New Year

Pictures in no particular order...

2nd night out - admission to 2 clubs, this was the second - it was well fun!

Harajuku Sidestreet

Random Russian girl

Tokyo Tower displaying "2010" bit blurry sorry - rubbish iPhone camera

These are highschool girls waiting/camping outside a very famous clothes department store called 109 on 31st. In the sales they give away sealed bags of clothes for around 40% of the retail price. They stay out all night in the cold dressed up in Cosplay outfits... dunno why. Maybe they really, really need new clothes because that's all they have left....?

Highlander - There may be only one...

Shibuya - Magic place! If you know where to look!

Lewis after recovery... Steve on the decline!

Look, girls!!!

Outside my flat ready to catch the Shinkansen to "EAST CITY"

On the Hokoshin Kyuko

Hmmmmmm

What to say....

New Year was insane, and not in a “Yeah man, totally mental time. It was great” I mean it more in the psychologically disturbed, what-are-the-chances-of-that-happening type of mental. But it was still good, and certainly not a night anyone will forget in a long time!

The cast was, Myself, Keir, Brand, Steve, Lewis and Chris. We all wore Kilts except Chris as he’s from Georgia (U.S.) and already has long blond hair, putting a skirt on him and sending him to Tokyo probably would end up in some kind of horrible mistake.

We took the Shinkansen from Kobe to Tokyo – a trip of 537.5km that would take over 7 hours to drive took us just over 2 hours on the Bullet Train. It wasn’t even the fastest one which is called Nozomi （のぞみ).

Every time I go to Tokyo for a night out I end up staying out till around 9am, so this time I thought it would be a good idea not to book accommodation for the night of 31^st and book us all capsules in a Capsule Hotel for the 1^st and 2^nd of January.

So we went to Shibuya, ditched all our bags in the lockers in the train station and hit up an Izakaya for Yakiniku and beers/chuhai’s. For those of you unaware of Chuhai’s they are alcopop type drinks and are really popular in Japan. They’re made from Shochu, Japanese alchohol similar to vodka which can be made from rice, potatoes or grains. They have loads of flavours but most popular are Lime, Lemon, Grapefruit, Apple, Plum and Peach. You get normal 4% ones and strong 8% ones…. Hmmm

Safe to say we hit a few bars and then decided to get chuhai’s from the convenience store and tan them on the street with a side order of FamilyChicken. After that we headed for Womb (A big club in Shibuya – with an underground Japanese kinda vibe – it was made more famous by appearing in the film “Babel”). Anyway that's where the trouble started. Here is a brief summary, I think it’s best not to go into elaborate detail:

1 Some underwear was removed from beneath Kilts (always a bad start I feel)

2) Jackets were or were not placed into cloakroom

3) Alcohol was consumed and countdown witnessed

4) Drinks were potentially spiked by dodgy South Africans

5) Much drama, vomiting and dizziness later one of the crew was placed in a safe room with a bucket and had what can only be described as a Hell-on –Earth experience (think Event Horizon and you’ll be on the right track)

6) More vomit, then some more then some splashback

7) Then an incident that needed stiches

8) Then some inter gang fights

9) Then an ambulance

10) Then a relieved person

11) Then some MacDonalds

12) Then the group split into two, one half going to a cinema around 8am to sleep, watch Avatar and generally destroy the interior of the cinema with bodily fluids. Whilst another faction headed to Roppongi to go to a club which opened at 6am.

13) Some sleep was had by most members of the group

14) Some people headed home whilst some people obtained horrific “sporting” injuries in a random area of Tokyo which shall never be mentioned or visited again.

15) Eventually all normality was restored an we all rendezvoused back at the Hotel in Shinjuku.

The next day people did touristy stuff like visiting the Emperor for his New Year speech, going to Akeharbara, and after food Keir, Chris and I went to Roppongi for a night out which was fun but proved to me once and for all that Roppongi is the asshole of Tokyo.

The final day we went to Harajuku to see the Cosplayers and crazy fashion and to hit the cool shops before catching the Shinkansen home. So it all ended well.

Cheezu, Japanese Underground Music Scene, Chocolate Water and other goings on....

Feeling: Happy, occasional showers of guilt for drinking too much with an optimistic and excited front coming in from the North as I'm looking forward to Snowboarding in Hokkaido...!

I went to a really smart bar called Star Club - it's pretty small (I would guess that 100 people would squeeze in and it would be packed). Having said that it has a big stage, an awesome PA system and good drums, cymbals, amps all there so you literally just plug in and play. I went to see my friend Shin play an acoustic show. It was really good, about 4 or 5 people played, some bands and some solo - one guy just played 1 song. Good vibe tho so I reckon I'm gonna go there a lot - it's famous in Kobe. It's on a street in a not so glamourous part of town that runs parallel to the train tracks - it has loads of little Izakaya's and Ramen & Okonomiyaki restaurants that are really good. The club itself is actually under the tracks so when trains go over you can hear them and feel the place rattling - it just adds to the great atmosphere!

The only drawback is that gigs in Japan are expensive so even going to see my friend play cost 1600 Yen (£10/11) plus you have to pay for one drink as you go in so for a beer and entry it costs about £15, and that's considered cheap! A big gig like Muse is arounf 8000 Y or Phoenix 5800 so live music is not cheap!

Shin and I are gonna try to get a band together out here along with Shin's mates Aki and Kazu (Kazu is a good friend of mine too and pretty much lives next door so we hang out a lot anyway), he asked the guy that runs the place if we could have a gig and we can, so watch this space.

Here's the club after the gig when the lights were up

The Sound Engineer (cute girl) was up in the roof

Shin singing his wee heart out (he did a cover of Creep by Radiohead mid-set)

Another guy with a good voice

In other news, I got loads of cheese from my friends - God bless you all (you know who you are). You have no idea how much I appreciate little things like that!

Oh and check this out - a recent discovery in a convenience store.

Chocolate Sparkling Water - What next!?! The funny thing is, it actually tastes and smells just like chocolate!