All-nighter in Roppongi

Well….



Pulled an all-nighter in Shibuya/Roppongi last night just acting as the wingman of one of my buddies. Interesting experience, being well not-single in a place filled with whores and strip clubs, but I’ll get to that soon enough. The night started well enough, going to the Enlisted club trying to win the 900 dollar jackpot. Surprisingly they had a rather amazing buffet there and it provided an awesome free dinner. Sadly nobody won the 900 dollars so I’ll go next week maybe when it’s up over 1,000. I mean really? Woman that had the winning ticket left, what is there more important than wining nearly 1,000 dollars and making a 1,000 dollar profit. Hopefully the person had a sick kid or an emergency at home.



After that I left with my buddy to head down to Shibuya so he could meet up with his date and get the night started with a few drinks, while I abstained personally from alcohol as bad things happen and considering I have a girlfriend alcohol in a place filled with whores and strip clubs don’t mix. Shibuya itself was cool, mostly a shopping district with a few clubs and bars. I’d go back there I think, so long as I have the money but I think I’ll save up for a good while before going out again, spending money on coffee got expensive. Speaking of which I’m a victim of Brand recognition, had some vending machine coffee and the only reason I had that coffee is because I thought the Tommy Lee Jones commercials were funny as hell. Let me make this clear I only had the coffee because Tommy Lee jones was selling it……. I hate being a victim of advertising campaigns, was good coffee though, so yeah.



I have no idea how many times I had to say variations of ‘No thank you’ to people trying to get me to go to strip clubs, or whores offering massages with ‘happy endings’ than I care to count. For that reason not a place I’ll go back to during the night time. I did however go see Tokyo Tower at night, long cold walk, past the Russian embassy and Aston Martin dealerships, past pricy business and then up a very steep hill, and get to look up at the bottom of a very well lit icon of the Tokyo landscape, quite breathtaking if taken in the right context. Hell even the police guarding the entrance were marveling at the thing.

If you’re wondering where my buddy was all this time, he was at a club I had no interest in. I’d rather not pay 2,000 yen to get into a Rap club where drinking is mandatory, we did keep in touch with our phones so I didn’t abandon my wingman, and the night ended well for him.



Anyway after walking up and down the street for the millionth time saying no to the same club pushers and whores I dip into what turns out to be a rather fancy restaurant and order a few things. I had what turned out to be an appetizer, grilled beef with potatoes and Miso, now it was an absolutely amazing use of my money, should have gotten a bowl of udon but well que sera sera, I also had pumpkin mousse, and that was an absolutely amazing choice, the rich creamy texture with the strong pumpkin flavor was absolutely marvelous. Now at this point it’s about 2:30 AM trains have stopped and I’m tired of saying no to the same whores, so I dip inside Starbucks and have a coffee, black and wind up dumping 6 or 7 packets of sugar and honey into it to try an improve the flavor, that worked for about 15 minutes until Starbucks closed, then over to Mc Donalds to use the restroom. But only place open was the ordering area, McD’s had private security guarding the upstairs where the seating areas and restrooms were. Let that sink in for a little bit, Private Security At a fast food restaurant. Typical rent-a-cop uniform, and deformed security guard and everything, guys ear looked like it had been chewed up and spit out, but yeah so I order another coffee, and let me tell you, I STRONGLY prefer starbucks over Mc Donalds, but that doesn’t mean the coffee tastes much better. So I’m sitting at Mc Donalds just watching the street and a girl winds up sitting next to me, blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin. I figure ‘what the hell’ lets hope she speaks English. So I start up a nice and polite conversation with the woman, turns out to be German, and just finishing up an extended vacation before she starts college. Nice person to talk to while waiting for the crack of dawn. Then I see what may be my first encounter with yakuza activity. The two of us ‘me and the german woman’ are watching from the 2nd floor window when this guy gets kicked out of a big van with blacked out windows, approaches the drivers side and kneels, forehead touching the ground, for about a good two minutes before running back into the van. NO clue what he did to insult the driver, but from what we could see they looked like Sterotypical yakuza, nice suits, strict behavior customs, young.



Anyway so 5 AM rolls around and me and the German say our good byes and go home to our respective ends of Tokyo, should have gotten her facebook she seemed very nice, and by this point I’m fighting off sleep like Indiana Jones fights Nazis. The lyric from an iron Maiden song comes to mind ‘He’s walking like a deadman’…that’s how crappy I felt. And yeah finally make it back to base and PTFO for a few hours.

So that was my all-nighter.