A Good Last Weekend
I am sitting in a coffee shop off Omotesando-dori with two friends, Sara and Stacey. They are studying up for an exam on Wednesday. I didn’t get the memo for 日本語の勉強 and instead thought it was just a picnic at Yoyogi-koen, thuis I don’t have any of my books with me. So while they study I shall write. Having this iPod really is a lot like having a mini laptop with me at all times! I had a pretty late couple of nights this weekend, what with it being the last weekend in japan for many of the US students. On friday I met up with Manny and some friends at a restaurant in Shinjuku near our school. It was more or less his entire class and we cooked some food over some coals, had some beer and sake and a lot of funny broken Japanese conversations with the Korean classmates. A few of my sensei’s were with the group and I had a lot of fun watching one of them, a small Japanese woman, pound the rest of her beer. After that we took a train over to Shibuya and went to Club Atom.
Japanese clubs, indeed going out in Tokyo in general, is a pretty interesting adventure. One of the main distinctions is that you really need to make it an all nighter. Bars aside, many of the clubs don’t open their doors till around 11 and don’t close until 6 in the morning! The trains on the other hand stop running a little before midnight, so if you are going out you REALLY need to be going out!
Club Atom was a lot of fun. We did some drinking, danced for about 5 straight hours, and met some fun new people. Clubs here tend to be pretty massive. Once you get screened at the door at Atom you take an elevator that only stops at the 5th floor. From here you can hit the main bar and dance floor or go up or down some stairs to different floors with different themes and music styles. The dj’s were really good and the music was a lot of fun. They mixed in some hip hop, some Okenfold, and even some of the Evangelion theme song.
I think we finally left the club a little before 6. Coming outside after the sun had already risen with my ears ringing and my eyes trying to adjust was pretty surreal. Oddly enough it reminded me of weekends in high school with Josh after hitting a rave.
I began the slow shuffle to the train station with the rest if the crowd. It’s interesting because when you factor in when the trains stop running and the fact that Tokyo is one of the safest cities on the planet, you’ll see a lot if people, some in designer dresses and suits, just sleeping on curbs or against closed shop doors. I saw this one woman in a gorgeous dress picking herself up from the corner of this building, give a quick stretch and a look around, and with barely a thought made her way to the station. Surreal. When I myself arrived at Shibuya station I saw that my train didn’t start running from there till almost 7:30, so in true Japanese fashion I found myself a corner of the station and curled up for a nap. Almost an hour later I woke up and talked to a station worker who told me I could take the Yamanote line to Shinjuku and catch an earlier train home from there. すごいね。
After a power nap at home and a shower I took the train back into Tokyo and had dinner with some friends near Harajuku. Today has been pretty easy going. I met up with people for a picnic in Yoyogi park and then wandered around for a bit. On Sundays the park is taken over by musicians and dancers and people selling food. It’s like a festival. Every weekend. I took some great pictures of the Tokyo Rockabilly club that I will have to upload later.
This week I have an exam tomorrow and then a couple hour final on Wednesday. Luckily I took my oral final last week. Then on Friday I leave for Seattle… Part of me is happy to return home. Seattle is one my favorite places, I miss my friends, and I have some stuff to finish up at the university. But I truly love it here and I wish I could stay and keep working on my japanese. So the plan is to return as soon as I can. I’ve been mulling over a Fulbright application and I’ve talked to some people here to see if they could assist with my project. So… Hopefully I won’t be gone too long.
じゃあ また、 金曜日に。
See you Friday!
Leave a Reply