OH NO! SIX DAYS!
It’s my last Friday in Japan for this trip to Japan!
That’s right, this trip. I might be leaving, but I can always come back.
That makes leaving Japan easier. What it does not make easier is leaving my new found friends.
Last weekend was Halloween, and like a good little pagan, I donned face paint (I was the Joker) and danced the night away… well, maybe not danced…
But I was at a club! I met up with four of the guys from the school I didn’t go to and we wandered around Shibuya looking for a place to par-tay.
Eventually we found some clubs, and paid 1000 yen to get in.
To a completely empty club.
Not actually empty, there were two Japanese girls sitting in the corner, one dressed as Snow White, the other, a pirate.
Not even actually as empty as that either, because there were several floors to this club, and it turned out that we were not on the top floor, as we had originally thought. There was still another floor, where all the people were. I convinced the pirate and Snow White to join us upstairs. It turned out that the pirate had actually lived in New York for a couple years and spoke very good English.
The five of us and the two of them hung out upstairs, until the five of us became the one of me. The other guys lived more than an hour away by train, so to make it home before the trains stopped, they had to leave at 11.
So it was down to the criminal, the princess, and the pirate.
Then, the princess and the pirate left.
I followed them out, because I had nothing better to do. Once outside they took of and left me standing in front of the club. Luckily, the pagans were now out in force. I saw a group of them speaking English, so I walked over and asked the time.
I think is was my costume that endeared me to them because I was soon back in the same club with my new group of friends , Sam, Kimmy, Rael, and others that I never actually got the names of.
Kimmy needed to go home before the trains stopped, so I walked her to the trains and decided to head home too.
The next day Kimmy invited me to another Halloween, where I met more people, one of them was another Richard.
Tuesday and Wednesday were devoted to recovery and souvenir shopping.
Then, Wednesday, I finally got to go to Disney Sea again!
Tragedy would strike, but it wouldn’t come for 2 hours.
The very first ride I rode was The Journey to the Center of the Earth. The girl in line in front of me turned out to be from the Czech Republic. Her name is Lenka, and she is living in Malaysia, taking classes in 3D graphics and animation. Lenka dislikes Malaysia quite a bit, and wants to move to New York. She was visiting Japan for the week and was at Disney Sea alone.
So I was Lenka’s guide for the day.
We actually went to one show that I had missed the first time I was there. It was a live action Little Mermaid show. It was incredible.
I have not seen the Lion King Broadway show, but I think it would be accurate to say that this was the much shorter, Little Mermaid version of that show. Many of the performers were suspended from the ceiling, operating very complex marionettes. From various types of fish to the tentacles, hands, and face of Ursula. I’ve never seen anything like it.
By the way, the tragedy stuck when I found that my favorite ride of all, Storm Rider, was closed for the day. I actually considered returning another day, but I think the memories of the five times I rode it the first time I came to Disney Sea will have to hold me over til the next time I come to Japan.
Lenka left at about 530, I stuck around and rode most of the rides again.
Before Lenka left, we made plans to meet in Ueno the following morning.
We went to Ueno park, walked around Ueno lake, and then visited Ueno Zoo!
Ueno zoo is best known for it’s giant Panda Ling-Ling. The giant panda was what Lenka most wanted to see. We saw birds, bears, monkeys, lions, snakes, hippos, tapirs, tigers, capybaras, elephants, even okapis.
Nowhere though, was there a giant panda.
The gift shops sold panda-everything. There were panda statues and pictures The zoo guide had a panda on the cover, but where was Ling-Ling?
Finally, when we could think of nothing else, we went to the information booth. There on a bulletin board was a 8.5×11 piece of paper saying:
To Visitors:
There has been NO GIANT PANDA in Ueno Zoo,
since the Giant Panda, “Ling-Ling” died on 30th April 2008.
Have a good Time!
I did get to watch several animals relieve themselves though, so the day was not a total loss.
And those monkeys are fricken hilarious.
No Storm Rider. No Ling-Ling
We would not give in to our sadness. Instead, we headed to Shibuya to meet up with two of Lenka’s friends, Karyn, also from the Czech Republic, and Koji from the west coast of Japan.
Karyn is here on a fine arts grant for two years. A very artsy girl, into discussing art and collecting new material for her art, which uses multiple mediums. Part of the exhibit she is working on will cover the idea of “the gentleman” in Japanese culture.
We stopped at a cool little restaurant. Karyn whipped out her video camera and started recording Koji and I discussing what being a gentleman means. I first had to explain to Koji, what the concept of a gentleman was, and then he told me Japanese men weren’t into that.
Koji, by the way, is a inventory manager at the IKEA that will be opening soon here in Tokyo.
After the food, we went to a pub, where we started taking pictures with Karyn’s camera. She got the staff and various patrons to take the pictures for us, until she eventually asked James.
James is an accountant from London (originally from Manchester). He and his two friends Neil (also an accountant) and another guy were here on a weeks vacation. The other guy had gotten drunk the night before and broke his arm arm-wrestling. It was so bad that he had to cut the trip short a day and go home.
James and Neil joined our group and we went out to look for somewhere new to go, because some other unrelated English guys had gotten very drunk and begun singing sports team fight songs at the top of their lungs.
Koji had to leave then, and we didn’t get far before Lenka, who had a train to catch to the airport at 600 this morning, announced that she had to go. Karyn left with Lenka, probably because she didn’t want to be stuck with three strange guys all night. The girls thought I should stay out and have fun, so I stuck with James and Neil. They actually had a hotel there in Shibuya and offered to let me use the arm-wrestler’s now vacant bed if I couldn’t party all night.
It turned out none of us could, and by 330 am we were all asleep.
That brings us to this morning, and nothing of real interest has happened since.
Fortunately, I don’t have to feel bad about leaving all of these new friends behind. Some of them have already left Japan and more will be leaving before I do. Some are now friends of mine on Facebook. Kimmy will be visiting California while I’m back in America, Lenka might be in New York when I get there, and James and Neil offered to put me up a couple nights when I come through London, even invited me to a cricket match.
All of this brings me back to a theme I think has run through a couple of my latest posts.
I want to stay, but I’m not going to. Even though I am having such a good time, I have to move on.
That way I can experience new new things, meet even more cool people, and maybe see some of the cool people I’ve already met, again.
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friends, Japan, moving on