just passed his phone over to Jason over the divider and we all got in for 1000 yen, lol! 2 and a half hours of all you can drink for 1000 yen is a great deal!

Since we got there late, the place was already really packed and it was difficult to even walk around. The biggest thing that sucked was that the line to get drinks was long as hell. It took on average about 15 minutes in line to get a drink for the first part of the party. I dont get how it was taking so long since they were only handing out cans of beer for the most part. I pretty much just got right back in line after getting my first drink to get another one fast. Much to our surprise, it turns out that fellow ALTs Bloodbath, Phil, Li, and Nick were there. I pretty much just spent most of the time talking to random people and drinking. I tried to wingman for my friends when I could since I wasnt there to pick any chicks up for myself. By the end of the party I got plenty to drink. I think I got at least like 7 or more beers which isnt bad for 1000 yen.

About 20 minutes before the party ended, a nice looking girl came up to me and struck up a conversation with me. I talked to her for a bit. Lets just call her Beer girl cuz she said she really likes drinking lol. She seemed like a nice girl so I invited her to come drinking with us at Current after we left the bar (since tonight was a metal event and we were all going back there for sure). She was actually at the international party all by herself which is a pretty rare thing since girls almost always come with friends. She was happy to come with us. If I was a single guy id be more than happy to try and get with her but im not, so I figured I could try and help out Jason since by the end of the party he didnt have any girls coming with him. Emmet brought a girl along as well. I guess all the other dudes we know who were there had their own plans.

So anyway, we get back to Current and it was pretty packed and what youd expect from a good quality metal event. Lots of regulars ended up showing up. I sat and talked with Beer girl for a bit at first but then later I went and takled to tons of other people I know. Emmet left at some point with the girl he brought but im not sure when. At around 3:30, I guess Jason ended up getting Beer girl to leave with him. So, I was glad that it seemed to have worked out. Im not exactly sure about any details about this though and hadnt seen her in a bit before they left. I dont think she saw me when they were leaving. I was busy talking to some other people.

Anyway, I stayed the rest of the time till the event ended and nerded it out drunkenly headbanging with all the metal event guys to good songs and stuff. After it was over, I headed to PSY and stayed until closing time. PSY was pretty good. It was someones birthday there today so a decent ammount of people came and lots of people from Current showed up as well.

The next morning I woke up to an email on my phone from Beer girl. She asked me if I wanted to go do hanami today sometime before 2 pm. It was probably something like 9 am when she mailed me and I was pretty damn tired so I went back to sleep and woke up again at like 1:30. I mailed her back telling her sorry that I just woke up and its probably too late now. She didnt reply back for a while. I mailed Emmet and Jason asking how their nights went. Emmet hooked up with that girl he left with. However, I was informed that Jason took Beer girl back to his hotel room but nothing happened between then and appearently Beer girl was just talking about ME the whole time... I guess she really must have liked me.

I took a shower, grabbed some food, and headed to Sportsland to play some GG for a while. Some Potemkin was there and he had like a 19 win streak. I beat him on my first try. He switched to Order Sol and I beat him again. Then we played a bunch more times vs his Order Sol. It was going back and forth and then he got like 5 in a row towards the end and I was getting a little annoyed. In any case, I was pretty tired and a bit hungover and sorta wanted to just go home early and seee Ryoko so I called her and she said she was free today.

So I left sometime around 4:00 to go home. On the way home on the train, Beer girl messaged me back saying sorry for taking so long to reply but she was unable to email me again till just now. I told her I was already going home. She said she was sorry to hear that but then she invited me to come to "play" at her house next weekend if I come back heh. If I was a single guy I would have been down, but Im not, so I just told her that I had a girlfriend and that I appreciate the offer but wouldnt be able to do that. She never replied after that. I suppose I should have mentioned I had a girlfriend to her at some point but it never came up and she never asked. I wasnt exactly trying to lead her on, but I was just trying to help out a friend and just invited her to come drinking with us at the bar. Nothing more. I feel kinda bad though cuz I didnt realize that she was that into me. So in the end I guess it sucks that things didnt work out with her and Jason but I at least tried to help out. Overall it was a pretty fun weekend though. Not sure whats going on next weekend yet.