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.]