I generally try and stick to the motto of being on time, all the time *waits for 1-liner from Grandpa*. However, last night my tardiness ended up turning into one huge adventure.

Cliff, Chinami, Yuka, John, and myself were all going to Ikebukuro (池袋) last night to hang out and get dinner. This was all pretty standard operating procedure, and basically followed the same structure as my previous posts; the only caveat is that we had some freaking delicious, and I do mean delicious, ramen -- go to the bottom of this post if you want to read more about that. But I digress, back to the real story.

At 11:00pm the "we're closing the store, gtfo" music came on, so we packed up our things, and started heading back to the station. I looked at my watch, and it was around 11:15 by the time we had reached the station, bought our tickets, and parted ways. My route to get back home from Ikebukuro is this: Ikebukuro -> Akihabara -> Asakusabashi -> Inzai Maki no Hara. Entire traveling time is about 1hr 15min, which isn't too bad, however we were starting to get close to shyuden, or "last train." Pretty self explanatory - it's the very last train at the station for the night. By close, I mean danger zone close. I was running through all the stations so fast to catch the next train that I probably would have been drafted by an NFL team due to my speed (remember when I hunted you down that one day Kev? something like that). Normally I would be pulling some hilarious looks from the Japanese for this much running, but I'm pretty sure they've all been there before. As I am gliding down the stairs of Asakusabashi station I see the last train of the night pulling away into the distance. I was now faced with a decision: Dish out $150 to get a taxi, or stay in Tokyo for the entire night -- and lets be real, there isn't really any decision part in that since there is no way I'm spending $150 on a cab.

I had a 3 main plans: 1. Stay at a cheap love hotel/ capsule hotel 2. Go to a friends house 3. Find a cafe/bar/etc. that was open all night. I called up Cliff and told what had happened and what my general plans were. However 2 wouldn't work due to my relative position in Tokyo. Cliff suggested an internet cafe in Akihabara. Genius. This was a great mix between option 1 and 3. Off to Otaku-country I go!

By the time I arrived in Akihabara, it was around 12:40am. The place was like a ghost town; it was extremely eerie truthfully. I've been to Akiba 3-4 times so I'm used to it being ultra-crowded and lively. I decided to take advantage of this and walk around taking pictures and explore a bit before I headed to the internet cafe. The pictures will be under the "Akihabara" album.

The only things open at this hour were: McDonalds!, Conbini, Internet Cafes, and Don Quixote. I stopped into McDs and bought a coffee (holy crap is Japanese coffee strong) to keep me up until the next morning.

Oh, and I forgot to mention I have a Japanese chapter test the next day at 8:40am. Win.

After drinking what the Japanese refer to as coffee, I started my search for a good internet cafe to spend the rest of the night at. They all happened to be tucked in a 1block corner of Akihabara for some reason.

Walking into the Internet Cafe (IC from now on) was a funny experience. You could tell they didn't get too many white guys, but the guy at the counter was really cool about it; I could tell he was happy that I spoke Japanese (I feel like this is a reoccurring theme?). I told the guy that I wanted to rent 4 hours worth of time (It was like 2am by this point), which normally would have been $10. However, since it was a weekday night I got a special package, so it only ended up costing me $4.50 for 4 hours...nothing costs $4.50 in Tokyo. The guy explained to me how everything works: You get your own private "room" with a reclining chair, computer w/tv, internet, games, and anime/manga rental. This is a damn good deal if you ask me.

I hoped on the elevator and went to my room on the 5th floor. It was kind of like walking into an office building and seeing a ton of cubicles except the walls went all the way to the ceiling, and there were anime/game posters everywhere.

I spent the next four hours studying/doing homework/chatting with people on Facebook. When I was leaving the sun had already signaled that the new day had begun, so I grabbed the next train to TUJ.

RAMEN!

For those of you curious about the ramen I had, it was called Chyoshyuu-men. This is basically ramen that has extra pieces of pork in it. This particular ramen-ya (shop) used a pork-fat based broth that was absolutely delicious. Definitely going back to this place next time I"m in 'bukuro and hungry.

It has been a couple weeks since my last update -- the gap was due to having all of my mid terms and projects to do. However, now that those are all taken care of the updates should start being a little more frequent (plus the weather here is starting to be very nice which means I'll be more inclined to go explore).

I think I'll start this post off with this youtube video of the club I went to last night: Club Atom



I'm pretty sure this video explains everything you want to know about the club, so here is a bit more color on my night.

Last night I found myself with two options: Option 1: Stay home and relax // watch tv. Option 2: Go to Club Atom. I left my fate in the hands of a 500 yen coin (the traditional Kevin & Keith "damn, we can't make a decision" method). As the fates would have it, the coin came up heads which was the "go to Club Atom" side. Unlike last time at Womb, I didn't get very dressed up at all. I threw on my classic Have Heart tee, some jeans, and my sambas, grabbed some cash and was off.

The train ride into Tokyo was pretty boring, but I did make a couple observations about my fellow 11:30pm passengers. It was a pretty clear split between drunk salaryman and kids going out to party. All of the salarymen were asleep while the party-goers were sending out text messages as fast as their fingers could type them. Even though I was on the last train into Shibuya it was so packed I had to stand... I guess this shouldn't be too big of a surprise since it was Saturday night. When I got off the train in Shibuya I headed straight for the club.

Shibuya is so incredibly lively that I can't really convey it into words. Once I turned down the street that Atom is on I knew it was going to be a crazy night. There were probably 60-70 people all standing outside of the club. While waiting to get inside I met an english ex-pat named Kris who is here teaching at some university. He was on his way out of the club right next to Atom, and when asked how it was he pretty explicitly stated, "It was shit mate.. definitely stick to Atom." After this brief chat I got in the que, and readied my ID and $$$ for the cover. Again, unlike the seedy clubs in Roppongi, you have to show ID at the door to get in (20 and older). Cover is $10 before 11, and goes up to $30 after that; you also get 1 free drink if you're a guy and I believe 2 if you're a girl. There are lockers on the first floor, but they get filled up pretty quick. Once you get up to the club (it's on the 4th floor) there is a guy who will check your coat for $5.

Once I checked my coat I started working my way to the dance floor. It was just as packed as the video makes it look. From the front of the dance floor all the way back to the bar it was super crowded. Since I wasn't there to get drunk I just headed straight to the dance floor.

I have to say that the DJs here absolutely fantastic. There were 4 that rotated throughout the night. I think they did 30ish minute sets 3x each. I believe it is these same 4 DJs every weekend, which is not a bad thing at all as they were freaking fantastic; they got the crowd involved, had a huge variety of trance/house/hardstyle/etc., and did an overall great job adding to the experience. DJ Hosaka is probably my favorite as he played a lot of vocal trance + house mixes of rock n'roll. During his first set, he opened up with a crazy mix of Nirvana's "Smells like teen spirit" which caused the crowed to go nuts. This was followed by "Sweet Child O'Mine" which I had never heard turned into a trance tune before, but damn was it awesome. I ended up singing the song to this Japanese girl I was dancing with. There were probably another 15 rock songs that I sang along to as well. The Japanese got a kick out of watching me rock out - I even encouraged this group of Japanese to sing along with me -- hilariousness. I should also note that out of probably 1,500 people I was 1 of 4 foreigners, which is great.

At the end of the night all four DJs came out and autographed some CDs and tossed them out into the crowd  which I thought was pretty cool. Definitely going back.