I am currently writing this blog with a sweat-soaked shirt, going over 200 mph on the Shinkasi (bullet train) heading towards Nagoya for a sumo wrestling tournament. Zac and I have slept maybe a good 20 minutes in the last 48 hours, so it will be get some sleep, but for now... BLOG TIME.
After a great time in Jozankei and Sapporo last week, Zac and I traveled nine hours to get back to Tokyo, in which we were planning on going out with a newest friend, Riki, to play "survival games", a bit outside of Tokyo.
Our accommodation was... the pits. I booked a place in the Ikebukuro district in a place that was listed to only sleep four people. There were nine, so we decided to spend as much time away from there as possible. We ventured out our first day back in Tokyo drinking with a Colombian man who went by the name Dre.
"Hotel The Worst State" caught my eye.
Dre took us to a place in the nearby subway station for some sushi. It was standing room only and a 20 minute wait, but so worth it. The sushi was extremely good and cheap.
After filling up on sushi, we decided the only logical thing was to drink, so we could forget about where we had to sleep that night. The three of us headed down toward Shibuya, where Zac and I had out first inebriated night a couple weeks ago.
Everywhere in Tokyo is built up -- four floors of Micky D's?!
Dre took Zac and I took the 180 yen beer place. Finding cheap beer in Tokyo can be hard sometimes... I once paid over 1000 yen for a beer here.
We then went to the Shibuya Starbucks to grab some coffee, but to mostly obtain access to their second floor overlooking that famous Shibya street again.
That night, Zac and I met back up with Riki in Akhibara, where we were out until 4 am, singing Don't Stop Me Now, at a maid karaoke bar with Riki, his roommate Hanzo, and two girls from Poland who were staying with Riki for the night. Riki sang A Whole New World and after he mentioned he use to be Indiana Jones at the Tokyo Disneyland. After that, we walked over to a nightclub playing deep Tokyo house music.
Riki ended up spilling Jagermestier all over Zac's new white shirt as well as the Polish girls; it was a fun night. The group of us ended up crashing on Riki's couch for 20 minutes before we had to leave at 5 am in order to ride the metro across town to change clothes and came back in order to leave at 7 am. We were headed for Chiba with Riki, and his friend Akira, to shoot air soft guns at each other all day. I wish I had photos of that night, but I am not letting drunk Tomas handle my camera. I tend to forget things sometimes...
Zac and I had to use AK-47 rental guns... they kind of sucked, but gangster as shit.
Riki, Akira, Zac, and I got a rental car and drove to Chiba to a little place called Battle City.
Battle City was absolutely fucking incredible. There were over 60 people, who all took the game very seriously, but still knew it was just a game. Everyone was dressed in full combat regalia, many of whom had American flags on their uniforms, which... amused me.
Millions of airsoft pellets litter the ground of this place.
I'm convinced the Japanese don't sweat as much as Americans or something... If I was wearing what this guy was wearing I think I would have melted through my clothes.
Akira representing the AK squad.
Riki's ready to go to war with his favorite baby metal singer t-shirt.
There was a red team and a yellow team with multiple game scenarios. The first one was capture the flag, the second was what Riki called: "Osama Bin Ladin hunt", where people volunteered to go into the field 10 minutes before everyone else, and the red and yellow team had to "eliminate" all the terrorists before time was up. With all the brush areas, it was a hard task to achieve. I sprayed pellets into the bushes, randomly hitting someone. I think the terrorists won every time, though.
One of the most important rules was once you got hit you had to yell: "HITTO" and make your way out of the battle field.
Zac getting "HITTO'd".
Luckily lunch was provided for us. The day started at 10 am and ended at 4:30 pm.
During lunch, our squad leader, who we were told went by "Captain Ham", took us out into the field for a photo shoot. Captain Ham was coming up for all the ideas for the photographs, I was just there to snap them.
Middle-left is Captain Ham. If you look closely on his CAMERA LEFT shoulder you can see a "TEAM AMERICA FUCK YEAH" patch.
Japanese military boy band?
The Japanese have an interesting sense of theatrics here. Especially Captain Ham.
The Japanese are much more sneaky in the war zone than silly American as seen in this photograph.
THIS PHOTO WAS NOT MY IDEA. There were so many photographs where the group thought it would funny to take photos of them in hostage situations. I didn't really understand it, but thought it was hilarious.
After lunch and the photo shoot, it was back to battle. I had the opportunity to get in the field as a war photographer. I was shoot in the neck, ears, arms, legs... well pretty much everywhere on accident... well I hope it was an accident... :(
Wearing the protective mask was necessary, but horrible. My face was dripping sweat after wearing this thing for five minutes.
The games were really intense and sometimes frustrating for Zac and I. We FOR SURE had the shittiest guns available. Mostly everyone else had really good equipment and sometimes gas powered weapons. Also, some groups had walkie-talkie channel, which made them a lot more effective on the battle field. At the end of the day, Zac and I did feel like assets for the team. I think I racked up around 10 kills that day.
Here's the squad. MORE HOSTAGE SHOTS.
So, the day was great and I slept like a baby in the car on the way back to Tokyo... especially running on 20 minutes of sleep. It wasn't until we got back to Riki's house that I realized my backpack wasn't there, which meant I must of left it at Battle City... FUUUUUCK! I was in such a comatose-like state that I totally forgot I brought my backpack with me. Oh yeah, my passport and train pass were in that backpack... In fact, Zac and Riki didn't remember either. Sleep is important. This was definitely (what I hope) to be the most stressful situation of the trip. We spent the beginning of our day taking the JR train all the way back to Chiba to retrieve it. Luckily it was still there. Thank you Japanese people for being extremely honorable and keeping all my belongings untouched -- you're the best!
Anyways, Zac and I are finally in Nagoya. It's STILL extremely humid and hot here. We're staying with a french guy named Alexy! The apartment is very clean and comfortable (UNLIKE SOME PLACES). Zac and I only have another 10 days here until we fly back home. I'm missing all my friends, family, and my gal-pal like crazy. Maybe let's get drinks when I'm back? Excited to see you all very soon!
