Alright, here we go. Let's get the Tokyo blog over with. Bunch of pictures up top followed by a few videos. All of the videos are from the Shibuya intersection, which is the largest in the world, according to my research. I had made a great video, but Bender deleted it. That may be because the video was of him getting dressed after he got out of the shower. I know it would have been a huge hit with my female readers, but he's too bashful.

I stayed up all night on Friday since we had to be for the flight on Saturday at 5am and my usual bedtime on a Friday is closer to 8am. Grabbed a "Massive" at McDonalds, one of three trips for the weekend, and hopped the bus to the airport. We got there a solid 2 hours ahead of the flight, which was fine, because the Seoul airport is absolutely the nicest place in the city. I bought some ice cream from Baskin Robbins at 7:30 am, which disgusted Bender, but it was necessary at the time. Popped a xanax for the flight and went off to la-la land for a few hours.

The Tokyo airport is also way to far away from the center of the city. We were on the train for a good hour and a half to get to our hostel. The first thing you notice about Tokyo is how damn clean the place is. There is no garbage anywhere. In fact, there aren't even trash cans anywhere, which proved to be a pain in the ass at times. The 6-person mixed dorm at the hostel wasn't as eventful as I expected it to be. We met some Indian guy right when we got there and that was basically all the interaction we had with the people in there. Besides on Saturday night when both Bender and I knocked on the door at different times, waking up the same European guy, who didn't seem too pleased. We only had one key, though. Bender had it in his pocket and still knocked on the door so I blame him on that one.

The best night of the trip was Saturday, by far, so it kind of setup the rest of our time there are a bit of a let down. We smuggled five bottles of soju into Japan, and that saved us hundreds. We drank a couple of bottles on Saturday in the hostel lobby, where a Korean guy warned us that we should be eating spicy food while drinking it. Man, he so doesn't know us. We went out with a couple girls who we met in the lobby and then were all over the place with a whole bunch more random peeople. Great time, though the night did end terribly. Bender disappeared and I ended up leaving this club with a Korean girl. She was absolutely the worst Korean I've ever met. How ironic I met her in Tokyo. First we went to Starbucks, I guess she was thirsty. I don't even remember what she was talking about, I just know it was god awful. The subway finally opened back up and I sat there wondering how I got myself into that situation. Once again, I blame Bender. He was probably passed out in an alley somewhere. So me and dumb bitch get to the hostel stop and at this point, it's pouring. Then we got lost. By the time I finally made it back to my room, I was soaked. We saw the Korean girl in the hostel lobby again on Monday and Bender got to see first hand the incredibly moronic behavior I was abused with on Saturday.

Woke up at 2pm on Sunday, popped another xanax, which was probably a mistake. I'm generally a lazy guy, so self-medicating with something that makes me want to sit down a lot and pretend I'm on a cloud, while on vacation, not a smart mix. Hmm, I don't really remember what we did during the day on Sunday. Also pretty terrible. Maybe we walked around somewhere. That night was about as weak as it gets. We went to all of the foreigner hotspots and even paid $20 to go about 2 miles in a cab, and nothing. Just nobody out. The most exciting part of the night was running up and down these outdoor escalators in the wrong direction. We also ate McDonalds twice that night. That captures the night pretty well.

Woke up at 3pm on Monday. Really when it comes down to it, it was a typical weekend for us, just in a different country. The only thing I'd change about it would be Sunday night. I had no problem with not hitting many of the touristy attractions. Yeah, they might be good for taking a few pictures, but otherwise I find most of them a waste of time and money. Just walking around the city Monday night and taking it all in, that's enough for me.

Since we needed to be once again at 5am for the flight back to Seoul on Tuesday and because we didn't have an alarm clock, we stayed up all night on Monday, playing games in the hostel lobby. Bender kicked my ass in chess. I continued to beat him at Life. Around 4am we tried to go to Denny's but they were closed, which was complete B.S. But we ended up going to a better story. Walked into this empty place with bar-like seating. We sat down and the one guy working there just pointed towards the window. We thought he was pointing at the menu hanging on the window, but in fact, it was towards a vending machine. All the foods were listed on it like a bunch of candy bars. We were a bit afraid to use it because we didn't know if soup and crap was going to come flying out of the opening. That didn't happen. We just put money in and got a ticket for what we wanted and then handed it to the guy. Can't say I understand the point of the food vending machine, but I don't think I'm supposed to.

Tuesday may have been the worst day of my life. I knocked myself out on the plane again, but then on the bus from the Seoul airport to work, I woke up in a stupor and got off the bus at the wrong stop. Thankfully the driver knew I was an idiot and directed me to get my ass back on the bus. I actually got to work on time at 2pm, but I kind of wish i had been at least an hour late. I'm not sure what i did with my classes on tuesday. I think I taught for 5 minutes and then gave them a deck of cards and told them to leave me alone. One student asked me why we were stopping so early, I told him it was because his teacher was very tired and he didn't feel like standing anymore. He understood.

A few more observations on the trip: Korean girls remain the hottest of all the slanty-eye races. Bender's mind got corrupted in Japan because he thinks he saw a ton of hot Japanese girls, but I'm pretty sure most of those girls were either just not attractive or Korean girls on vacation. I'll agree with Bender that i think Seoul is better than Tokyo, but at the same time, i know I think that only because I've been here almost five months now and there's just a certain comfort level with Korea now. If I was teaching English in Tokyo or Shanghai and I took a trip to Seoul, I'm sure I would find this place pretty repulsive. Seoul is filthy, the entire city smells bad, people spit all over the place, nobody can walk in a straight line, but the place has got character and that, above all, makes it pretty damn cool to live here. As will be evidenced tomorrow on Club Night when I'll be on top of the world once again. And hopefully not on top of Bender.