a tokyo state of mind

If there is something I’d like to be remembered for, it is my absolute inability to drink.
I don’t say this with pride; I simply believe that it is one of my more positive – albeit incapacitating – traits. Boyfriends have found my post-half-a-beer stumbling adorable, friends know they never have to include me in a second round, and my family will happily pour one less glass of good wine. I like to believe that the money I have saved ex-boyfriends on alcohol somehow cancels out my sociopathic propensity for screaming fights, and that between friends, I still retain some utility as the generally sober one with no driver’s license. These thoughts run through my throbbing temples – the beginning of a hangover – just as everyone [irritatingly, happily] starts in on their second round. A good night usually has me drinking large amounts of water and running to the bathroom for the rest of the night; a less successful one has me spontaneously passing out on some random, semi-horizontal surface.
Having come to terms with the fact that a glass of Chimay will make me cross-eyed, I generally stick to what I know best: premium American beers known better by three-letter acronyms and girly drinks so watered down they have the inebriating effect of juice. I ordered a tall glass of something similar on Tim and Chandler’s last night in Tokyo, at a yakiniku restaurant full of fake geishas with plunging necklines.

“What is that, like a wine cooler?” Chandler asked.
“Yeah,” Tim said after taking a sip, “but worse.”
But it was something I could finish, which had, to me, some semblance of significance. Like a triathlete’s proud “Finisher” t-shirt, it seemed like an achievement I could refer back to later in the evening, should my night not conclude with the check. “But I finished that drink,” I could say defensively, “remember? Back at that restaurant? Like an hour ago? Remember?”
I came back from the bathroom, however, [escorted there by those same geishas] not to my empty glass, but a full one. Courtesy of Arnie of Red Bull.
“High five, Kaiko,” he said.

A drunken blush had started to invade my entire face by the time Arnie, Ai [also of Red Bull], Chandler, Tim and I crammed into an elevator and back outside. To go to karaoke. This was going to be interesting…in part because Arnie ordered vodka shots as soon as we got there.
Vodka and I have a somewhat troubled history. The first time I drank an entire shot of vodka, the room spun, and I ended up with my face in my sister’s toilet for the majority of the night. Until 4 a.m., that toilet seat was the most reassuring headrest I’d ever known, its surface so cool and welcome it didn’t occur to me until much later that that morning, my left buttcheek had rested in the same spot where my face was. But at that point, I was beyond being “gross,” and was actively embracing “downright disgusting.” I even went so far as to attempt to talk to a then-boyfriend while slumped over that porcelain fixture, as if my inability to refrain from convulsively bringing up nacho remnants every time I opened my mouth would somehow wither in the face of [college] love. It didn’t.
I finally stopped retching, took the next day off, but told my boss at my internship the truth a few days later [“I think I drank a little too much the other night”]. Later that summer, I was asked to parade in front of the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central station wearing a sandwich board. I would like to think the two events are somehow not related.
Afterwards, I swore off vodka shots like I swear off boys post-break-up; just long enough to forget about all the bad shit that went down. One could argue that my vodka abstinence lasted a bit longer, due to the fact that the mere mention of gray geese was enough to give my esophagus spasms [something, admittedly, no man in my life has been able to do before]. Mental gag reflexes had abated, though, by my best friend’s bachelorette party. As the sole bridesmaid without an acceptable, bullshit excuse to not get properly shitfaced, I did my first vodka shot in forever, topped off with most of a Tom Collins. We ended up at South Brooklyn Pizza later that night, where I crammed bread, cheese, tomato sauce, and gobs of roasted garlic into my mouth while mostly ignoring the group of guys we had collected on the way. I rolled outside, cheese probably stuck between several teeth, and promptly dropped the ball on reciprocating flirting with an incredibly handsome British banker [his handsome-ness certainly didn’t help the situation]. Instead, I crawled into a cab to pass out on my sister’s couch, half-bedazzled and fully clothed, but without pants. Thank you, alcohol.

Back at the karaoke booth, still in denial that I was already on my way to getting tanked, I took an obligatory sip off my shot after we all raised our glasses. I thought I was in the clear, until Tim pointed to my mostly-full glass. The last train literally and figuratively pulled out of Shibuya as I picked up my glass and clinked it against Tim’s [which Arnie had somehow refilled]. Bottoms up.


From there the my night got a lot more awesome. Arnie serenaded us with ballads like Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” Ai was hitting all the high notes that no one else could, Chandler and Tim were adding the appropriate screams to Guns ‘n Roses songs, and we all yelled along to “Thriller.” …And then I started rapping.

Let me clarify: I do not usually do this. In fact, until that night, I have never subjected a person I had only met several hours prior, to my inner gangsta [Sorry, Ai!]. Much like masturbation, I will admit to doing it [come on, everyone lip syncs into their mirror, right?] but that doesn’t mean I’m doing it in public. As proof, I could list long-term boyfriends and close friends who have never so much as heard the words declaration “it was all a dream/I used to read Word Up magazine,” escape my lips. I may hum along to a rap chorus, but my real rapping sessions have largely been conducted in the safe confines of my room, and even then with the paranoid, self-consciousness of Michael Bolton in “Office Space.”
But feeling either generous or cruel [depending on one’s assessment of my performance] in addition to simply drunk, I was enthusiastically channeling Snoop Dogg in “California Gurls” and Jay-Z in “Empire State of Mind.” Jaws seemed to drop a little before general laughter followed. Tequila shots appeared. I actually drank half of mine.

We wrapped it up around 3 a.m. with a Lady Gaga medley and said our goodbyes. I staggered into a cab, didn’t hurl as soon as I got home and randomly drunk-emailed friends while lurching uncontrollably. All with my pants undone.

The next day, for the first time in my life, I was [horribly, disgustingly] hung over. Tim and Chandler emailed a last goodbye from the airport, and I told them to come back soon, for Round 2.
Because come to think of it, we never did get around to Biggie or ‘Pac...

beer in bed pans and late night ramen

It’s 2 a.m. and I’m sitting next to Jamey, both of us waiting on our respective bowls of late night ramen. Tim is threatening to hose down the toilet seat in the only bathroom with urine before Chiharu and I use it [Jamey: “don’t worry, urine’s pretty sterile”], Chandler is taking quality shots of the guy next to me who is passed out in his bowl of ramen, and Ben is exclaiming something loudly in his Belgian accent. Oh yeah, and I’m in Shibuya – oh , sorry, Shi-BOOYAH – with a bunch of cyclocross pros.
…What the fuck…?

The day that started with Cyclocross Tokyo picked back up again in Shibuya with a visit to a mental hospital-themed bar: Alcatraz. A suggestion by Chiharu of Champion Systems, scantily clad “nurses,” showed us to our table before the lights went out, strobe lights came on, and ominous shrieks from surrounding tables followed. Impatient and close to cracking after a long day, I flipped through the menu in the dark with the aid of an iPhone light, only to glance up to see a masked man inches from my face. I screamed. Possibly louder than I did earlier in the day.

After the bar determined that both Chiharu and I had been sufficiently targeted and terrorized, we ordered bed pan pitchers of beer and drinks served in test tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks. Beer has never looked so unappetizing.

We left the bar and wandered around until Chiharu turned to me: “we should take purikura!” [Purikura is short for “Print Club,” a high tech version of a photo booth that will turn the photos taken into small stickers. The booths let you draw on the pictures, choose different background colors, and offer a range of filters from “glamorous” to “cute”.] It was probably the best idea of the night. We ducked into an arcade on the corner and crammed into the nearest open booth. Shenanigans ensued, including taking pictures that made our eyes look bigger.

More beers followed at an English pub with a few beers on tap, Chandler told us all about kegel cramps, and we finished off the night with the aforementioned ramen. I jumped into a cab, got home to an email that the guys had lost Don’s glasses and wallet, called around, found out that the items were recovered, and finally passed out.

Surreal night? Definitely. Crazy? Compared to a few nights later, not even close.
[Make sure to check out CycloWHAT? for more Tokyo trip madness.]