A night out

I ended up staying in a youth hostel type place on the east side of town, near the mountains. Looking on a map I couldn't help but notice that it was close to the main clubbing area of the city, and since I now had a private room (It's sad that I get excited about that), I figured I would give it a try just to see what happens. By the end of the first hour, the flaws in this plan started to reveal themselves. Here's just a few of my big mistakes:

Assuming rain will only add to the ambience
Rain is wet! WET WET WET! And when you walk in the rain, YOU GET WET. What seems close on a map turns out to be a 30 minute walk. The walk was not scenic, but it was wet. My feet are wet, my pants are wet, my hair is wet, and the novelty of rain begins to wear off along with the skin on my feet as I grow blisters. The rain didnt do much for the hundreds of year old streets by the river, as it was now packed with little plastic umbrellas

Judging something by its face
By now very, very wet, I went looking for a place to eat. I found a place called "Ganko", with about 1000 students milling out the front. I figured they were all waiting to get in, so it must be either very cheap or very good. Furthermore, Ganko's logo was a man wearing a bandana pulling an angry face, so I figured it would be the usual bargain basement chain store. Going inside, Ganko is a very classy restaurant far removed from its logo, with kimono-clad waitresses pointing me to the umbrella storage room, the shoe storage room, and finally seating me at a bar with a much better ambience than the plastic street. The meal is lovely, the bill is far less lovely.

"Oh, why not"This is the stupidest question in the world. Is something worth doing simply because there is no good reason NOT to do it? Why not touch your foot right now? There's no good reason not to. If everyone thought "why not?", we'd have people spending their whole time touching lampposts and making bird noises.

I deserve it!
No you don't. No you don't. No you don't.

After this mistakey part of the night, my luck got better. I saw a group of people hanging out like trolls under a bridge, listening to free live music, which seemed quite cool. I met some American college students from New Jersey (I've now met people from Carolina, New Jersey and Pensylvania...why is no one from the states that I know something about?!), and we spent the next 45 minutes vainly attempting to gain entry into incredibly small bars. One of the guys swears we're being discriminated against, and calls the door guards Jews for some reason. So we give the tiny bars a miss, and I am introduced to the pleasures of a $3 bottle of whisky instead (there are very few pleasures, trust me). We then go down to a massive club at about 10pm, and we have the whole dance floor to ourselves...fantastic...

Eventually people do come, thankfully. Lots of them.
Soon the drunkest of the American guys jumps out and starts dancing energetically in a way that can only make me laugh. I shake my head. The next song is one I know, however...I end up giving the other guy a run for his money both in energy and unco-ordination. The DJ is GREAT (I end up jumping onto the stage to tell him this, just so he knows for future reference). I've never heard a really good DJ, it really did make all the difference.

Generally, it takes a while for people to realize just how cool I really am, but here, they recognize it instantly. Guys shake your hand, hit you on the back and all those other Macho things. Girls giggle when you look at them. But the best part of it all is...THEY ASSUME I CAN DANCE! HAHAHAHAHAHA. Back home, when I start doing some strange 360 degree robotic pimp dancing, people assumed I had a motor neuron disorder. In Japan, they assume its some exotic dance style they haven't got over here yet. I even try to turn slipping over on the wet floor into a breakdancing move, but I don't think that fooled anyone. Even more hilarious though, was when people started doing the same moves, and you got a glimpse of how you looked. I succesfully introduced them to the Dance Clock, Emma Kerr's Hand Dance and many, many others. They loved it, I loved it, everyone had a good night.

And then it was time to go home...

Unfortunately, we had walked further AWAY from my place as we wandered the streets, so a 30 minute walk was now a 45 minute walk. It was still raining, and still wet. As I got closer and closer, an unexpected guest arrived. It was daylight. It was only 4am, and dawn was very much unexpected at this hour, so I spent a long time in denial. But the sun had the final say in this matter, and it was certainly rising. I make my way home in almost full cloudy daylight, then crash on the bed.

I wake up 4 hours later (9am), and go to extend my stay at the hotel (with every intention of coming back immediately to sleep). Then I decide I might as well get a drink of something from a vending machine. Then I decide I want breakfast. Then I see a samurai exhibit at a museum. Then I end up in a ridiculously over-priced internet cafe.
So its finally come down to this... I am favouring my blog over sleep. Are you happy now?