This year, however, some idiot decided it was a good idea to drive through the crowd with his car and try and hit the royal family (which were parading in an open bus at the time). Fortunately he didn’t succeed in hitting the royal family, however, he did hit various people in the crowd along the way. Several people were heavily injured or deceased from the impact. The driver didn’t survive himself, so figuring out why he did what he did is up to the experts I guess.

As a result, lots of festivities around the country were canceled or toned down. In Amsterdam, our mayor decided that all parties should continue as planned, except for the largest party taking place at Museumplein every year (about 80.000 people attending), that one was ended earlier than normal after which the people slowly made their way home.

Me and my friends went to celebrate the queen lived! And ended up partying at the europarking lot near Elandsgracht. There was an excellent techno party going on there which was very fun, though a little bit crowded. Afterward we strolled down to the Westerstraat where we were mainly busy trying to find other people, after which we had some dinner in a local snackbar. Some of us went to Stevens after party, but I decided against it (since Steven lives on the exact opposite of town) and went home instead.

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Although the start of the day was a bit whack, it turned out to be a very nice Queensday after all and me and my friends had a blast!

She arrived Friday evening around 11 PM, upon which we went back to my place to drop off her stuff before heading into town. We first met up with Maarten (whom she met in Tokyo at my sayonara party) in café Smoes near Leidseplein.

Having had our first couple of beers there, it was time to go clubbing, so we wandered off toward Studio80 for some minimal techno and goa trance (surprisingly good combination). There we met up with Renato, Marck and Roobin, who arrived there just before us. The party was great as usual and we partied till about 5.30 AM.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ivqbc2NMH8

Saturday we woke up relatively early (noonish), because I of course had to show Chie around this nice little place of ours. We walked around town for hours, showing her various aspects of Amsterdam. We started off at the flower market, where she bought some tulip bulbs and small souvenirs. After the market, we wandered past Rembrandtplein to the Utrechtsestraat where we had lunch in Stacey’s Pennywell (seriously, go have lunch there, it rocks!).

After lunch we walked on to Waterlooplein to see the ever present flee market in action. Then we slowly made our way back to Dam square, followed by our final tour area, the red light district. At first, Chie wasn’t really impressed by it, just some stripclubs and sex stores, so far so good. Then we rounded a corner and entered one of the smaller alleys where the prostitutes are actually standing in the pink lit windows “selling their goods.”

Because we were talking about all sorts of things, Chie didn’t notice at first. However, once I pointed out one of the women (standing in a window at arms distance), she was downright shocked at the blatant display of women in the streets. It felt a bit like a pet store to her with all the women displayed like that. The shock was complete when she noticed a man leaving one of the rooms, “did he…”, “yes he did…”

After this shocking end of the afternoon, I took her safely home, where we had a typical Dutch dinner (well sort of), “gourmetten.” Which is a nice way to eat, grilling loads and loads of meat at the dinner table. We fell asleep watching a movie, but woke up in time to go clubbing yet again! Oh yeah, since I cooked most of dinner, Chie insisted on doing the dishes. Who am I to say no to that? :p

We went to ClubUp and De Kring near Leidseplein, where we partied the night away again. At first the party was a bit weird, with old slow dance music playing. Fun for maybe one or two songs, but after 30 minutes it started to get a bit old. So we just drank ourselves silly while making fun of everything we could come up with.

Once we were free to switch between party areas, though, the party kicked into full gear. Maarten joined us again, and we danced the night away.

Slightly groggy from the whole party weekend, I escorted Chie back to the station on Sunday morning and she headed safely back to France.

Chie, it was very fun showing you around Amsterdam! Feel free to come back any time. Domo Arigatou Gozaimashita.

You can check out my pictures at the gallery section. Chie’s pictures will follow once I have them.

What an amazingly wicked New Years Eve. We went to a Sexy Superheroes themed party, organized by Robin and Ralf. After helping with their preparations a bit on the Monday before, it was finally time to go out there and party like it was 2009!

Upon entering the party area, it became immediately clear, this was going to be one of those amazing nights, you’ll want to remember forever. Everybody was dressed up so great! From power puff cousins to Link, V for Vendetta to Opel Manta Man (??).

Everybody was in the party mood from the start and the evening set off rocking to the beats provided by the first dj. As it started to reach midnight, everybody was ushered outside to witness the fireworks and the huge bonfire, which swayed quite disturbingly, but it all worked out.

After midnight, the party kicked into full gear with more people coming in every second (or so it seemed). With two party areas, everybody was partying everywhere! We mostly hung out at the smaller area, where Jasper was playing funky elektro tunes just after midnight, followed by Vincent with an excellent drum n bass set. In the main area the beats where provided by Nicole and Niels. There were two more djs following them, but unfortunately I don’t know their names, sorry!

After Vincents drum n bass set, Renato Fleur and I took a shift serving drinks to the masses, which was very fun. After that, the night got a bit blurry and I just wandered around the place until I could hardly stand anymore and headed for the safety of home.

Oh, did I mention, the booze was free! For only 20 euro per person, Robin and Ralf managed to throw the best, most fun, amazingly wicked New Years Eve party I’ve seen in a long time. What will be next years theme guys?

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After the impressive day in Hiroshima, it was time to go and see what the night life is like in Osaka. In advance we heard that there were some nice sights for sightseeing, but the main attraction was Osaka’s party scene. And party we did! We entered a club, karma, where they had a sort of Indie rock night.

As soon as we entered the place, it was quite obvious we were litterally the only gaijin present. Within 5 minutes, everybody in the club knew we were here, and we quickly turned into some kind of attraction, with some people even staring! Funniest was one girl, who, as I grabbed my beer, touched my hand with here finger as if to feel wether or not I was real. When I responded to that, she just giggled and bolted after a short while. We partied like crazy in there and V even managed to make some new friends. Although they couldn’t speak a word together, the power of party overcame that!

The day after, we did… nothing! Being all hungover (gee, how did that happen), we just slept till about 5, only to leave the hotel for dinner and a quick gaming session in one of the arcades. It was time to get nice and rested for Kyoto, where we went on Monday.

In Kyoto we spend the first day walking around visiting two temples. One of which, I had already visited with my mum, but it was nice to see the it again.

We didn’t realize, you should “keep off the person concerned only” by the way, that’s Buddhist wisdom for ya…

At night, we went into town to see what was going on there. As it turned out, not much, but we did find an excellent spot by the river, so we sat there for hours talking and chugging down some cold ones.

On our way back to the hotel, we ran into all kinds of interesting scenes, like a sleeping homeless and funny statues.

After the nice and relaxing night at the river, it was time to spend another nice and relaxing day at another river. You guessed it, back to monkey mountain! Last time I visited the mountain and excellent river with my mum, but we kind of arrived a bit late, so we had to rush through it. This time, I was prepared, and we arrived in the middle of the day, with plenty of time to see anything we wanted to see. Luckily, the river was just as impressive as before.

After having chilled at the riverbank a bit, it was time to climb up to see some monkeys (and again… not spank them).

After heading back down the mountain, we strolled along both of the riverbanks for a while, feeling all serene and peaceful…

One thing that caught our attention though, were the old guys, paddling around in their boat, holing a bunch of birds with them. At first we had no idea why they used the birds (propulsion?), but as we watched closely, we realized they were used for fishing. The birds were tied by the neck, but still had enough space to dive for fish. Every time, one of them caught a fish, the fisherman would string the bird and, and remove the fish from it’s beak. Only to throw the bird back out there after taking his precious catch. Pretty wicked way to fish I must say.

We went for dinner at the same Italian restaurant I ate with my mum before. However, this time we had a daytime view of Kyoto, since we went for dinner early. After dinner, we got on the shinkansen and headed back to good ol’ Tokyo.

The day V arrived, he was exhausted. Assuming he would be, I hadn’t planned anything special for that day, so we just went to an izakaya to eat dinner and drink a bit on his safe arrival. While eating and talking, the drinking a bit, turned into drinking quite a lot and after leaving the izakaya nice and drunk, we decided it was time to get more f#cked up and headed for a pub. Along the way, we bumped into some random Japanese people, so we joined them, until they ran off to catch their last trains. We left shortly after that and returned back to my guesthouse to play some Naruto on my Nintendo Wii! We played until about 4 in the morning, which we totally regretted when we woke up the next day, but still, it was very fun!

That day, Monday, I took Vincent to yoyogi park, where we chilled a bit and slowly got rid of our hangovers. After hanging out at the park, we went shopping a bit in Harajuku. Since Vincent really wanted a Billionaire Boys Club t-shirt, I took him to the store, where he bought one, that turned out to be slightly too small. But still, nice incentive to loose some weight, huh!? (OOOOOWwww)

That evening, I had a training session planned in the “open dojo”  with Tosh and Mariko. I took along Vincent and Ramiro (a Dutch guy living in the same guesthouse). It was very fun to show some of the roppokai aikijujutsu moves to V and Ramiro. For me it was even more fun to see how someone who isn’t trained in aikido or aikijujutsu reacts to the move. While they don’t flip like we do, the moves do work, and totally got them off balance. Especially Ramiro’s reactions were fun to see, total surprise every time he somehow ended up either on the floor, or totally off balance. Check my move btw!

The next day, it was time for our first true trip. Tosh took us by car to Mount Fuji! Revered by all Japanese, this mountain was on my to-do list for a long time, but I just hadn’t come around to visiting it yet. We left around 9 in the morning (would’ve been 8, but Tosh ran into heavy traffic…) for the three hour drive to Fujisan, as it is called in Japanese.

When we got there after a 3 hours drive,  we couldn’t see a thing… Somehow, it was very cloudy that day, and the ENTIRE freakin mountain was covered in clouds, hiding every last part of it from view. Tosh was very disappointed and impressed at the same time, “how can something so big just disappear!?”

However, when we drove up to the halfway point, fuji gogome, we were able to catch a glimpse of the peak. We walked around gogome a bit, venturing a small way up the mountain, where we quickly discovered snow! So of course, boys will be boys, soon a snowball fight was in full effect.

After the fight, we walked around some more, before we decided to head back down the mountain to check out one of the lakes surrounding it, Lake Motosu-ko. Tosh took us to the actual spot where the Fujisan picture found on 1000 yen bills was taken. So that was quite fun to walk around and see for ourselves. We headed down to the lake, and enjoyed the view and silence for a while, before returning back to the hustle and bustle of the city.

On Wednesday I had to pick up my passport at the Chinese Embassy, since I applied for a Visa for my week’s stay in Beijing (I got it!). The Embassy is in Roppongi, so since we were there anyway, we decided to visit Roppongi Hills. This area has been designed as a work/living area for busy people. Large buildings, and modern statues fill the landscape here. The best is the 54 stories high building, which provides you with an excellent view of Tokyo!

After Roppongi Hills, we started preparing for our rail trip to Hiroshima, Osaka and Kyoto. We got our rail passes at Shinjuku station and headed back home to start packing for the 7 days of travel. After packing we watched some video and went to sleep early.

Thursday was the day to go to Hiroshima. We had a 5 hour train ride ahead of us anyway, so we knew we wouldn’t be doing any serious sightseeing on the first day anyway.Instead, once we arrived and were checked into our hotel safe and sound, we quickly headed into town to find us some food and drinks. Unfortunately, since it was Thursday, and raining on top of that, going out in Hiroshima proved a bit of a challenge. So around 2 we returned back to our hotel to catch some sleep.

When we woke up, we headed out for our main reason for coming to Hiroshima, the A bomb dome. This dome is the one building near the center of the blast that remained afterward.  The remains of the building have been preserved throughout the years, and will be preserved forever. It is a very impressive reminder of the horrible events that took place on that day.

However, what really got to us were the images found in the memorial museum, near the dome. Seeing the images of the impact, reading the stories of burned children somehow managing to get home, only to die there in the arms of their parents, and looking at the images of the horribly burned victims, it really left it’s impact. I truly hope, no nation will ever be so stupid as to use a weapon as horrific as this one.

However, being the down to earth Dutch guys that we are, we couldn’t help but feel a little bit uncomfortable with the purely victimized role Japan portrays here. Of course, the bomb was horrible, but let’s not forget Japan wasn’t exactly known for it’s gentle tactics either. It was an all out war and all sides committed horrible acts in the process. It would’ve been nice to see some of that back at an exhibition like this as well. Nonetheless, it was a very impressive museum, which finally managed to truly shut us up for a while (which, by itself, is already quite a feat I must say).

After the atomic bomb memorial site, we went to see the Hiroshima castle. Obviously, the castle is a replica of the original. Inside is a museum, and surrounding it is a nice park, with all kinds of reminders of the event, like statues and foundations of former military buildings. Although still ok to look at, it’s obviously not as impressive as the A bomb dome and surroundings.

At night we tried to find a nice place to party again (it being Friday and all), but unfortunately because of the heavy rain, all Japanese people were being boring apparently. Every place we entered was next to empty, so we were walking around kind of lost and confused about the absence of any good party. However, suddenly we heard some very promising music coming from some basement we passed. We decided to check it out and walked straight into a small techno party!

Did I say small? I meant, tiny!  Some 8 people inside, most of them being the djs spinning the records. The records they were spinning were excellent, however, and the second dj truly kicked ass. So we spent quite a while there dancing and chatting a bit with the few people hanging out there. Oh, and, nice hiding of the wires…

Next up, Osaka! But that’s a story for a next post .

Next up: Mimmi’s birthdayparty. Of course we started out with nomihoudai karaoke. Although the girls hogged the mic, so we didn’t get to sing much, it did set the tone for the rest of the evening (partaaaaay).

After the karaoke it was time for some more nomihoudai pleasure over at Pure. It does have a magical attraction, all you can drink clubs…

The next day, it was finally time to play some poker. Robin, Michel, Tosh, Chie and Mike (fellow resident) joined, so we had a nice 6 headed game. Needless to say, their Japanese genes kicked in, so Tosh and Chie cleaned us out the second tourney.

Last Friday, I met up with Robin to chill a bit. We weren’t gonna go out, since we were both very tired and had plans for Saturday. However, after a while we started investigating the neighborhood a bit, and stumbled upon a tiny bar somewhere near Robin’s house. The old Japanese people inside were very surprised to see two young gaijin standing in the door, and at first the owner lady shouted to us that if we didn’t speak Japanese, we couldn’t enter. Needless to say, we entered the place, showing off our “best” Japanese. We had to sing some karaoke on a classic Laser Disc karaoke set, and impressed everybody there by actually singing some old Japanese songs…

Saturday I set out to buy a new shirt. Robin joined me, as he wanted to look for some records for his DJ set that night. We walked around Harajuku and Shibuya all day. I found a nice polo, I even bought my first CD in years! An excellent minimal techno album by Akiko Kiyama. After shopping all day, we both went to our homes to prepare for the night, since Robin was supposed to do his DJ thing in a small club a couple of stations from Shibuya.

I got home, freshened up, ate some and left around 9 to meet up with Robin in Iidabashi. Got on the train, and just as the train left the station, I got a call from Robin. “Funny thing… my gig is next week!” So no DJing for Robin that night, which also meant, no plans for the evening anymore. We decided to meet up in Shinjuku and decide what the correct course of action would be that night.

We were joined by Frederico, an Italian dude who used to live at Robin’s guesthouse, and Aki, Frederico’s girlfriend. We first went for drinks in some small backstreets near the station. However, we choose some place, where we were only allowed to stay if we would keep on eating. Just drinking turned out to be impossible, and we were rudely requested to leave the place.

So now we had to find a new place. We walked around Shinjuku for about half an hour looking for an interesting place to go, when we actually stumbled into the “Golden Gai” area. I hadn’t heard of the place before, but when you enter the area, it immediately radiates Japan all over you. The small streets are filled with tiny bars (if you can fit 10 people inside, it’s big) and the whole area feels entirely different than the rest of the city.

We stumbled out of the place around 2, only to take a cab to Shibuya to keep up our party efforts. We decided to go for cheap and ended up in, you guessed it, pure! There, I met a nice Japanese girl, Midori, who was being closely monitored by her friends and little brother. However, I did manage to get her phone number, so I hope I’ll get to meet her again (will keep you posted on that one).

However, before all of that, it was of course time to paaarty. I invited all my classmates for dinner in Shibuya and fortunately most were able to make it.

After dinner we quickly went for nomihoudai karaoke, to get the night started. Boy, did we succeed with that…

Since some of us had to catch last trains home, and others weren’t able to walk anymore, we decided to go find ourselves another place to continue the festivities. We found a small izakaya/bar kind of place, where we quickly continued our binge drinking. After about half an hour we were joined by Michel and his colleagues.

We were drinking so merrily, that after a while the waiter had to inform us that unfortunately they were out of draft beer. No worries, we just switched to Sapporo beer bottles! Until after a while they also ran out of those… So I can finally proudly proclaim we managed to finish all the beer in a bar!

As the bar was out of beer, it was time to go clubbing. We decided to go to Pure, because Mimmi had informed us that they had nomihoudai clubbing there. I must be honest, I don’t remember much of the club, other than the club itself isn’t very special. But being with a fun group, and having all you can drink helped a lot. I found a lot of pictures of which I had no recollection whatsoever taking them though…

Thanks everybody, for a wonderful time at school and of course an excellent party!

Of course I had to go and party before I left, so on Friday me and Michel went clubbing in Shibuya. The evening was a bit weird, but enjoyable and we ended up at good old Atom again. We stayed until first (or was it second… third?) train, so I decided I wouldn’t go to sleep, but wait until it was time to catch my train, and sleep on my way to Morioka (a good 4 hours ride). However, getting this well needed rest proved to be a bit of a problem.

I was seated next to a nice elderly Japanese lady, who immediately started chattering away. As she was very nice, and it was of course a good chance to practice my Japanese, I had no choice but to stay awake and chat with her. We talked about Holland and Japan and I found out she was on her way to the wedding of her cousin. The wedding was at Sendai, so I knew then I couldn’t sleep for at least 3 hours .

After a while we kind of ran out of conversation material, so I started to doze off a little. Luckily (?), this was quickly remedied by the lady swapping places with her husband, who of course also liked to talk with this nice little gaijin. So there I sat again, chattering away with the husband. And you know what, although I was tired like crazy, it was very enjoyable and I had a great start of my journey.

When I arrived at Morioka around half past 1, I decided to look for a hotel first and catch up on some sleep. I found the towns plan in front of the station, and was trying to figure out which hotel to go to. Immediately a woman came up to me to help me find what I needed. I thanked her, but explained her that I was ok, since I had just found the place I wanted to go, with a name I just couldn’t refuse: R&B Hotel. I went into the hotel to book my room, only to find out I could only check in from four in the afternoon. So there I was, packed with my huge backpack, not able to get a room. I walked around town a bit, trying to figure out how to handle this and decided upon just hanging out on the square in front of the station.

Which was a bit… boring, but I was so tired by then, I didn’t care. Around 3 o’ clock I realized it would’ve been better if I had put my bag in a locker, and just went to sleep in a coffee house or something, but by then it was of course too late, so I just stayed and waited at the square until the precious hour had arrived. At 4 ‘o clock sharp I checked in and found… The best bed ever!

It was only then that I realized I really, really miss a normal bed. So glad my next room will have exactly that. I slept until about eight and then went out to get me something to eat, and find a bar mentioned in the Lonely Planet. It was called fukakusa and it looked like it was pretty close to the hotel, so I decided to walk there. About 20 minutes later I kind wished I hadn’t, although I got a nice view of the city walking to basically the other side of it.

After a while I found the television tower, where the bar should be near, but couldn’t really see anything that resembled a bar from a distance. I went to the location on the map anyway, only to find a very, very, very tiny bar. The sign confirmed that it was the place I was looking for, but it felt like walking into someone’s living room. However, inside I found one of the coziest atmospheres one could encounter. Only a couple of people there, but everybody was very nice and we spoke a lot about a lot of things, in Japanese!

The bar closed a bit before midnight and, since I was still very tired, I decided to go back to my hotel. Walking back again, I passed a small place, playing very loud house music. As I passed the place, a dude dancing inside beckoned me to come in and join the party. At first I walked on, and then I thought… What the heck, I’m leaving tomorrow anyway. So in I went, to find a nice little house party going on in the small bar.

There weren’t even 20 people inside I think, but again the atmosphere was very nice. I got received with a huge cheer and immediately felt very welcome. I ordered a drink, sat down and started enjoying the nice party going on here. After about half an hour the music suddenly stopped, and one of the girls present was called up front. Apparently it was her birthday, everybody congratulated her and she got a nice birthday cake.

After that fun break, the music started pumping again. I spoke with some of the guys inside and with the owner of the bar. A very nice young Japanese woman, who walked around the place all the time partying along with everybody. After a while the guy who beckoned me in started spinning the records and treated us with some very nice minimal techno music! It was a blast.

Around 2 at night I staggered out of the place, promising everybody I would return here, as soon as I could. I went back to my hotel and fell asleep very satisfied. The first day of my journey was a blast! Where in Tokyo people are a little bit fed up with foreigners (or so it seems sometimes), in Morioka everybody’s really excited when they meet you and wants to hear all about you. It was a really nice change of pace… Morioka, I want to visit you again!

Karaoke rocks!!!

This is what karaoke was meant for, go Robin!

Today I’m off to Hokkaido and will finally take some time off everything. I’m leaving my laptop behind in Tokyo, so I won’t work, I am going alone, so I won’t be obliged to do anything for anybody, and I have got some study books with me, to finally catch up with my Japanese language course!

I am gonna check out the quieter side of Japan; Onsen (hotsprings), National parks and temples, that’s what it’s gonna be (probably).

mata ne!

After this nice little distraction, we met up with Chie, and went to the Izakaya where her friend was waiting. We had drinks and food at the Izakaya , after which we of course went for karaoke. We were all quite drunk, so it was awesome and I finally got to sing “If I can dream” by Elvis!

The next day it was time for Igrushka’s final concert. With Artem going home, this unfortunately means the end of this nice little band. They will search for a new drummer, but will probably continue with a different name when they find one. The show was excellent, their best show so far, very sad though, that it was their last. Luckily this didn’t destroy our mood, since soon after their show ended, we were treated with the appearance of the next band.

About this next band, what do you think about the singer?

A: She’s a hot chick
B: She’s a lolita goth chick
C: She’s a visual kei dude

Let’s just say, it ain’t A, which I became painfully aware of, when (s)he started to sing… Visual kei is basically trash metal, where the band members dress up as extravagantly as possible. Everything is good, as long as it looks impressive. Another example of visual kei, a bit closer to home is the singer of Tokyo Hotel. Anyway, although their music was not good at all, the show they gave was very funny and entertaining, and gave us plenty of opportunity to throw around Yuji, Artem and myself!

After the visual kei show, we were treated to the sweet jamming tunes of gypsyconnection. These guys really know how to create smooth music. I ended up sitting in the middle of the dance floor, chilling to their groovy tunes. They even had a sing along tune, with the magical chorus: “kiko kiko, rin rin,” which comes down to, I’m cycling around, ringing my bell to pretty girls (go Japanese language).

After the shows, we went with Igrushka to an Izakaya to drink and eat all night long. It was very cool. We drank and ate a lot, like is usual in Japan. After a while Naofumi and Miki fell asleep, but Yuji and Nao held strong. Until we started playing drinking games (“One woman… got fucked… up the ass… whoohoo. Two women… two women… got fucked… got fucked… ah well you get it… whoohoo!), that quickly got Nao wasted as well, Yuji held strong though. Nao, Miki and Naofumi went to wait for first train in a manga cafe, while Artem, Kelly, Yuji and me stayed at the Izakaya.

Hold up, did I just say Kelly? Oh yes I did, Kelly used to be a colleague (or was it superior?) of Artem at the Gabba language institute. She an Australian girl who came to Japan to work as a study counselor thingy for Japanese people applying to learn English. We had a lot of fun, and she even renamed everyone of us (Hi, my name is Ben).

The next week was filled with school and aikijujutsu. Of course it was heavy eating and drinking with sensei afterwards, so the week was quite wrecking, but lots of fun! That Friday we had a special event at school. They had organized a speech contest. The higher classes had to write a small essay as part of their course, and the best writers/speakers of each class got to compete in this contest. Every contestant was introduced by his or her classmates in the most creative of ways. It was very funny to see, although we couldn’t understand a lot of it yet.

On Saturday I wanted to go to a drum n bass party in Womb, one of the hottest clubs in Shibuya. So I contacted the usual suspects and we met for drinks in Shibuya. We went to the cheap bar, where they serve pints for just 300 Yen (~2 Euro), and started with the binge drinking to get in the mood. Unfortunately people started bailing out at that point, Artem didn’t have any money, Joy went home early, and so on and so on. So I ended up with just Swaroop and some weird Korean dude.

While we were drinking, Swaroop suddenly got his glass filled by a dude who gave him some strong Japanese liquor. He kept on filling everybody’s glasses with it, but fortunately I had just ordered myself a beer, so I got spared. After a while, it turned out the guy had stolen the bottle he was using to fill our glasses. Of course the bar personnel found out and got really really mad (duh), at which point he just bolted and left the place.

Because of that incident though, we started talking to a group of girls standing near us. I started talking with a Brazilian girl, Marcia, and Swaroop managed to establish contact with a French girl, whose name I do not know. They were there with a Japanese girl, a Japanese guy and a French guy. All of them were very fun, and since it was quite late already, we decided to skip Womb and join them for another party.

The other party became Gaspanic. Gaspanic is comparable to Amsterdamned and such places in Amsterdam, although the music is mostly hip hop. It is a chain with Gaspanic places everywhere around Tokyo, and usually the drunk American marines hang out there, molesting Japanese girls. This time though, it was very fun, and there were now obnoxious Americans to be found.

Of course we drank a lot, and I ended up dancing quite a bit with Marcia. Damn those Brazilians can move! I am fairly confident about my dancing skills (taking into account I’m a white guy ), but damn, at several points I simply had no clue what to do with this twirling and grinding chick in front of me. Quite the experience!

We exchanged phone numbers and went for a lunch date last Saturday, but that’s a story for another day…