Sunday, September 14, 2008

Wild Night

My goodness. A night like last's is well worth a mention. So I met up with some of my coworkers at this bar/club in Machida and had a spectacular time. Whenever I've gone out (since I've been here) I've made sure to get on the last train back to my city. It leaves at 12:44 am from Shinjuku (we usually go to Shinjuku or Shibuya). Shinjuku is only a half hour away, give or take, from my station so it's quite convenient. Machida, however, is an hour and a half away. Going there, I knew we were out for the night. The next train doesn't come until 5:00 am. We kept ourselves busy, though. Lots of dancing and drinking provided several solid hours of entertainment. By the way, watching Japanese people dance is one of the most amazing things ever. I'll admit that I don't have medal-winning moves, but this was...fantastic. Everyone is so nice and friendly, though; much more than in the States. Most gaijin (foreigners) there were British and were quick to chat my friend and me up. After a few solid hours of making a fool of myself on the dance floor (that's not true - I was awesome), we decided to get some late night fast food. Everyone's been there, right? Well, it was more like late night rice, but it sure hit the spot. On the way to and from the place where we got our food, we passed several prostitutes prostituting their way through a prostitutical evening. I couldn't make out what they were saying while propositioning us, but I'm sure it was like poetry. Hey, everyone's got to make a living, right? Actually, in Kumegawa (where I work), you'll see guys standing around the station and other open areas wearing vests. They are pimps. Now, prostitution isn't "legal", but...you know what I mean. No one is going to do anything about it. I guess it's a turn-the-other-cheek sort of thing. I asked my Japanese coworker about "these guys standing around wearing vests" and she told me, simply, that Japan was very free. Enough said.
Where was I? Oh, right - rice. Yeah, so that was good. We headed back to the bar and spent a couple more hours having a good time and then left. I didn't get to take the first train out of Shinjuku at 5:00 am because we were in Machida. So we took the 5:00 am from Machida and got to Shinjuku at 6:00 am. The 5:00 am from Shinjuku is packed full of drunk people from the previous night so, fortunately, we thwarted that one. And by packed I mean you cannot possibly fit another person. They have station attendants who are there simply to push and cram people into the train. It's ridiculous (and it looks like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axwMxUBL_ws). So I said a fleeting goodbye to my friend and she left for her station and I headed for mine. I didn't get back to my apartment until 6:45 am and I fell right asleep. It felt great.

A couple new pictures of the bar from last night are on flickr so just click the link from my last post and you'll see them.