last day

my aunt linda, playing dog.

saturday. 8:36am. i'm back.

i feel like dying, but i'm back.

god, i feel like shit. i feel like i want to puke and then roll over and puke some more. and i want to cry. i feel so sad now that i'm leaving shawn and taeko and also my aunt, who has taking really good care of me the last four days. but i'm happy finally to be going back home to see my sweetie and also my friends.

japan's been incredible. i'm glad is over though. i don't think i can take much more of this debauchery. have i ever drank so much in my life? i don't think so.

i'm now watching the opening ceremonies of the athens' olympic in japanese. snoopy peed inside the house again, but i'm just too tired to even bother with it. the united states contingent is now walking into the stadium and i'm tearing up. i miss my home. it's good to be american. some female wrestler is the flag bearer for japan. i saw on tv that before she left, her dad was yelling at her to do well. it was insane, he was barking at her and she was like "hai, hai" and then she started crying. good stuff.

so as tired and uncomfortable as i am right now, i need to finish this blog up. mid-afternoon on friday, i went back to isezaki-cho to buy more gifts. i actually wanted a yukata (robe) for myself, but i didn't find one i liked so i ended up getting two sake set and some chopsticks. i was walking around hoping to find a toy store, but the one i found didn't have anything i think joshua would like, so i'm still pretty screwed right now. shawn told me to get it at the airport, which i don't want to, but most likely i'll have to.

so i came back to my aunt's condo at around 6pm and took a shower and got dressed. i was suppose to meet shawn at the dog statue outside the shibuya station at 7:30. my aunt was running a little late to give me a ride to the subway station, but i ended up only about 5 minutes late because i took the ultra super express, which made like three stops from motomachi-chugakun (yokohama chinatown) to shibuya. after meeting up with shawn, we went back to his apartment so i could check my email. then we went back to the shibuya station to meet up with charlena to head out for dinner (she didn't know where the restaurant was). since we were rushing a bit, we ended up going the wrong direction. we soon fixed that problem.

we were having tempura for dinner at a restaurant near to where jacqueline lives so we ended up meeting her there. the dinner was excellent. we had egg plant, shrimp, eel, lotus root, two different types of fish and yam tempura. and for appetizers, we had the shrimp heads and a salad with this dried up little fish. everything was delicious. we also had three bottles of sapporo along with our dinners, thus starting the pain early.

i should really be packing right now. leaving in about 2 hours. anyway, we went to the ebisu station to meet up with taeko, who had dinner with one of her friends. i found out that it's collen's birthday tomorrow so she wanted to be out drinking by the stroke of midnight to celebrate the occasion. so we went to shawn's company's (goldman sachs) tower in roppongi to meet up with colleen, yoshi, a friend of hers, and carol for drinks. shawn and jacqueline took us up to the 45th floor and the view of tokyo was breath-taking. incredible. the lights, the traffic, the towers. it was really beautiful.

the group of us then walked several blocks to a bar called suki. it was a pretty nice place. very mellow. so we set up camp in the middle of the bar and started ordering drinks. i think i had two vodka tonics and four beers in the spand of 3.5 hours. sydney came a little bit after us; he lived several blocks away. we toasted colleen, who i found out tonight went to college at carniege mellon in pennsylvania. i thought she went to waterloo with the rest of the hk-canadian crew, but she's from jersey.

after a bit, colleen and yoshi (also from carniege mellon) left. we stayed another couple of hours when people started getting tired and wanted to go home. the total bill came to be like $26,000 yen. shawn paid for my share again saying this was my last night.

after seeing the other people off, it was almost 4am in the morning, shawn, taeko and i took a cab ride to shibuya (i think) to this bar called insomnia lounge. the place was painted red, the seat cushions were red, the menus were red. it was red all over. we were waiting til 5am in the morning so we can take a cab to the fish market so we can get some fresh sushi. so i ended up having 2 beers there and took care of the tab of 4000 yen (roughly, US$40) was was pretty much nothing since shawn's been paying for a lot of my food and drink on this trip. it's the least i could have done.

so a little after 5am, we took a cab to the fish market. i came out of the insomnia expecting it to still be dark, but when i came up (the bar was in the basement), it was light out. it was the strangest feeling though. we were only in there for one hour. it wasn't even that long. as we were pulling up to the fish market, the cab driver reminded shawn and taeko that today was a nation holiday honoring the dead. shawn was like, "oh shit. no." but, yes, the fish market was closed. shawn was pretty pissed off at the driver for not telling us earlier, but since we were there, we ended up having sushi at some 24 hour place.

it was the worst sushi shawn's ever tasted. i couldn't tell very well. taeko said it wasn't very good as well. shawn was a bit disappointed that we couldn't have fresh sushi, and i was a little bit as well, but we had a freaking great night and a little bad sushi wasn't going to ruin it for me. we took the subway back to shawn's in shibuya. along the way, i said goodbye to taeko, who was going in a different direction. it was sad, but i was a little too drunk and a little too tired to feel anything by then. she plans to come back to LA in april so i'll see her then.

we went back to shawn's apartment so i can pick up my bag. by now it's a little pass 7 in the morning. since shawn was dead tired and his stuff from the states just cleared customs and will be arriving at his apt by 9pm, i told him i'll go to the shibuya station by myself. so i took the bus and then the train back to motomachi-chugukan. on the way back to my aunt's condo, i bought two 500 mL cartons of OJ. i was dying of thirst and it was getting really warm, even at a little pass 8 in the morning. when i came back to my aunt's place, i took a nice hot shower and sat down to write this blog.

i'm now going to pack. i'm tired but not really sleepy. i'm going to miss this place. oh so very nice. so goes the end of my trip. i pulled the tokyo all-nighter. i had sushi almost everyday. i had great curry and tempura. i had mickey d's twice and denny's once. i drank like a fish for three nights that i've been here. i cleaned up dog poo once. and i keep saying, ah so... so des ka.

it's about 11:35am. i'd just finish packing. i'm thinking about going down to chinatown to pick up a thank you card for my aunt. it's freaking hot though. okay, i'm going. bbl.

it is now 4:11pm, saturday. i'm at the terminal now. my head hurts and i'm tired. anyway, i had lunch at the sushi place again today. that's five times in a roll. so all i had today is sushi. hahaha, totally crazy. so after lunch, my aunt drove me to the ycat limobus terminal. about a minute before the bus was suppose to leave, i began to get a sick, probably from that sushi we ate in the morning. oh i'm so glad i stayed up for it. hahaha. so i went to the restroom at the terminal and on the bus. it was nearly impossible to do it on the bus because the toilet was so small. it was literally me taking a shit with my knees in my face.

on the nearly two hours drive to the airport, i think i slept for about an hour. i feel very warm right now, but that could be because i'm really tired. i get hot when i'm tired. the limobus dropped passengers off at terminal 2 first, which is where JAL is. i got into the terminal and there weren't too many people waiting in line. my check in was pretty simple except for the fact that they had to go through my suitcase. it was pretty painless and the guy did a good job with putting everything back together. and i'm actually glad they did it because since the suitcase was opened, i got my immodium out and took one for the plane ride ahead.

oh, yeah, and i found out that this flight is being delayed for a bit. i'm watching the olympics at the airport right now. it's showing women's judo in the 48kg weight class. i have no idea how judo is scored. some chick from russia beat some chick from some african country. it was kinda boring. but supposedly japan has a really good chance to go for gold this year. after checking in, i went upstairs to the shops to get a gift for joshua. the toy section of the upstair shops had a pretty bad selection. after milling around for several minutes, i ended up getting these dinosaurs puzzles inside these plastic eggs. oh well i tried. i'm horrible with getting people gifts.

so i'm like sweating right now just sitting here. either the air con is really weak or i'm really feeling the effects of my tokyo all-nighter. i want to say i had fun, but i'm really paying for it right now. ugh. i'm going to stop now and just watch tv. can't wait to get home. i feel like i'm in a stephen king novel.