７月３０日 Day 128: Last Day, Last Night...

A fantastic night of clubbing was had by all.

Day... seized. Didn't sleep for 2 days... stayed up all night saying goodbye and reminiscing with friends... then spent tonight clubbing until 6am... got Jonathan's bread breakfast buffet again... spent the entire time making Azalea House superlatives, trying not to cry when I left them all.

It's going to be so weird without them in America...

７月２日 Day 99: Alcatraz

Sorry this is WAY late, but I've been too busy with final projects, essays, field trips and fun to be updating this blog...

I've also been ducking the rainy season like a NINJA. Thanks, new leopard boots!! ^w^

Last Friday, my friends and I went to Alcatraz, a prison style bar in Shibuya. We had been to this other bar called Lock-Up the week before, which was a bar that looked like a jail, where the prisoners/waiters scared the crap out of you while you were eating.

Alcatraz wasn't like that. It was supposed to be kinda...

*Please note that this post has an 18 and over requirement from this point on*

...kinky.

We were a big group... about 16 of us, and we ordered the all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink courses. The courses had some very memorable highlights. We had Russian Roulette takoyaki, which was a plate of about 20 takoyaki... but 5 of them had tons of wasabi in them. I hate wasabi, so of course, I picked one with wasabi in it. Blegh. Straight up my nose. (X_X)

We also had a flaming chicken, complete with intertwined chicken feet... which I totally didn't expect (Like, srsly? Are we in China? Dirty!)

Yes, here are the waitress uniforms. Exposed thongs. Note the guys in our group... haha ;)

The place had some pretty spiffy drinks, I must say.

Test tube drink.

Some really cheap beer in test tubes.

My penis banana drink... and my other friend's drink... that was mixed with (if you haven't guessed already) a vibrator.

We all got pretty hammered... and took drunken purikura.

４月１０日 Day 17: Wallflowers

Today, I went to a club in Shinjuku-nichome, Tokyo's gay district.

My friend really wanted to go check it out, so 3 of my girlfriends and I went as his beard. They had gone before me because I was eating dinner with my other friend. Trying to find this place was one HELL of an excursion. My friend said to turn left at the "Megane" sign at the Shinjuku central exit and that the club would be on the 2nd street on the right.

YEAH RIGHT!

My friend and I had to go to a different train station, walk to the farthest exit, then walk 3 circles around the place until we found OTHER gaijin gays to ask directions to the damn club (which looked like a hole-in-the-wall barber shop btw). Thank God these nice guys took us straight to the place because lord knows I saw about 4 effing "Megane" signs.

The place was basically a bar with a dance floor. We got there at about 10:15 which is WAYY early for any club: gay or straight, Japanese or American. WHO GOES OUT THAT EARLY? It's ok though because my friend wanted to go out that early, so I had to be supportive. When you go out in Japan, you have to make a decision for how long you plan to stay out in the beginning of the night. You have two choices: a.) go out early and take the last train (around midnight) home or b.) leave on the last train and come back on the first train at 5am. I chose A, but still managed to wake up at 2pm this morning.

The cover charge was only 1 ¥700 drink, so that was nice. There were lots of gay Japanese guys there, but none of them were dancing. They were all just standing against the wall watching all the gaijin gays and their fag hags dance obnoxiously to the bad music they were playing.

I've never heard such lame music being played at a club. I just kept thinking, "Uhh, they're gay-- just play a shitload of GaGa and Britney mixes with plenty of bass and unce unce unce and you've got yourselves a good time." That wasn't the case. They played a lot of 9th grade high school dance music: Nelly, Shakira, Black Eyed Peas and other crap that wasn't gay enough. They also didn't really MIX the songs, they just played them all the way through, which totally bored me. Who wants to listen to a song all the way through at a club?!

However, the party started building up at around 11 when more people arrived and the DJ saw it fitting to finally play some Lady GaGa. That was also around the time that the gay Japanese guys got drunk enough to start dancing with us, red faces and all.

A lesson I learned tonight: Gay Japanese guys are completely indistinguishable from straight Japanese guys. I know a lot of you reading this are probably thinking, "DUH, all Japanese guys dress like femmes." But there weren't just femmes there! There were REALLY butch looking guys there in their version of Japanese thug wear! It was the weirdest thing. Gay is still really taboo in Japan. It's complicated because it's simultaneously tolerated and not tolerated. Just like in America! There's a gay district, there's a gay pride parade, I just got back from a penis festival-- but being gay is by no means ok to most Japanese people. It's weird.

I would think the host club guys that hang around in Kabukicho are gayer than the guys I saw in the club. But they're not. Girls actually desire guys who look girlier than them. Like these guys!

They were prowling around the streets trying to get girls to come sit at their table. SICK!

More about that later, I'm late for dinner with my friend :)