(no subject)
Day 14 -
I woke up around 10, took a shower, made a few phone calls, came back to the room and announced my intentions of going to the harbor in case anyone wanted to join me. A few people were asleep still, but matt decided to come with me. We made our way to the newtown subway station amongst all the winners of the area. Seriously there were so many crack heads around it was funny. Definitely reminded me of home. We made it to the harbor and it was a totally different world; tourists everywhere, super nice shops and fancy restaurants. Matt and I putzed around the harbor for a bit, taking pictures and went up to the opera house and took more pics. Matt informed that someone he knew told him that in the botanic gardens, a huge park next to the opera house, there were tons and tons of bats. Since we are both bat enthusiasts we decided to spend time trying to find them. We cruised around the park for almost an hour looking for them. The park is nice, lots of ponds with eels in them that come up to the surface to eat, fountains, statues, weird birds, and trees from all over the world. But we had a hard time finding bats. We were close to giving up, cursing matt’s friend for lying to us when we stumbled into the middle grounds of the park. We looked up and there were fruit bats everywhere. In every tree in this small condensed area there were probably fifty or more bats hanging upside down. It was incredible. Some were flying around too. I was in fruit bat country. Matt and I were wandering around like little kids taking pictures of all the bats. All in all there must’ve been thousands easily.
Sydney Harbor Bridge, The Opera House, Botanic Gardens and tree with bats. All those balls in the trees are bats hanging upside down.
Eventually our excitement subsided and we made our way to the subway. There was a train waiting for us when we got there that was going in the direction we needed so we just hopped. Unfortunately, after stopping at every stop between the harbor and newtown station, it skipped right over newtown. It didn’t end up stopping for another five stops. At that stop we got out and went to one of the platforms. It was completely empty of people and the television monitors said “does not stop” so we were a bit confused. Then a voice came on the loud speaker and said “attention passengers on platform 6...trains do not stop at this platform. Please make your way to platform 3 for next city train, which arrives in 30 seconds.” so we figured this would be our train so we ran over to the platform and hopped on the train. And once again this train skipped our stop again. So we got off two stations away, asked for a bit of directions and then finally caught the right train that stopped at our station.
Sydney subway train. They’re super nice and double-dickered.
By this time I was dying in the desert of starvation so I stopped at a place called clem’s chicken across from the street the hostel was on. I figured since it had my cat’s name in it it was a sign to go there. I bought fries and fried chicken and it turned out to be some of the greasiest food I’ve ever eaten in my life. It felt like grease was pouring out of my pores after it eating it, it was so disgusting. Eventually we met up with weber and ben and went to our show, which was at the club where we pulled the all-nighter in Sydney a week ago. We loaded up all our super heavy equipment up some steep, lame stairs. Total workout. Then we sound checked for half an hour or so which was nice because touring with silverstein we couldn’t sound check because we didn’t headline. After that junior, joe and I went to find food. We stopped at a kebab/pizza place where the clerk talked me into some kind of beef pastry/roll thing that was pretty bad. Strike two on food for the day. We went back to the club for a minute, then joe, matt, weber, weber’s friend stu and I went on a little walk through the city. We made our way through a park in the middle of the city where there tons of bats again. And since it was dusk they were flying around. There were so many it ruled. Off in the distance there was a huge flock of them flying in the sky, and we even passed a cathedral where there were more flying around too. Pretty epic.
Bats at dusk!
We ended up walking down to the harbor and my feet were ready to fall off they were in so much pain. We walked back to the club and it was packed. It was pretty tiny but there were people all up in it. Our set was pretty fun. There wasn’t much room to move on the stage but people were going off. After that we loaded equipment back into the truck and then went into the club and partied. Once again we had endless drink tickets and people were buying us drinks all night. I was pretty drunk by the time I left. And so was everyone else who was drinking. Around 2:30 I went back to the hostel with weber. I walked around with him for a minute and we found a bakery open so I bought some kind of pizza bread there. It wasn’t very good but I was starving so it didn’t really matter. After scarfing that down I passed out.
Day 15 -
By some act of god I actually managed to wake up when my alarm went off at 8:30. I slowly made my way into the shower and got ready. We had to get out of our hostel room by 10 so I started to wake up everyone up. Eventually everyone got going and we were out the door on time, but we had to wait around until 12 for ben to get there with the other van. Mikey and I ate some much needed breakfast at some café. They had free wifi but our laptops were locked in the truck and weber, who had the keys, was nowhere to be found. So we pretty much just stood around on the street looking dumb and feeling like shit until 11:45 when ben showed up and we took off for the airport. Check in was a breeze and everyone went up to the gate. Most people just passed out waiting to get on the plane, but of course I couldn’t sleep at all so I went and bought a new phone card and called alison. The plane trip was short and uneventful. When we got into Melbourne we all voted on going back to lord of the fries for some eats because we were all starving. It was one of the best meals of the trip. My poutine was legendary. After I ate that I got a peanut butter chocolate milk shake from the donut and ice cream shop next door that filled me up even more. Weber then took us to our new hotel which was more like an apartment. But the awesome part is that it’s inside of an old church. The inside though has been renovated into two 3-story, 3-bedroom apartments. It was fantastic. At this point it’s safe to say it was easily my favorite place we stayed at in Australia. we cleaned up a bit and Bronwyn came over with her awesome boston terrier named obo for a minute.
Church apartment in Melbourne and Obo!
Afterwards we went to see clover field, which ended up being a total disappointment. Some of the other guys hated it more than me even. I won’t get into some big long critique here, but there was just so many things I didn’t like about the movie. We took a couple of cab rides back to the apartment and went to the store across the street, which weirdly enough was called safeway. We stocked up on food because we had a full on kitchen at the apartment. I got some awesome satay flavored ramen and a few other things. After eating and writing in my journal I crashed out.
Day 16 -
I woke up and ate some of the muesli I bought at safeway. Eventually everyone stumbled to and weber picked some of us and took us to a breakfast place. I didn’t want to spend much money so I just got fries because it was the cheapest dish. I don’t know why I did that because they weren’t good and I knew I was going to be eating at lord of the fries again later in the day. Whatever. I also called alison using a new phone card I bought the day before in Sydney and my minutes got eaten up immediately. I bought it for five dollars and probably got 40 minutes talking time out of it. Total waste. After eating we went back to the apartment then cruised to bang for sound check. The place seemed so much smaller with no one in there. We took a half hour or so to sound check, then a few of us had to go back to the apartment to pick up some of matt’s stuff. He didn’t come but we made him wait in the choice parking spot we had secured out front so no one else took it. When we got back we found that matt had just left a bunch of crates in the spot to hold it, which was fine, but since he wasn’t out there we decided to fuck with him. I went inside and found him and told him weber was really mad that he had left the spot open and that he had to park somewhere else. So matt jumped up exclaiming that there was no way the parking spot could be taken. By the time he got outside and checked he realized we had pulled a fast one on him. It was pretty funny. We had about 3 hours to kill before our show so a few of us went back to lord of the fries and it was good. We walked back totally full. The show that night was fun, kids were going off, lots of stage dives. It was one of the more memorable shows for me at least. After that it was party time. Once again we had endless drink tickets. It was a lot more crowded this time though, most likely because the rain outside drove everyone inside. It was also really humid and gross. We still had a good time though. I had too many sugar drinks though so by the end of the night I had total sugar gut, it sucked. After bang we once again went to lord of the fries, and once again it was delicious. We got home and I passed out.
Day 17 -
I woke up in the morning with fortunately not much of a hangover. Weber stopped by around noon and took some people down near the water but I stayed behind to do laundry and other stuff.
Suckas at the beach.
I bought a phone card at safeway and called alison. Everyone got back soon after and we went to the liquor store to stock up on some drinks for the party we were planning that night. After that we just chilled for a while until about 7 when weber picked us up again and took us to a greek place where ben and Nigel bought us dinner. It was excellent. Definitely the best greek food I’ve ever had. We had lamb, chicken, calamari, shrimp, dolmas and a bunch of other great stuff.
Go greek.
Then we went back home and waited for all the people we had invited the night before at bang to show up. Around 10:30 a van load of about 25 people showed up. They were pretty much a bunch of dudes from perth who were on tour. They brought the party for sure. Mikey had a mini beer bong you put on beer bottles to essentially shot gun them that got put to good use. We played some drinking games, mikey and I challenged big jim and another guy to a beer pong game. We were down for a lot of it but in the end we were victorious after a great comeback and an epic final shot. Good times. After the band left we went to the casino which was absolutely ginormous. I didn’t bet anything but I just watched junior play. Friends of a girl who came out to visit matt were there too. One of them was fairly nuts, but the pit boss punked her out a few times. Pretty hilarious. When we got home I passed out right away.
Day 18 -
Everyone stumbled to in the morning, weber came and picked us all up after we checked out. We packed everything in the van, got food near the hotel and then went downtown so junior and craig could exchange some money and get travellers checks. It ended up taking awhile, so matt Jordan and I went to a star bucks where there was some kid working who knew who we were because he saw us play with silverstein the week before. After the money business was handled we went to our next hotel which was a formula 1 out by the airport. We basically checked in got settled for a bit then weber took us back to town because we were too far out to do anything fun. We first went to weber’s apartment so he could change up really quick. Then for the last time on the trip we went to lord of the fries and it was glorious. A couple girls junior had met one of the past couple nights met up with us there. I also got a donut after fries and felt like a total fatty. It ruled. Then we went down to the river for a minute and snapped a couple of pictures. I got a free visor from dudes on segue ways handing out promo stuff for garnier. It was pretty bro-riffic. Then we went to an arcade near weber’s place where we played some air hockey and basketball games to win tickets. I won 63 and got a sticky hang and a mini woopie cushion that ended up breaking a few minutes after I started using it. Then we went to the me first and the gimme gimmes show that we got into for free. It was pretty lame. They were way fucked up on stage. Bronwyn met us outside a bit later so we got to say goodbye to her. After that we went back to casino. It wasn’t long before matt and I decided we couldn’t stay awake so we walked back to the van that was parked a couple blocks away. When we got to where we thought the van was parked we couldn’t find it; we thought we took a wrong turn or maybe it was further up the street so we kept walking. We saw another van in the distance so we figured that was it but when we got to it it wasn’t. we walked back again by where we thought it was and I noticed broken glass on the ground. We started to get pretty worried, so we looked around the corner and went a bit up the street to make sure the van wasn’t somewhere else then pretty much decided that it had indeed been stolen. We went back to the casino to get weber and everyone else and then came back with them. Weber confirmed it was gone. He called the cops and they came and he filled out a report. There wasn’t much else we could do but go back to the casino and catch a cab to the hotel. It was kind of a lame way to have to say goodbye to weber but that’s how it goes. Kind of a lame way to end such an awesome trip too. Fortunately all of our stuff was back at the hotel so nothing major got stolen of our’s except for matt’s ipod, which still definitely sucks. We took a cab back to the hotel and I conked out.
Day 19 -
We woke up pretty early in the morning to go to the airport. We were just going to walk there because it was literally a block away so we grabbed a bunch of carts to put our luggage on. We grabbed one that was sitting right outside the lobby and german lady appeared out of nowhere and yelled at us because it was her’s. she tried putting her bags on the thing but her hands were full so craig helped her out a bit by moving the cart towards and she just snapped at him. He told her he was just helping her and all she could say was “oh, well I’m not used to people being nice in this country.” seems pretty weird, I met nothing but nice people in Australia. We made the trek over to the airport and got all our stuff checked in with not much difficulty. We got to the gate and waited. Our boarding had come and gone and the gate people made no mention about boarding the plane. A little while later they said the flight was delayed because of maintenance issues so they gave everyone who was on the flight free 6 dollar food vouchers for the café in the terminal. Another hour went by and they announced again the repair crew couldn’t fix the plane but they’d have it done soon. So we waited. For another hour. Then they announced again we were still delayed so they gave us 14 dollar vouchers this time. After another hour they finally told everyone on the flight to come to the gate. They said the maintenance crew couldn’t fix the problem so the flight was cancelled. Instead they were going to redirect us to Sydney where we would hop on a plane to Tokyo. What a pain in the ass. They told us customs knew we were going back through so it wouldn’t be a problem, except that when we got back to customs they told us we couldn’t do it. So we go back to the gate and ask what the deal was and they told us we had to go downstairs through the other customs checkpoint. Thanks for making that clear, Qantas. They told us our luggage would be at carousel 3 but only half of our stuff came out there. Then some other Qantas lady tells us the rest of the luggage is waiting near carousel 4. Thanks again. They had told us to go to check in counter 41 and 42 to check in for the Sydney flight but we get there and they had no idea what we were talking about. We finally found where to go on our own. Thanks one more time Qantas. We spent another few hours in the Melbourne airport and then flew to Sydney where we spent another 3 hours. Fortunately there was another 15 dollar voucher waiting for us there. We got some pretty good noodle food. We boarded the flight around 9:30 at night. The flight was pretty boring, I got a little sleep but not very much. We arrived in japan around 6 in the morning.
Crashed out at the Melbourne airport.
Day 20 -
Customs was easy as shit in japan. No hassles whatsoever. We were greeted by bruce pahey, the guy who put out syg’s record in japan. He’s aussie so it was weird being in japan and hearing more Australian accents. He was also with uchu, who plays drums in endzweck and organized all the shows we played and tomo, a chill dude. A few of the guys went with bruce in his car, matt, mikey joe and I crammed into uchu‘s van with all the bags. We all had to sit across the bench seat and it was so uncomfortable. Not to mention hot because we all threw on our jackets while we waited for uchu to pull the van up. The van ride was super long because there was so much traffic once we got into Tokyo. It took about two hours for us to get to our hotel and my nuts were dying from being scrunched together.
View from our hotel room…cold and snowy outside.
Our hotel was alright though, me craig and mikey split a room. Friends of Jordan’s family from Japan had sent him a greeting gift of huge strawberries and a large bottle of sake. We also were given kimonos and slippers in our hotel to use during our visit. Pretty sweet.
Sake, kimonos and really huge strawberries.
I tried taking a nap for an hour or so but it wasn’t really happening. I took a shower and went out with craig and joe to try and find an atm and some food but none of the atm’s around would take my card, and no food places would take my card. Plus it was cold as shit and snowing so we weren’t having it. But I did enjoy walking around because it honestly felt like I was in some other dimension. Being around all the bright neon signs and Japanese writing was just crazy. Plus there were people everywhere. But I liked it, it was an intense energy. But without food or cash all we could do was go back to the hotel and wait for someone to show us what was up. A couple hours later graham pahey and yuta met us in the lobby and took us to the show via the subway. We caught the train at Shinjuku station which apparently is the busiest subway station in the world. There were seriously people everywhere it was intense. We took the train a few stops away to harajuku station. We walked down a small but busy street packed with shoe and clothing stores and awesome looking crepe stops. But since I had no cash on me all I could do was grow hungrier.
Harajuku.
We were about to get to the show when we ran into paul and shane from silverstein, who had been in japan for the last week. They were actually fairly stoked to see us, so it was a nice feeling to see someone familiar. We went into the club and saw the rest of the silverstein guys, who were also stoked to see us. Then we sound checked and after that yuta took mikey and I to get to cash and sushi. We ate at this great cheap place that just had the sushi going around on a track that you just pick what you want from. It was great. Definitely hit the spot.
Sushi!
After that we went back to the club and chilled until we played. It was pretty fun, there were a few people who knew our stuff. After we played I drank some beers backstage, then after silverstein’s set we said goodbye to them and took off. We walked back to harajuku station, but on the way there we were behind some girls who were at the show. They noticed us so they took us into this place that had a ton of photo booths. We all crammed into a decent sized one and took a bunch of pictures with them and some other dudes. It was pretty funny. Graham and bruce were getting a kick out of it.
When we got back to Shinjuku they took us to this restaurant that had karaoke. It was a total party that night. We downed ridiculous amounts of saki, ate some great Japanese food and had a blast singing karaoke. Tome, one of the guys with us, a big awesome Japanese dude, was easily bringing the party the most. He was double fisting this crazy looking drinks, including this bright blue drink called titanics. The dude was off the chain. We sang a slew of songs, like message in a bottle, since you’ve been gone, toto’s Africa, and tome’s favorite glycerin. It was a great night. Whoever was drinking was epicly drink. We pretty much agreed it was at that point the greatest night of tour. We walked back to the hotel and we passed out.
Karaoke awesomeness.
Day 21 -
I woke up not too hungover, but super hungry. I took a shower, and matt, mikey, Jordan and I went to find the train station to take us to harajuku again. We totally got lost though. After 20 minutes or so of not knowing where the fuck to go I was getting annoyed and really really hungry. Finally we just said fuck it and ate at a sushi place in the Shinjuku area. It was pretty awesome. I ate a ton of sushi for about 11 bucks. Good times.
Matt, Jordan and I walking around Shinjuku and our sushi feast.
After that we had more time to kill before lobby call so we just putzed around. We went to a 7-11 to experience that, and it was quite an experience. Totally different. All sorts of fresh foods and weird candies. After that we went to an arcade. Mikey and I played one of those time based music games like guitar hero but it was on these huge conga drums. It was pretty fun. Inside mikey played a game similar to the games where you try to drop coins in front a little bar that tries to push them down into a hole, but it was with candy instead, and you try to knock over a huge stack of candy. Mikey was trying to knock down a stack of apple and green tea kit kats. (kit kats in other countries are way better than those in the US I’ve decided. So many different and better flavors.) after putting in seven or eight coins he finally managed to knock a bunch off, but they went into the little revolving moat of candy. Eventually it caused a back up and all the candy stopped, while the little track they were on kept going. Other people playing couldn’t play, so a lady who worked there had to come over and unclog the river. It was pretty funny. We then walked back to the hotel. Yuta took us to the show that night which was at a little place called the wall. It was a bit smaller than westcoast worldwide. We sound checked and then walked around up the street. A few of us went to McDonald’s, which was actually fairly decent. I had a cheeseburger with egg and bacon on it. It wasn’t too bad. After that we stopped in an am/pm, which are everywhere in Tokyo and bought some cool Japanese snacks. Then we walked back to the club right in time for the first band, cleave who was not too bad. Kind of melodic hardcore. I finally got to see endzweck too, who really impressed me. I had heard them on cd before but didn’t really catch on. But seeing them live definitely won me over. A few other bands played then it was our turn at the end. It was a great set. Pretty much everyone was going off for us. Easily one of the funnest on tour so far.
Backstage.
After that we took pictures with a bunch of people and I got to meet miyumi, a girl from japan who the guys were telling me about. She’s pretty much set your goal’s number one fan because she’s flown out to California from japan twice to see them. She was with her friend miko, and both of them were really awesome. Totally friendly. We just shot the shit with them and a bunch of other people before making the trek all the way from the show back to the hotel because by this time it was past midnite and the trains had stopped running. At this point my legs and feet had given up all hope of rest. I think I was running solely on will. A few of the guys took off for mcd’s again but graham, yuta and tome took us to a great noodle spot. I ordered just a basic udon noodle bowl that came with some tofu. You have the option to order with 1, 2 or 3 servings of noodles for no additional price so I got 3. The bowl came and it was no joke the biggest bowl of udon noodle soup I had ever seen. I knew there was no way I’d finish it. It also didn’t help that at this point I was getting a bit sick, and had sore throat and tongue so I hurt to eat. It wouldn’t have mattered either way though because this thing was so ginormous and unbeatable. I ate what I could and we called it a night.
Epic udon.
Day 22 -
We woke up, showered, went downstairs and checked out. The hotel was cool enough to hold onto our big baggage until we came back in a few days. We went to shibuya with graham, which is like the times square of Tokyo. It was pretty crazy, bright lights everywhere and tons and tons of people. It was also where a lot of Lost In Translation was filmed.
Shibuya.
A few of us stopped and ate at this ramen house where you order at a machine outside and they seat you inside at a counter. It was really good. After that we went to a record shop. A few of the other guys were fully caught up in record shopping so the rest of us went back to the shibuya train station to wait for miyumi and miko.
Kicking it by the dog at Shibuya station.
They showed up pretty soon, graham took off and we went back to get the other guys back at the record store. After we managed to finally pull them away from their shopping we stopped at some five story store that had a bunch of random stuff, including a bunch of cool random Japanese toys I bought for people back at home. After that we stopped at this great bubble tea and crepe joint where I got this awesome hot white chocolate milk tea. I held off of a crepe for now though.
Bubbre tea and crepes.
Then we went to a huge tower records store which was five stories high. I thought it was funny there’s not only a tower records in japan, but it was that huge. We met some kid in the store who apparently knew set your goals so we took some pictures with him. Another guy who worked there knew us and put on mutiny on the pa music.
Now playing.
Group picture in the middle of the huge intersection at Shibuya.
After that we went to harajuku. A few of us stopped at a good crepe spot. I got a banana chocolate cheesecake crepe that was pretty divine. Out on the main street there were about 7 fire trucks at one corner but there didn’t look to be much going on.
Goof.
Then we went to kiddy land, a 5 story toy store that was fucking unreal. I had never seen a bigger collection of bizarre Japanese toys. There was pretty much one floor dedicated to hello kitty stuff. I spent a ton of money on toys there for people back home. Probably too much actually. After about an hour in there we went back to the hotel to meet up with yuta and tome. Before we walked in yuta stopped us outside and told us to be a bit quiet because there were two guys talking inside who he thought were yakuza, and they were discussing some serious shit. It was pretty crazy to think about. Graham and yuta had told us how yakuza pretty much runs the country, but we didn’t think they’d show up in our hotel. At some point a bunch of other guys rushed inside to meet the other two. It was weird. Nothing happened though. After that we went to a sushi bar right down the street from the hotel and loaded up on cheap sushi. Everything at this place was 1.37, it was good times. From there we took a super long subway ride to Kawasaki.
On the train.
When we got to the hotel the first thing I noticed was the mecca of meccas, the holy of holies the one thing I had been searching for the entire I was in japan….a beer vending machine. It was like heaven had fallen to earth in this one hotel lobby for me to enjoy. I let out the biggest shout of joy ever that startled everyone in the lobby, including the rest of the band. It was great. Uchu met us there and bought me a beer. It was bliss.
The culmination of all things holy.
For another hour or so I just chilled in the lobby because there was free wifi there. Eventually I made my way back upstairs. Mikey and I checked out the bidet part of the toilet, it was pretty hilarious when it shot everywhere in the bathroom. The heater in the room sucked though, it wouldn’t fire up. It just did nothing. Except 4 hours later in the middle it just turned on out of nowhere and turned the room into an oven. I didn’t mind though because I was feeling like shit at this point.
Day 23 -
I woke up around 8 still feeling like shit. I went downstairs to check out the free breakfast. It was way Japanese….rice cakes, pickled vegetables and miso soup. My mouth was still sore and dying so I had a bit of miso then went back upstairs and cleaned up. An hour later everyone met up downstairs, checked out and took off for the show which was just 10 minutes walk away. I found our way to our dressing room (every band had their own which ruled), dropped off our stuff, then went out to get food. Mikey and I ended up going to mos burger which was alright. It was still painful to eat though. I also bought a pair of mittens for 100 yen which was nice. We went back to the venue and just sort of putzed around the rest of the night. Grabbed some free food from the show, changed strings…the usual. Our set was pretty fun, aside from the fact the amp I was using sounded like garbage. But kids were pretty into it. During the “da da da” part in echoes tons of kids swarmed the stage and were everywhere. It was awesome.
Kawasaki show during Bane.
After our set I slept a bit, then we met up with miko and mayumi again and we walked around trying to find food. We thought we had a serious time constraint so we settled on some downstairs place that was actually pretty good. Most of us got some really good seafood yakisoba.
Yakisoba and a normal Japanese cell phone. It’s got TV on it, no big deal.
After that we made our way back to the venue where we thought the bus that was going to take us through the night to Osaka would be waiting for us, but instead it wasn’t. all the other american bands were just lounging around waiting. Most of the sworn enemy guys were pretty wasted and providing plenty of entertainment for the rest of us. After a couple hours of nothing the bus finally showed up. Us, sworn enemy, bane, silent drive, misery signals and comadre all crammed in for the miserable 8 hour drive to Osaka. There was some metal box underneath the seat in front of me so I couldn’t stretch my legs out at all so I was fairly in pain. It sucked. At about 10 in the morning we arrived in Osaka tired and worn out.
The Bus of Misery.
Day 24 -
We shuffled over to the club, which was way smaller than the Kawasaki venue, threw our stuff down and ventured out for food. Most of us went to another burger place called freshness burger. It was pretty good. At this point I didn’t even care though I was so out of it. A few of us walked around a bit then went to an internet café. I got online for a minute. We found out they had showers there too so I decided I would come back after we played our set. I was feeling pretty grimey. I could barely stay awake before our set. I remember falling asleep sitting up in the chair I was in in the dressing room and someone waking me up 10 minutes before we went on. I figured I’d be dead during our set and it wouldn’t be any fun. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun and I was pretty energetic during it. But for how good our set was it was surprising we only sold 1 shirt and 5 hoodies. I can’t remember any time I was in syg that we sold that little at a show as packed as the Osaka one was. Neither could any of the other guys. Oh well. After our set I went back to the interent café, got online again for 20 minutes and then took a shower. Their shower was actually super nice. And they give you 45 minutes. That was way more than enough time. It was probably the best shower of the trip, because at that point for the first time on the tour I actually felt like I was on tour, all dirty and gross. I think the place ended up charging me more than I thought they would because it was 800 yen for the 20 minutes of internet and the shower. But I didn’t really care because that’s less than 8 dollars. Well worth it.
Supercool internet café.
I went back to the club for a minute, then ventured out to find food. Osaka was a bit less tourist friendly than Tokyo, at least the area we were in, because there were no picture menus or prices written out in English numbers like most places in the areas of Tokyo we were in. because of this I was having a hard time finding a place to eat. I went into one place asking if they at least had yakisoba and the guy, who barely understood me, said they had pad thai for 1840 yen, around 18 bucks. Yeah fuck that. I just went to the am/pm and bought some sushi, noodles and pork bun for about 800 yen. It ruled.
Weird Osaka street lights that look like people.
After the show was finally over we packed everything back to the bus. Before I got in I tried one of joe’s takoyaki, which is octopus in a bread ball. It’s supposed to be an Osaka speciality, but I thought it was kind of gross. Not the octopus part, but the texture of the ball was gross. Pretty soon everyone was on the bus and we took off for Kawasaki. The bus ride again was pretty miserable, but it felt like it was a lot shorter than the first one at least.
Day 25 -
When we arrived in Kawasaki we were informed the vans to take us back to Tokyo wouldn’t be there for another two hours so we had to kill time. Yuta took us to Jonathon’s, a Japanese denny’s-style restaurant. I had some French toast and eggs, bacon and sausage that was alright. We all just lounged around the restaurant dozing off until it was time to go. We ended up taking the subway back to Shinjuku, so I have no idea why we had to wait, but we couldn’t check back into our hotel until 12 anyways so I guess it didn’t really matter. When we got up to our hotel room I went right to sleep. I woke up a few hours later and showered. Mikey, matt and I went and took a walk. I grabbed a couple pork buns and then we went to don Quixote’s, a four story store downtown. They didn’t have much that was interesting though, except for the boob pillow that matt bought. On the way back I stopped in tons of convenient stores and bought some more toys and candy to bring home. By the time we got back to the hotel I had almost no money left.
Matt and super huge grapefruits. Yep…grapefruits.
Later in the evening graham and bruce took everyone back to that udon place. This time I had nabe udon, which was udon soup with unagi, tempura shrimp, chicken and shitake. It was really good and really filling. We went back to the hotel, took some pictures in our Japanese robes, showed off the tour video mikey made and went to bed.
Set Your Gols
Day 26 -
I woke up around 11. The day was a pretty chill one because we were going to meet up with graham and bruce around 1, so there wasn’t much to do. A few of us walked around a bit, I tried out a burger place that I promised I would try because their burgers looked good called lotteria. It was so so, the picture of the burger obviously looked way better than it really was. About 1 yuta, uchu, tome, graham and bruce showed up. We said goodbye to graham and tome, then took off for the airport. This time mikey, matt, joe and I went in bruce’s car so we weren’t so crammed together. Because it was in the afternoon there was less traffic too. We had to wait at the airport for about an hour for another driver to show up with our instruments before we could check in. we finally checked our stuff in with a minimal amount of hassle. Before we crossed the security checkpoint mayumi showed up. She works in the airport at one of the souvenir shops, but it was her day off. She gave us each some presents. We got a little bookmark, a japan pin and cool Japanese socks that have a little space for the big toe. Mine had a big dragon on it, pretty much ruled. We said goodbye to her, bruce, uchu and yuta and made our way to the gate. We had an hour or so to wait by the time there, but luckily there was a little food shop there. I wish I had more money because they had cartons of a whole bunch of different kit kat flavors, like caramel, hazelnut, strawberry, vanilla bean and cookies n cream. I envy other countries for their awesome selection of kit kats. Our boarding of the flight was delayed a bit because the plane got there a bit late. The flight itself was boring, but I had trouble sleeping. It didn’t help that they didn’t serve food until two hours into the flight and they didn’t turn the lights off so people could sleep until about six hours into the flight. By the time we landed I was dead. It wasn’t too much fun either when homeland security randomly selected me to search through my bags for a half hour, leaving everyone else and alison waiting and worrying at the exit for me. When I finally stepped through the exit doors it was a total moment of elation, both from being in the US finally and getting to see alison, I was stoked to see her I could hardly contain myself. I lept into her arms and gave her the biggest hug and kiss ever. It ruled. The end.