Rock Bar Mother

My last day in Tokyo was a blast. ...okay, my last night in Tokyo was a blast. But I shall tell you of my day first.

So I woke up, found the hot water heater not working (I had no idea that in Japan you have to manually turn them on), and decided to save my shower for later while I headed down to the post office to ship home all my Comiket swag.

That's a real ouch in the wallet right there. There went 9000 yen shipping my artbooks and my doujinshi home. O_o;; And I still have doujinshi with me in my huge-ass luggage. I think there's about 20-30 books there. I sent about 50-60 home from Comiket, and about that home from earlier in my stay.

Yeah, that's a lot of doujinshi. :x

Anyways, so after I poured more money down the sink I went back to my hostel, discovered the hot water heater and its on button, showered and went walking around. I hit Ginza first, Tokyo's swanky district. Man, was it swanky as hell. Full of fancy stores of clothing, furniture, and watches I couldn't afford and would never want to buy anyway. I didn't spend much time there, as after that I went to Asakusa, which is famous for its huge temple devoted to Kannon.

It was kind of fun there, I bummed around, took pictures, bought myself a belt to hold my pants up (yeah, I finally got around to losing weight in Japan XD), and headed over to Harajuku.

So Harajuku is one of the many fashion districts of Tokyo. This one is particularly populated by gothic people and clothing shops, but those are on the side streets and are hard to find unless you know where to look. Being the lazy type and also the type to avoid goths, I didn't look too hard. I did go to the Meiji Shrine though (yes, the Meiji Emperor of Restoration fame), which had absolutely beautiful gardens. Okay, it wasn't a garden. It was a fucking forest. Right in the middle of Tokyo. I was impressed more by that than by anything else.

After Harajuku I was kind of tired and I made it home to the hostel where I bummed around with the rest of the people at the hostel, my newfound friends Martin (from the Netherlands), Lars (from Germany), and Caitlin (from Texas). We watched the Matrix: Reloaded (squee, twins) and some home-cooked videos that Lars and his buddies made, and then Martin, Caitlin and I headed down to hands down the best bar in Tokyo.

It was called Rock Bar Mother, and is seriously the awesomest bar I've ever been to. It was tiny, fits only about 10 or so people maximum. It was darkly lit, but it had these pair of amazing speakers, which were blaring hard rock, punk, and metal. You'd get a drink menu (they had the best Bloody Marys I've ever had), and then after that you'd get a music menu so you can choose the songs you listened to. They had a really nice collection of rock, including a lot of really obscure, small bands, which my friends really appreciated.

So I spent about four or five hours with good music blaring in my ears, drinking and talking with my friends in the dark, and fraternizing with a couple of hot Japanese metalheads, Masahiro and Kousuke.

It was an awesome fucking end to my stay in Japan and in Tokyo. I wish there were bars like that in the US. Everybody was relaxed, just having fun and chilling out. The most relaxed night I've ever had, and I hope to keep in touch with Caitlin. ^_^ She is definitely one of the nicest and coolest people I've met.

So here I am...
In Beijing, China, at my uncle's place.

Beijing sure has changed a lot since the 9 years ago I was last here. O_O;; It's amazingly modern now. China actually looks wealthy, and everything is shiny and new. ^_^ Yaay! (Even the wu-xia, I was watching two totally different Yi Tian Tu Long Ji series on TV today! At the same time! w00, it was wu-xia heaven!)

My suitcase is still heavy as hell, but oh well. Maybe room for Chu Liu Xiang and Tian Long Ba Bu left. ^_^ Huzzah! I am one happy kitty right now, despite having slept absolutely zero from the late night at the bar. ^_^

Love to my peeps, and love to my girlfriend.