I went to a snack bar (I was drunk when I posted this)

Oh man. I am pra drunk right now. This is going to be some bad story telling but I will forget what happened if I dont say it. Well, now that I think about it I guess not that much happened but it was still pretty different. So yea, I came home from a long week of paper writing. I sat down and watched a bunch of episodes of scrubs. Then my roommate im’s me and says, “Hey do you want to go to a party in shibuya?”. I am pra tired at this point but I say sure why not. We decide to go eat before hand and we ended up staying at some italian restaurant for a long time. We decide its not worth going to that party so we go to some bar that my roommates went to and said was awesome. WASNT IMPRESS! But the owner did give us some free beer so that was sweet. It would have been better if the people that were there when my roommates went were there but they werent. After that we went to a snack bar. Snack bars are bars that have womens working there that talk to you. Thats their job. You go there and talk to chicks that pretend to be interested in you. Let me PHIL you in a little bit. In my town, all the chicks that work at these bars are from the phillipeans. They are pretty much just glorified whores. In fact, I am pretty sure they were working the corner in shifts while we were in the bar. Anywho, these girls are like crappier versions of hostesses. They are supposed to entertain you. My roommate and I had some of the hotter girls working at the bar. Now, the Phillipeans were a colony of America for a very long time, so these phils all know English. Good for me, because I am at a drunken point where I dont even want to bother with Japanese. Even so, we go back and forth with Japanese. Now, I said that we had the hotter of the group of phils that worked there but I definitely did not have the more talkative of the group. I had to make this girl talk to me the entire time I was there. I really had to dig. Honestly, when I was in the bathroom I was thinking of things to say to her. Thats how dry she was. My roommate on the other hand, was having a great time. He was dancing with chicks and he had a talkative girl that gave him a (probablyfake) phone email. Honestly bullshit, I got screwed. My roommates girl knew how to fool with a guy. She kept saying how handsome I was. My girl didnt say anything worthwhile. Actually, when we walked in all the phils yelled and totally laughed. I am almost POSITIVE they were making fun of us. I called them out on it but they said no. I say its bullshit. It was a great experience to have but I do not plan on ever doing it again. At least not with mean phils. I will stick to reserved Japanese girls that keep their criticisms to themselves and pretend to like you better.

Also on the way back, I brought a little carbondale to japan. So there is this apartment complex that is empty and my roommates and I all think that they shoot porn there. Expensive porn. They come there with lighting and cameras on a regular basis. One of my roommates swears he saw some woman in a robe outside the building once. So anyways, we went on the second floor where they always shoot and pissed on a couple of the handles. I had to really go so I made a huge mess. Childish and disgusting? Yes. Hilarious? You better believe it. THAT ONE WAS FOR YOU SCOTT!

A night of lies and guys in drag

Yea so last Saturday was one of my greatest adventures so far in Japan. I hung out with my friend Paulo, who I met on my last Japan trip. This guy has a history of being a great partier so I had extremely high hopes. They were met.

The night started off slow. We met at Gotanda, dressed up in suits and looking snazzy. We spent maybe an hour there looking for a shoe store with big shoes. They aren’t that big by american standards but they are by Japanese standards. They had pictures of sumo wrestlers and possible Japanese basketball players, shopping at their store. It was pretty sweet and I will most likely go back when the need for shoes arises. After getting shoes we took a decently long train ride to this place that I dont remember. Our fun starts here. We went to this international mixer party at this town hall. The deal was that if you were from a country other than Japan or America, you got in for free. He had signed us up a few weeks before for this and of course, forgot what country he had said that I was from. When we get there, they have a list of all the people that had reservations. They ask Paulo where he is from and while they do that I checked the list. Angeria…. Angeria? Where the heck is that? It must be Algeria. He had freaking told them that I was from Algeria. I know absolutely nothing about Algeria. I don’t even know where it is located on the map (found that out later). So we go into the party and have trouble holding in our laughter. This party is full of duds and old people. We are clearly overdressed and blow all these guys out of the water. They have a bunch of tables set up with drinks and food and we make it apparent what we came for. I ate nearly a whole plate of these fried chicken things and we started downing all their beer and wine. It was pretty hilarious because we weren’t talking to anyone. We were just stuffing ourselves. This guy from the staff eventually comes over to me and starts talking. I see out of the corner of my eye that Paulo is listening to my conversation which only makes it harder to lie. I have to tell this guy (and everyone he introduces me to) that I am from Algeria. Actually we probably didn’t have to but it made it more fun. My go to lie was that I was born in Algeria but lived most of my life in Chicago. As the night went on, my lies got deeper and more fun to say. One guy was like, “Wow, Id really like to go to Algeria,” and I was like, “no you dont, it sucks”. That had Paulo cracking up. My lies were so terribly obvious but everyone fell for it. So the guy I was talking to was hellbent on getting me hooked up with girls. One of the questions he asks me right off the bat is, “Do you like Japanese girls?” I told him that they are nice. He then drags me over to these OL’s (office ladies) and makes me talk to them. One was really old and the other one was sorta old but not that bad looking. These chicks thought I was a genius. Every time I spoke in Japanese they were so impressed. This is pretty common with Japanese people but I usually don’t get the genius compliment. They also said, “Has anyone ever told you look like Orlando Bloom?”. Yea so that isn’t a fluke anymore. It even spans different generations of Japanese women. They seem to all think I look like him. Damn asians thinking all white people look the same. Yea so the best part about lieing to these chicks was that this guy came over who was from Ireland but lived most of his life in America. This guy had to know everything I was saying was a lie because he totally came into the conversation when I was talking about getting American citizenship and crap and how I had to give up my Algerian citizenship. He didn’t say anything though because he was a big twerp and he was probably just fuming that none of the ladies wanted anything to do with him.　　OWNED! So before we left there we pounded a bunch of glasses of wine and beer. By this point I have a decent buzz going because they really didn’t have enough food there. As we leave, Paulo tries to tries to talk to the only two girls that are young at the party but they were totally more interested in talking to creepy old men than us. We got rocked. On a side note, I found out that these mixer parties are really popular in Japan (actually I JUST remembered that they have them at schools too and are called コンパ　or konpa) and they have ones that are much bigger with younger people at them. Yea Im going to one.

After that party we ended up going to Roppongi. I know I said that I hate Roppongi but this time was pretty fun. We walk down the street for a while dodging African guys when all of a sudden this white guy comes up and is like, “PAULO! How’s it going! Long time no see. Want to come in for a drink?” I was super confused. We ended up going into the bar. It was totally empty. In fact, all the bars we went to were empty because it was only around 10 oclock and things dont start getting crowded till after 12. Paulo picks out a drink for me since I asked him to (he paid for my whole night). It tasted pretty good but it was weak. I say outloud, “Yea this is kinda fruity…”. The bartender is like, “Oh, so you want it stronger eh?” He reaches behind himself and pulls out a bottle of bacardi 151 and proceeds to pour it into my drink for maybe 5 or 6 seconds. “Strong enough for you?” I reply, “Umm, yes?” He could have lit it on fire but it was still very tolerable. We didn’t stay very long but he tried to teach us these cup tricks involving balancing a cup on your hand while you twist your arm around. It was hard and I always dropped the cup. After that bar, we walk a little farther down the street when we run into some irish guy that ALSO knows Paulo. He is totally trying to be friendly with Paulo but also trying to make a sale. It was kind of funny. He’s like, “Let me get my business card from upstairs just so we can get together sometime”. We went upstairs and lo and behold, its a strip club. I have never been to a strip club in my life and now I have just had one totally thrown onto me. It was quite a surprise. This girl took money out of this guys teeth with her boobs while he was laying on the ground. It was pretty funny. So hey, now I’ve been to a strip club. We stayed there for like 4 minutes before we left. I am pretty sure the guy took the business card out of his pocket but was sad to see that we weren’t interested. Well, Im sure Paulo would have liked to stay if we had more time but when you live in Japan, the train owns you and we had to make the last one back to his town. We left that place and walked a little more down the street to get to the actual destination we intended to go to in the first place. A little background. Paulo is a deviant. The last day of the Japan trip he went to Roppongi and went to Gas Panic to get girls. He was going home with two girls at once when this one girl’s friend came up to him and told him that she had been watching him all night but was too shy to talk to him. He ended up talking to the girl and spent the whole night talking to her and going to breakfast and museums and crap. This was the girl we were meeting that night. I was interested in seeing the girl that made Paulo not be dirty. She was totally not good looking and I was surprised. He is a big softy randomly sometimes its weird. She totally talked to us for like 30 seconds then had to go back to work at the club we were at. We went out there for nothing but I got a lot of nice stories from it.

We had a long train ride to the town he was staying at. By this time I am pretty dang buzzed but the drinking has just started. We went to a hostess bar. I was really excited to go to one because I had heard so much about them. A hostess bar is where you can go to have hot ladies pour you drinks and pretend to like you. Its a huge fantasy. They are like glorified prostitutes really but you don’t have to go to a hostess bar for banging if you don’t want to. Thats not their primary job at all and that stuff usually happens on the side. I had a good feeling about this bar because Paulo teaches the owner and some of the girls there english so all the drinks were going to be free (I wasn’t paying that night anyways but still it was cool). So we walk into this place and what is the first thing I see? A guy in drag. I was shocked and incredibly disappointed. Hostess bars are supposed to have HOT girls not guys in freaking drag. In fact, this was the main person that we had at our table the whole night. He wasn’t a hot hostess but he was definitely really interesting and gave me a story for life thats for sure. He kept trying to do aikido crap on me. He was doing all these finger breaks and tried doing this elbow bendy thing. After a while I just got tired of it (he tried doing it the whole time I was there) and I would just over power him. Or Id make a fist and he was too weak to unclench my fist. I punched him a few times too actually in the thigh because I was getting pissed off but he said he was just joking. I could have killed him. While all this crap is happening, I was getting fed drinks. I didn’t even ask for them. In the end I ended up having to ask for water and refuse the drinks because I was pretty damn soused. We actually had a girl come to our table. She was apparenlty from America and was a single mom. She spoke Japanese fluently because she said she had lived here for 6 years. Funny thing is that her english had a weird accent. I was too drunk to figure it out but most likely this was all an act. I don’t know why she was playing this sob story game because she wasn’t getting any money from us so thats the only thing that makes me question her. She told us that she was dating some marine guy and that they were gonna get married. I told her she was getting lied to and it wasn’t gonna happen. Most marine guys stationed in Japan are scum. Id have more to speak about this place but I was too drunk to remember any of the conversations we had besides the sob-story. We got a ride with the “single mom” to another part of town.

We went to a new bar that was pretty empty. It would have been boring except for the fact that as long as there are a few girls at a bar, you can have fun. I ended up talking to this group of japanese people about something. I don’t remember what it was but I do know that it was a Japanese conversation and thats all that matters. I then talked to probably the hottest chick I have so far met in one of these bar encounters. When I am drunk I dont lose my judgement in hotness and this chick was pretty damn hot. She spoke a ton of english too. We talked for quite a bit. It was such a game. We kept talking about how we needed to see each other again and who needed to go out of their way to meet up with the other. When I woke up the next day and assessed the conversation we had, I realized how much she was just playing with me but it didn’t really matter. When I get drunk, I don’t want girls. I just want to talk to them and be stupid. We did stupid crap like rest our heads together as we looked through our cell phones and crap and i was like semi hugging her with my other hand. This is pretty much the only female contact I have gotten in a year so it was pretty fun.

All and all a great night. I ate mcdonalds twice. Here they have this sandwich called the McPork. It sounded so gross so I have been reluctant to eat it but I finally worked up the courage. Yea it was awesome. I suggest if you guys come to visit me, you definitely need to try a McPork sandwich.

A Night In Roppongi

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Tonight, I finally went to roppongi. It was pretty much everything I expected. Because it is 8 oclock in the morning I am going to keep this post concise. We went to roppongi at about 830. It was everything I expected. I got harrsed by nigerian guys to go i their clubs and there were hot chicks everywhere. The first bar we went into was pretty lackluster. It was an irish pub called the hub (huck yuck that rhymes), We ended up sitting with this group of super drunk japanese guys and talking to them about random stuff. Then called over two girls to which i was totally uninterested in. They were cool I guess but kinda boring and not terribly good looking (SHALLOW SO?!) . We talked to them for at least an hour and decided it was time to move on. We went to a new recommended place called homestead beer. All the guys at this place were either jacked up or rich. We stood no chance. Im pretty sure this was a cougar bar for cougars that wanted rich, young, salary men. I went up to this group of girls and they totally laughed at me. I asked them how their night was going in japanaese. I realized that this was totally a pick up line type deal . Anywhere else it would be undestood that I am just practicing my japanese, but at this place its just a pick up line. I got laughed at and really didnt care because on closer inspection, the girls werent good looking (i dont wear glasses during tomcatting). We came to the conclusion that we needed to go to the sluttiest of all roppongi bars to feel satisfied. The sluttiest being gas panic. Gas Panic is a chain of clubs in Japan that is the meeting ground for the sluts of Japan. The second we walked in, all the stories were confired. The girls dancing on the bar, all the dirty gaijin, and the assholes making sure we paid for drinks. It was totally a dance club. Within maybe, 10 minutes, my nerdy friend Kelsey had a girl. Then Derrick had a girl. As easy as it was to get a girl, I had this overwhelming power come over me. I couldnt bring myself to dance/talk to these girls. They were right there and I am a lonely bastard but I couldnt do it. The second I saw these girls I just thought of abbie and how she cheated on me. I thought of how the situation I was in was exactly the same as the ones she was in when she cheated on me or acting like a slut and I yelled at her ( I know this because she cheated on me on her birthday when I took her out and it was a similar atmosphere). I couldn’t do it. I wanted to so bad. The yearning was so much that I wanted to scream but the girls just reminded me of how disgusted I was with abbie when she screwed me over and I couldn’t do it. The girls were tainted in my eyes and I couldn’t have them. I pretty much just drank/walked around by myself the rest of the night. Im not even sure how I got home. I remember getting on the line home and laughing to myself because I had no idea how I got on it. Actually, I had no idea how I got in the line preceding the line home. As I type this I am pretty hammered but coherent enough to type this post to you guys. Oh, the two most eye opening occurances of the night were the following; my friends high fived the fucks that I hate from my dorm that we constantly make fun of which just made me feel as if we were on the same level even thoug I didnt high five them. Also the girl (from the dorm) that looks like abbie was skank dancing with some guy and it kinda made me want to die. End of transmission.

I forgot to say that crazy nigerian guys tried to hassle us into going to their bars. Every bar thats big enough in roppongi, has a nigerian guy to rope people into going into their bars. Its really insane. I believed people when they told me that these people existed but I needed to experience it to totally accept it. Yea, they totally try and force you into the bars. They like, grab your arm and tell you you can get tits and whatnot and its really funny. There is also massage parlor girls that ask you if you want massages and that is also really funny because any guy with half a brain can get a “massage” for free at any bar in roppongi. Its still great how direct they are.

In addition:  Now that I am sober I can elaborate more on the night.  Well just a few points anyways.  When I was told that getting girls in roppongi was like shooting fish in a barrel, I believed it but I still didn’t understand the degree of easiness.  When I say my friend kesley got a girl in  10 minutes, it was more like 5 minutes.  We were all standing in a close circle in sort of a gay fashion when out of nowhere this girl comes up and just pulls Kelsey away.  Derrick and I were totally speechless.  It was almost surreal.  He did absolutely nothing to stand out in any way at all and he was gone.  I couldn’t believe it.  Later I found out that she was apparently not good looking and kelsey had to escape from her.  He ended up going to another gas panic and danced a supposed real hot chick.  Derrick was with these two girls that spoke fluent english and he really likes the one.   They exchanged phone numbers and she actually texted him.  In Japan, it used to be that you give eachother business cards when you meet but now people exchange phone profiles for texting.  When I first experienced this I thought it ment that the girls like you.  Nope.  Usually its just a common curdousy and they might have no intentions of ever talking to you again.  This girl must have liked derrick though.  Where was I while all of this was happening you ask?  Getting stone drunk at the bar by myself and feeling miserable.  There were girls just dancing on the bar directly in front of me.  They really sucked at dancing.  Japanese people can’t dance.  Its not even intimidating to go to these clubs because everyone sucks so bad at dancing.  I had their legs in my face and I couldn’t care less.  I just kept drinking.  I’ve only been depressed drunk twice in my life and they both happened in japan.  Oh and also, Mike pointed out to me today that when I asked those girls “hows your night?”, what I actually said was “how is tonight?” implying that I wanted to have sex with them.  Yea that might explain why they laughed and one girl just immediately walked away.  I got so owned.  LOST IN TRANSLATION.  I should have just said whats up in english because I knew they spoke english.   Man that is the most retarded thing I have ever said in my life.  I never talk to chicks to pick them up so directly and the first time I do it, the first thing I say is “Want to have sex?”  Im going to be telling that story for the rest of my life.

I love japan

This is hilarious   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFVoLz88hiU

Possible research for my trip to Japan?

Dude, if you guys have time, you need to watch this movie:

I dont know what it is about this stuff but i find it so interesting. Even though i am morally apposed to this line of work I for some reason have this attraction to it. Not for the money or the girls but like the strangeness of it. I just sat here for the length of the movie with my mouth gaped open. Its such a strange world. Its just so weird how the whole idea behind the host bar works. Selling dreams and whatnot. Its so weird how the people that go there know its fake but they are addicted to it. It boggles my mind even more that half the clientèle are prostitutes. They should know more than anyone how fake the whole thing is. I dont think id be suave enough to do that kind of job but then i watch this video and hear what the guys say to get girls and its like, they just say the most jackass things to them and the girls fall for it. Well some do anyways. And also i could see a huge benefit to the fact that it is all fake. You have nothing to lose at all in rejection. Its just a huge game that you are getting paid to do. I think to really be a good pick up artist in bars and whatnot you have to be a good liar. That was one big problem i always had with the idea of picking up girls is that i cant be so entirely fake like these guys are. But the idea that they make money off of it, it just makes it feel even more like a game. Its like playing a video game but real life. In video games theres absolutely no consequence for losing and what these guys do is the same. Granted, if all I was trying to do was pick up chicks in bars I guess there would be no consequence either but I don’t know, I guess my pride would be hurt. In these guys situation though it just feels different. Speaking about picking up the girls on the street, eventually they will reel someone in so what does it matter how much you get rejected. You are also getting paid while you do it so i don’t know. Its just obscene. This whole line of work is just a thesis waiting to be written. To delve into this kind of world though would be putting life on hold more in terms of having someone you want to be with though. Im not sure how you would explain to a girl that you want to be a host just for the research aspect of it. Maybe if you just buy her stuff constantly… Jealous defeats all in the end though I would guess. Im not sure how I would write a thesis on this because I’m not sure what a thesis entails but It would definitely make an excellent book. This is a whole area of Japan that no one in America really knows about. Heck, I bet people in Japan know little about it unless they are involved in it themselves. If memoirs of a geisha sold so well, Im sure my story could. If I have someone proofread the shit out of it so I dont so sound retarded that is.

This is another one of those reasons why I wish I had known about my love for all things Japanese earlier in life. I don’t think I would have as much of a problem seeing if I could go into this line of work (if I have what it takes) if I didn’t think it would totally put my life on hiatus more. I mean, if I want to teach in Japan (and I really do), thats all I can do. Not only that but the time it would take for me to get a grasp on the language enough to even have a chance at getting a job like that would be a serious amount. I guess if I really kept an interest in it I could do it after being a teacher but I dont know. I have other goals in life that are probably more important then just researching a bunch of weirdos. Well, I guess I see how time treats me.