What else do you need to have a good New Year’s Eve?
I didn’t have any plans for this NYE right up until the last minute. It’s not something I consider a real holiday, so I usually just stay home and go to bed at my usual time. I hadn’t planned on doing anything differently until I got an offer the day before. One of my online friends (I had yet to meet her in real life) here in Tokyo was going out with a big group of friends and invited me to come along. I didn’t have anything else to do, so why not?
The plan was to meet up in Shibuya at 8pm, and head to a bar from there. Three of the group (including myself) were on time, so we picked a place to go and phone messages were sent telling everybody else where to find us. Actually, “picked” probably isn’t the right word. It was more like, “a decision was made while walking around trying to find one place that nobody remembered how to get to, so we settled on another place.”
The wandering was to become a theme for the evening.
We wound up at an izakaya and ordered some beer and food while we waited for everybody else to show up. (At this point our group still only consisted of three people – myself, my friend (also American) and one of her Japanese friends, whom I’ll call S.) The next person to join us was another of her Japanese friends, D. Both guys were cool and spoke great English, so we had a good time drinking and chatting while waiting for everybody else to show up.
They came along about an hour later.
The rest of the group was pretty big – two Japanese girls (one with her gaijin boyfriend), an Australian girl and two guys, who I’m guessing were both US military – the haircuts and mannerisms were pretty familiar, so it seemed a safe guess. We took up a huge table in the izakaya and proceeded to order mountains of food and even more beer. Plans were tossed about for where to be when the clock struck 12, but there was some discord among the group.
The original four of us wanted to go to some place that played techno, and most of the others wanted to go to a hip-hop club – an idea the four of us detested. A suggestion was made to go to a club called Ageha down in Shin-kiba (near Tokyo Bay – almost in Chiba), since they had different rooms with different kinds of music. The hip-hop faction nixed that idea, saying the hip-hop room at Ageha sucked.
The final result was that nobody could agree, so “happy new years” were exchanged and our group split up. We tossed some money on the table and made our way to the station, all set to head down to Shin-Kiba.
We got there about 11:40 and knew there was no way we’d be inside the club by midnight. In order to be able to toast the new year when it arrived, we stopped by a convenience store and picked up drinks for each of us. Sure enough, midnight came along and we were nowhere near the front of the line. We heard the countdown inside the club, but their clock was a tad fast. I always reset my watch to match one of the big billboard clocks in Shinjuku whenever I’m there, so I knew I had the right time. Sure enough, I counted down on my watch and right when I said it was midnight, the fireworks over at Tokyo Disneyland went off. The backdrop was nice, so we all toasted 2005. Well, except for S., as he’d already finished his drink. The line was going nowhere fast even after midnight, so we began debating what to do. We decided to give it some more time, and if we didn’t get anywhere, we’d head back into town. I walked up to see how bad the line was, and it pretty much sucked. I also noticed the cover charge, listed on the big sign over the door.
¥5,000
Just to get in the club. With no free drinks. We reached an unanimous “Screw that!” and decided to head back into Tokyo. We were tempted to take a cab to speed the trip along, but the cab driver wanted ¥7,000 to go into town, so we again said “Screw that!” and took the train. Travel beers were purchased for the ride. Once we’d made it back to Tokyo the decision was made to go to Roppongi.
I had no input on that decision.
I’d never been there before, but I knew enough about it to know that it wasn’t really my kind of place – too noisy, too many foreigners, too many drunks – but what the hell.
We wandered around a bit (see? more wandering) looking for a decent club to go to. There were no lines in Roppongi but there were stupidly high cover charges. Most were around ¥2,000 – 3,000 and included at least one free drink. We weren’t too thrilled with any of the clubs but eventually gave in, as we didn’t want to wander the streets all night. We wound up at a club called Core, and paid ¥3,500 to get in, which included one free drink. I don’t know if this place was typical of clubs in Roppongi, but it was pretty weak. Way too dark, mediocre DJs pumping music through an overly bass-heavy sound system, and too many drunk gaijin pawing unwelcomely at Japanese girls. I saw one dude who had to be held back by three of his friends so the chick could get away from him.
How charming.
We didn’t stay long and wrote the money off as a bad call. Again, we set out wandering. Fortunately we lucked out this time. We stopped into The Hub and it was much better. It’s a chain pub, but nice enough. I’ve been to one other location in Kichijoji (Hi Rob!) and they’re all about the same. We found a place to sit and each got a drink. This was probably my 8th or 9th drink of the night, but they really weren’t having any effect. Like I said earlier, too much food to get even a mild buzz. (It’s been a while since I went out or did any real drinking, so I’ll need to re-learn the proper food/alcohol ratios to ensure a nice buzz.)
While we were at The Hub my friend got a little silly.
She’s probably more outgoing than your typical gaijin girl, which in my mind makes her fun to hang out with, but I think some people may see her as way too aggressive. She spotted a J-guy wearing a shirt that said, “Everyone loves an Asian boy.” Well, she certainly does, and went nuts over his shirt. (He wasn’t a bad looking dude, but I think the shirt was probably worth more of a fuss than he was.) She took a pic of his shirt with her phone, then started teasing the guy, asking how much money it’d take for him to give her the shirt right then and there. Now, why he resisted the idea I can’t say. She’s very cute and had on a great top which provided for some exceptional cleavage, but he wasn’t willing to part with his shirt.
Stupid, stupid boy.
Maybe he was just really attached to the shirt, or maybe he was utterly clueless. Hell, I could see there was more going on than just her interest in the shirt, but he either missed that bit or wasn’t interested. He was with a friend, but at 3:30am on New Year’s Eve it’s pretty safe to say you can ditch your wingman if you’re gonna score. He could’ve found his way home easily enough. But I guess he had other plans.
My friend was ticked that she couldn’t get the shirt, so she pouted and told S. what happened when he came back after getting a new drink. Her solution was to get him to take his shirt off. (I guess she got it in her head that somebody was gonna take their shirt off.) He agreed easily enough and she seemed happy.
Until he wanted his shirt back.
She was happier with him out of his shirt, so she resisted giving it back. Now, he’s a fair sight bigger than she is, so there’s no way she was going to keep it from him by strength alone, so she decided to hide it – up her own shirt.
Undaunted, he went right after it, and when his attempt to fish it out proved unsuccessful, he just grabbed the bottom of her shirt and started to lift.
That got her to give him his shirt back. I suspect there was more going on in his mind than getting his shirt back when he tried that move – and I think she did too.
So after giving his shirt back she flashed him.
Even though the flash wasn’t directed at me, I still got a wonderful view.
Boobs like those were meant to be flashed. ^.^
After all that, the evening started to wind down. Of course, it was about 4:30am at this point, so it was almost time for the morning to wind up. The smoke in the bar was really starting to get to me, so I said my goodbyes and began my trek home.
“Trek” being a very appropriate word.
The cool thing about NYE in Tokyo is that the trains run all night. It’s the only night of the year that they do this, since everybody’s out late either drinking or going to temples or whatever. But “run all night” is kind of a misrepresentation of the truth. They may run all night, but they don’t run that often.
I got from Roppongi to Shinjuku easily enough, but once I got there (just past 5am) I realized I was stuck. The next train (Saikyo line) back to my area wasn’t until 6:42. I was not going to hang out in the station for over an hour and a half. I caught another train over to Tokyo Station where I could get a different train (Keihin-Tohoku line) back to Akabane. Thankfully, that one was running more frequently and there was one heading my direction about 3 minutes after I got to Tokyo Station. So I caught that one and settled in for the ride home.
Once I got to Akabane I was faced with another problem – how to get home. I knew the buses were going to be on a weird schedule due to the holidays and all, so I was prepared to wait a bit. Until I checked the schedule, that is. It was going to be over an hour before the first bus came along, so I went to the taxi stand and got in line. Everybody there was in a nice, orderly line, waiting their turn for a taxi.
Well, everybody except the hooker.
This chick came out of the station, gabbing non-stop on her cell phone and was doing everything she could to not have to wait in line. She tried going up to approaching cabs and flagging them down before they got to the taxi stand, but they didn’t let her get in. She tried going to the front of the line, but nobody let her cut. Then she tried getting into cabs with people whose turn it was to catch one. Finally she gave up and got in line.
About 8 spaces back from where she would have been if she’d gotten in line in the first place.
Sheesh.
My turn came and I got in for my hooker-free ride home. This was the first time I’ve taken a cab from the station, and it’s an experience I’ll try to avoid repeating. Why? The bus costs ¥210. The taxi fare was ¥1,800.
I am not going to make a habit of that, I assure you.
I got home right around 7am and went right to bed. It was a fun night, but probably not the kind of thing I’m going to do that often. I like hanging out with friends and all, but I prefer quieter bars where you can sit, drink and talk and not have to deal with obnoxious drunks and deafening sound systems. I know there are places like that in Tokyo.
I just need to get out and find them.