partying in japan=hardcore!

drinks
Originally uploaded by sillyhapa.

Going in clubbing in Japan entails one thing for which American partygoers are wholly unprepared ... Once the last train stops running (and in our case, the last bus, which ends at the unfairly early hour of 10PM) you are stuck at your current location until 4 or 5AM, when the trains start running again. Yes, this means that after you start partying around midnight, you must continue dancing, sweating, drinking, laughing, ALL NIGHT LONG.

And then, at that point, it is 5 in the morning (nearly 6 after eating breakfast at McDonalds) and all you can think of is your nice soft bed (or perhaps your rock-hard grain-filled pillow, which is sounding deliciously enticing right now), but there looms a 40 minute train ride from Yokohama to Shibuya, a 40 minute transfer from Shibuya to Shinjuku to Mitaka (Musashi-Sakai only if you're lucky enough to navigate the rapid versus local trains at this hour, which you're not), a 20 minute bus ride home, and the walk from the bus stop to your doorway, which suddenly seems like the longest trek in the world.

It was amazing. We came, we partied, we conquered.

We also made the acquaintance of a Japanese ballerina, a Japanese Brit, and the only Japanese girl I've ever seen to sport a side ponytail, nose ring, jeans shorts, and cornrows...all at once. Believe me, it was spicy. So much more fun than our standard foreigner-at-ICU fare.

In other news, I have been informed that this 100+ degree weather (I assume, no one is really certain how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit over here) is the hottest Japan has seen in the last 50 years. Moreover, the day that Emily decided to go out for the lacrosse team, it was the hottest day all summer. Makes me feel like less of a baby for whining about feeling sticky all the time. Cho atsui!