TLDR

Yesterday was sick but really long. Originally I planned to sleep in a little bit (till about 11) so that we wouldn't be too tired to go to a concert that would last till 4 in the morning. Fail. I woke up around 7:30 and just tooled around in the morning around the area of Sakura Hostel. We had plans to meet Shota in Harajuku so around 1:00, about 45 minutes away. We had invited Taka-san to join us for the day the night before, so I woke up him up about 15 minutes before we had to leave. The 5 of us (Travis, Garrett, Frank, Taka-san, and I) got to Harajuku first so we waited for a few minutes before he got there. I was so suprised to see him I couldn't say anything in Japanese for about 5 or 10 seconds. He'd been working out so much since I saw him last I had no idea it was him at first.



We walked Takeshita-dori (across from the station where we met) and stopped at a ramen restaraunt to eat lunch. It was really good - I ate pork and beef and made it as spicy as possible. I loved it but when I almost started to cry from it being so hot. It was quite dericious. Shota tricked us and paid for the entire meal. I started to feel a little guilty because ontop of that, he paid me back the money he owed me +$20 more. After that we crossed the street and walked Meiji Jinju. It was really surreal being in such a lush area in the middle of the city. I literally forgot I was in the middle of the city at one point until I saw a single skyscraper peeking through the trees. At the end of the Meiji Jinju was a beautiful temple where we got to see a wedding going on, as well as learn a little bit about offerings and prayer. After that, Taka-san had to depart to take care of a friend in the hospital.

After that we walked to Shibuya where we ventured through Yoyogi Park, a park with few humans and many cecedas. We did get to see a pair of guys practicing their comedy routine. Shota simply said that they aren't really popular. We got pretty tired by this point from all the walking (we were still pretty tired from walking the day before) so we took a short rest on some benches at the edge of the park. After that, we emerged in Shibuya, a town with intense fashion. I say intense because it isn't exactly all impressive; sometimes it can be quite... alarming... We walked around the area with no intention of shopping but intent to people watch the shoppers there. We yet again found ourselves really tired so we took a rest in a department store, and then a Starbucks (which has incredibly expensive and incredibly small cups).

Sometime during those rests, we ran across Shinjuku crossing, the busiest intersection in the world! We did the whole standing still picture thing while everyone walked by. Then we saw a 25~ story hotel where Shota was able to charm our way into a place that has multilingual signs that say do not take pictures from here. It was really sick to be so high up, it gave us the opportunity to take in the awesomeness of the buildings there.

After that... we transitioned from tourists to nightlife participants. We got to the concert venue, Club Asia, about an hour early because we thought it would benefit us. However, we found out it was not only unnecessary, but impossible to buy tickets in advance. So we waited around for about an hour and then said our goodbyes to Shota for the next 20~ days or so (he insisted on taking us to the airport) :-) and Frank for the night. We went in and saw a handful of good bands that are a lot less popular than Lil and Gekkan Probowlers, but talented and great in their own right. We ended up buying a CD for the opening band because we knew we couldn't get it on the internet. When Lil came on, things really got awesome... Stage presence was insane, the lead singer was a cutie with great style and her male counterpart playing the synth was equally as exciting. The Japanese people around us started the concert off reserved but when this set started they leveled up a few notches. Next was Gekkan Probowlers. They were truly flawless... the Dj was so smiley, every time I looked at him I got a little bit happier because you could tell how much fun he was having getting to perform. And the lead singer was a lot of fun he danced around a lot and acted really carefree. For a number of reasons it was the best concert I've been to.



After that, we had about an hour and a half to kill before Yasutaka Nakata's concert started. We met some girls from the first show and told them we were gonna meet up with them for dinner where they were headed (Freshness Burger ^^). They didn't seem to have a problem so we killed an hour seeing how Japanese girls react to American guys that know a little bit of Japanese. They had good taste in music which was a really nice double threat along with them getting our sarcasm. We then headed back to the concert, but first I had to buy Crocs (Vanessa -- I am sooooooo sorry) because my feet hurt so bad and nothing else looked like it would fit me at the store one of the guys called the Japanese Wal-Mart.

Then we went to the next concert. It started at 11 and it was pretty evident that Japanese people were just drunk enough around this time of night to initiate conversation with foreigners. That was fun for a short while, and killed some time that was desperately need since the first DJ played forever and basically did the same thing over and over again. We started to lose confidence that this concert would be as good as the first, which turned out to be more than true. When Yasutaka Nakata came on, we were already dead tired from the long day and excessive jumping around early in the evening. Unfortunately, he was not very impressive in person because he primarily was just equalizing his songs and didn't have any stage presence whatsoever.

The walk home was less than fun because we had a good time but were too tired to appreciate it while we spent two hours trying to get to Tsukiji Fish Market to meet Frank. However, the trains don't even start running until after the Fish Market is over for the day (Done by 5:00). So when we arrived, we found ourselves in the middle of a fish factory with no walls. It was cool seeing the stuff there but because we were so exhausted we had trouble seeing the bright side of getting to go to the Fish Market, regardless of not being able to eat. Also, we missed Frank (fortunately he got to eat there). So, we finally got back to Asakusa around 7:00 and Frank was still out, which was a bummer because we left our stuff in his room because we didn't rent one for the night since we planned on being out all night. So, we slept in the lobby until the staff arrived for the morning and they said we could stay and wait for him but we couldn't sleep in the lobby while we waited (It was very understandable and he was very considerate about it).