Yo!

Should I really start every single post talking about how I've written too many words? People keep telling me how much they love how many words I write and that I shouldn't make these any shorter. To be fair, people who think I'm writing too many words either aren't reading all my words or they're my friends and so aren't going to tell me that I've written too many words. Regardless, I'm having fun writing too many words, so I'm going to continue writing too many words. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Tokyo! A whole week in just one city! What a concept! While in Tokyo, so many things have become abundantly clear to me about Japan.

1. They are OBSESSED with Shohei Ohtani

I have seen this man play baseball once, and when he took a strike looking, I was like "hm there's no way he's actually as good as people seem to think he is" and then on the second pitch, he hit a home run. The man is undeniably one of the greatest athletes to ever live, and the Japanese worship him like he's the second coming of Christ—if Jesus could both hit dingers AND throw gas.

As I've spent time here and noticed his face in more and more places, I've begun collecting "my Ohtanis": different advertisements using his face. We've got:

Onigiri (seaweed rice balls) - this one is at almost every convenience store and there are usually 3 convenience stores on every block, so I've seen hundreds of these photos

Syncron - A sports hydration drink, which apparently he has co-developed with the company that makes it

Seiko - the most famous Japanese watch manufacturer, and these ones are both video on trains and on billboards

Kose sunscreen - this one makes so much sense, his skin is glowing

ECC - one of Japan's biggest English language schools

Oi Ocha Green Tea

dip - a HR and digital transformation company which owns some of Japan's largest job portals

Beats headphones

Sleeping mats

His own merchandise

Including a golden statue of him

And my personal favorite, Secom - a home security company.

2. They love bidets

Anybody who has known me since 2021 will know that I am a bidet evangelist. If you do not have one installed in your home, I am telling you that you must rectify that situation immediately. I have already converted dozens of people, and I have literally ordered and installed a bidet in a family friend's home without being asked to do so. Everyone has thanked me and said that the only downside is that now whenever they find themselves having to use the bathroom somewhere without a bidet, they feel unclean afterwards. So the only downside is that you'll experience a level of cleanliness that is so good and life-changing that it's impossible to go back once you start. Save money, save the earth, save yourself - get a bidet.

Anyways, the Japanese agree with me. And they have taken the bidet game to the next level. Nearly every toilet in Japan has a bidet—even on the trains, which is straight-up just them combining two of my all-time favorite things ever—and nearly every bidet is heated—both the toilet seat itself and the water it sprays—and some toilets will literally open for you and begin cleaning themselves when you walk into the bathroom. It's heaven.

3. Many of the American tourists here have terrible vibes

If you read the last blog post, you've already heard about one American tourist with terrible vibes, and there will be several more showing up later in this post :)

But many of them whom I didn't even directly interact with have abysmal vibes. I don't want to be mean, I don't want to be judgemental, and so please know that everything I'm saying has been fully corroborated by my Japanese friends already!! But there are so so many what I will (unaffectionately) call "Japan Boys."

Japan Boys are—as the name suggests—obsessed with Japan. Not every boy who is obsessed with Japan is a Japan Boy, but every Japan Boy is obsessed with Japan. You can identify a Japan Boy just by looking at him, and in the case of Japan Boys, it's okay to judge a book by its cover. Not every Japan Boy checks all of these boxes all of the time, but generally they:

• are white
• are American
• are wearing an anime-related t shirt (because they are obsessed with anime)
• have poor hygiene, which is ironic because the Japanese have excellent hygiene (see: bidets)
• have a form of facial hair that does not suit them (or anybody)
• do NOT have a healthy relationship towards Asian women. And I think every single one of them checks this box.

Unsurprisingly, there are Japan Boys everywhere in Japan.

It's also worth noting that the gender ratio of foreign tourists is unbelievably skewed, even outside of the Japan Boys. I would conservatively estimate that it's 75% male. And of the women, around half are here on couples' trips. And in about half of those couples, he's a Japan Boy.

And don't get me wrong, there are also Japan Girls! These have most of the same qualities of Japan Boys; however, instead of the facial hair they tend to have dyed hair, and instead of an unhealthy relationship towards Asian women, they're bisexual. And they're outnumbered 10-to-1 by Japan Boys.

It's become clear to me that for American people in their 20s, Japan is Boy Italy. Just like in the same way that it feels like most young women I know have taken a girls trip to Italy in the past 5 years (or desperately want to), young men are always fantasizing about a Japan boys trip. And so there are so many Japan boys trips going on in Japan right now. And so many Japan Boys.

I'm aware that it is a dangerous game for me (a young white man who loves Japan) to criticize young white men who love Japan, but if one of you calls me a Japan Boy, thems is fighting words. And I WILL use my ultimate technique!!!

4. Everybody absolutely loves Miles

Miles is one of my oldest friends time-wise and one of my youngest friends age-wise. Our families are extremely close and I have known him since he was born 19 years ago. He just graduated from high school and joined me for 9 days in Japan as part of his graduation trip.

Miles is quite simply the best guy ever, and everybody in Japan immediately picked up on this vibe and wanted to be his friend. I have never seen a man receive so many free drinks from so many people. Just wait and see.

June 22-24: Asakusa

Pradz, Lucas, Mika, Anabel, and I set off early from Uno to take the TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN WOOO LETS GO TRAIN to Tokyo. We dropped our bags at our AirBnb in Askausa—a quieter area in the eastern part of Tokyo right next to the Sumida river—and took a stroll through its main shopping street, stopping for conveyor belt sushi. This place was much smaller and featured the constant stream of sushi instead of the tap-to-order, and it was, of course, fantastic amazing delicious.

We continued to reach Senso-ji, Tokyo's oldest temple, completed in 645. The area was PACKED with tourists, and there were market stalls set up in all the blocks surrounding the temple.

Many of the tourists had rented kimonos and other traditional Japanese clothing, which as an American always makes me feel a little... "uh oh..." But Japanese people definitely don't mind, and many of them appreciate it and see it as a way of honoring their culture by wanting to engage with it. And Europeans also don't seem to care? There were many white people doing massive social-media photoshoots and it is difficult for me to imagine dressing up in this clothing and much less POSTING IT ONLINE. If I were to do this I would likely be burned at the stake in McCarren Park by well-intentioned white allies upon returning to Brooklyn. Anyways... Culture shock!

I did an omikuji-bako, which is a Japanese box full of numbered sticks that you shake until one falls out, at which point you go and receive a fortune from the box corresponding to that number. They mentioned that if you receive a bad fortune, you should tie it to a string at the temple, and it will be burned at the end of the day. There were hundreds of fortunes tied to strings all over the temple (as well as every other Japanese temple with omikuji). Thankfully, mine was just a "regular" fortune, although it came out SWINGING.

I don't have a desire to be superior to all others. I am superior to all others. Why else would I be writing thousands upon thousands of words?

Asakusa has a street that is famous for its kitchen supplies and its knives, and so I spent several hours visiting knife shops, talking to the employees to learn about all the possible choices—holy moly there are a lot of choices—and finding a knife that hit nearly all of my specifications. I also bought a whetstone for sharpening it so that I can take proper care of it and also so that I can be the most insufferable typical Brooklyn man of all time who sharpens his Japanese knife with a Japanese whetstone.

I had always said that if I could only eat one cuisine for the rest of my life, I would choose Japanese. But after being in Japan for a little over a week, I was already being put to the test. Specifically—I needed a vegetable. Like, a green, non-pickled vegetable. So badly. Everyone in the group felt similarly and so for dinner we went to a tiny, adorable Italian restaurant around the corner from our apartment. We were especially curious about it because they also advertised that they had jerk chicken, and the Japanese-Italian-Jamaican fusion was too intriguing to resist. The restaurant was adorable, run by a husband and wife, and the Caesar salad healed my body while the sweet potato gnocchi healed my soul. We asked them if they'd ever been to Jamaica, and the wife responded, "no, he just really loves Bob Marley."

We ended the night with a reservation at A10, a "listening bar" that had been recommended to Lucas. Listening bars are a huge thing in Japan, and so of course they've also become a pretty big thing in Brooklyn in the last 10 years. I don't know what exactly makes a listening bar a listening bar, but always have great sound systems and often play their music from physical media—usually vinyl, but sometimes cassettes or CDs. This bar was hidden behind a door that looked like coin lockers, which are all over the place in Japan, and a super convenient way to stash your bags at a train station if you need to run errands for a while. This door was so well disguised that Mika couldn't find the bar until we opened the door for her.

This contradicts every design principle I've read about as I get ready to open a bar, but the place was fully booked up all night so maybe I should disguise the front door to my bar as something that's all over NYC. Like a giant pile of trash bags or a dog-sized rat or a white guy telling you all about how sick listening bars are in Japan.

The bar itself was beautifully designed—dimly and intentionally lit, with an amazing display of records that curved up into the ceiling. We had to pay a "music fee" which at first I rolled my eyes about, but I had to eat my rolling eyes. Oof, mixing those idioms does NOT work. Regardless, The DJ was amazing—he was playing two records simultaneously, combining the vocals of one with the backing track of another in blends that I could never have expected to work but absolutely SLAPPED. Like reggae Amy Winehouse or baroque Nirvana.

The drinks were amazing, and while I wanted to try every single one of them, the first one I had—a mushroom/black tea old fashioned with Japanese whiskey—was the best drink I've ever had in my entire life and so I could not possibly change my mind and had 3 of them. A10? More like a 10 out of 10.

The next morning, Pradz and I walked over to the Tokyo National Museum, an enormous museum with amazing art and relics.

There was so much to see that I immediately got overwhelmed and hungry, and spent a long while sitting in the garden out back before we walked to meet Lucas for eel bowls nearby and begin our shopping hunt. Lucas had his eye on a very specific Seiko watch, and I had my eye on a not-so-specific Seiko watch, meaning I was going to do some research and suss out some options and maybe get one. At the first shop we stopped at, there was one that caught my eye—it was a bit above my budget, but still a great deal on a great watch, so I took note of it before we went to a massive shopping mall that is a hub for watch dealers. The one from the first shop was still the best one I had seen, so I headed back there to buy it—only to discover that it had been bought in the 83 minutes that I was gone. Devastating. I guess the lesson is to trust your gut and go for the things you want immediately. Shoot first, ask questions later.

JUST KIDDING!!! The next morning, I found a watch that I liked SO much more and that was half of the price of the watch that was snatched up AND IS SOLAR POWERED WHICH I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW EXISTED. So the real lesson is it will all be okay chill out dude, ask a lot of questions before you start shooting.

We went to a yakiniku (Japanese bbq) spot that Lucas's Chinese friend had recommended, saying that he eats there 3 times a week when he's in Japan. Which seems excessive, although it was fantastic and so I couldn't really blame him. This place used a charcoal grill on top of the table and had "the world's best lemon sour" according to Lucas's friend and also according to me.

We ended the night with a drink at Golden Gai. Golden Gai is one block in Shinjuku with 6 alleys containing over 200 bars, each of which holds only 5-10 people.

We wandered the streets, poking our heads into a bunch, before finally deciding on one that advertised a good Japanese whiskey selection where we had to climb a staircase that was essentially a ladder to enter. We ordered three different whiskey styles, which we passed around in a circle taking sips. It was delightful and relaxed, although clearly it got rowdy on the weekends—the bar had photos on the walls of people who had stolen drinks along with personal roasts of each of them. My favorite was describing a group of young brits who had stolen three full bottles of whiskey as "low-intelligence mammals." Fair... But at the end of the day, aren't we all?

The next day, I bopped around to a few shops to get some iconic Japanese souvenirs: the previously mentioned Seiko watch, a pair of Japan Blue Jeans, some Onitsuka Tigers (sneakers), every single Japanese flavor of Kit Kat, and a suitcase to hold everything. As I exited the Don Quijote with some of my purchases, I noticed a trio of Buddhist monks coming out of the mall across the street empty-handed and it was maybe the most perfect symbolic representation of Japan possible; on the same block, you have the most chaotic and overwhelming store where displays are literally screaming at you to buy things, and you have a temple and people who have devoted their life to the pursuit of desiring nothing. Of course, as an American, I knew which side I was gonna be on. USA! USA! USA!

Miles arrived that evening and met me at our hostel. We grabbed convenience store beers and walked around the closed Senso-ji Temple drinking them. He was ecstatic to experience the beauty of a country without open container laws for the first time. I quickly Googled to make sure that I was correct that this was true in the entire country and not just Osaka as we walked past a police box. It would have been really fun to explain to his parents how I got him arrested in under 2 hours in Japan.

He was exhausted after 24 hours of travel, and the rest of my friends were heading out the next morning, so we had an easy night—wagyu burgers, a few lemon sours (not as good as "the world's best"), and some fond goodbyes.

June 25 - 26: Kuramae

The first entry in my notes of what I was up to on the 25th says "Body Bag for Miles." I have no idea what this means anymore and Miles asked if I had planned to murder him when I asked him if he knew what it meant. Best blogger ever, keep up the good work Jamie.

But Miles slept for 11 hours and woke up ready to take on Tokyo. We were staying in an area called "Kuramae", which is known as "Tokyo's Brooklyn"—probably because it's immediately surrounded by very busy metropolitan areas, but is much quieter. However, I didn't see any men wearing crop tops or any gorgeous women holding hands with men who look like a fantasy creature that works at a tavern, so I think the nickname's not quite right.

It began raining quite a bit, but we headed into Harajuku to meet up with Kay, an old friend of Miles's from Boston who has been living in Tokyo for 5 years. We asked him for advice on what to do on a rainy day in Tokyo—since we were about to have quite a few of those—and he recommended "Round One Spocha." We headed right there.

This was an arcade that took up nearly an entire two floors and the roof of the largest shopping mall I've ever been to. In addition to basic arcade games, they had pool tables, darts, karaoke, batting cages, basketball courts, a mechanical bull, go karts, dirt bikes, and roller skating—just on the inside area. I think they had tennis courts and a soccer field on the roof, which was closed because rain. We spent three hours hopping from activity to activity. Thank you, Kay!!!

I learned that even though I had been collecting Ohtanis all over town, his baseball prowess had not worked his way into my body as I immediately struck out on the slowest pitch version of the batting cages.

Miles lasted so short of a time on the mechanical bull that I was unable to get a video, just the aftermath. Maybe that's what "body bag" meant.

That night, I decided to show Miles the best parts of Tokyo. By which I mean Don Quijote, Sushiro, and Golden Gai. At Don Quijote, he refused to buy a maid costume that I know would have really complemented his figure, and then at Sushiro he ate an amount of sushi that probably put the fear of God into all the Japanese people around us. Or the fear of Americans at the very least.

At our first Golden Gai bar, we got to know some Air Force guys who were hoping to get trapped in Japan by the "double typhoon" that was supposed to land on Saturday. They told us war stories—well, they were cargo pilots, so not like war war—including their flight to Japan in which one of their radars told them that they were aiming towards the ground while the other one said that they were level and the time that one of them had flown from Germany to Africa to pick up someone that turns out did not actually exist. So when you pay your taxes, just know that they money is being spent efficiently and on the most crucial and important things possible.

We were wandering the alleys looking for another spot, when some rowdy guys and their bartender waved us into another place. The guys were three solo travelers who had just met—an Irish guy, a French Canadian, and a Texan. The Texan took up approximately 1/3 of the bar with his enormous muscles, and within 10 minutes we learned that he was "20" years old—he was definitely 18—that he drove a sports car, that his dad worked in Private Equity and so would he, that he had broken weightlifting records in Texas for his height (5'8"), and that he would be a professional bodybuilder in addition to working in Private Equity. He explained to us exactly which steroids and peptides he was taking and asked if we'd seen the "Tren Twins"—who he described as one of his biggest influences—around Japan because they were here at the same time as him. He asked the bartender whether Japanese women prefer big strong guys or skinny guys and he did an amazing job of mostly hiding the heartbreak in his eyes when she said "skinny strong." Not a Japan Boy, but abysmal vibes regardless.

At our next spot, we met a 40-year-old he/they Texan-Californian traveling Japan with his boyfriend. The boyfriend said approximately 4 words the entire time we were there. The talkative guy (like everyone else in Japan) was obsessed with Miles, bought him a drink, and threatened to take him back home to California with him. His boyfriend sighed and drank more and we quickly skeddadled.

The next morning, we woke up early-ish to catch the irrelevant USA-Turkey World Cup game, which was the only one that had been at a convenient time so far. We went to HUB—a British pub chain—figuring that there would be a lot of people watching there since it was one of the few spots in the area open and showing it. When I spotted a line/crowd outside, I knew we'd made the right choice and it was going to be a rowdy and fun morning, only to discover that the line was to take photos with a cardboard cutout of a group of anime girls who HUB was doing a collaboration with. We headed inside to watch with a sparse crowd, while outside hundreds (not an exaggeration) of Japanese people walked up to the cardboard cutouts for photos over the course of the game.

Since it was a rainy day, I figured the perfect thing to do would be to walk 28000 steps outside. So we walked to the Imperial Palace, only to find that it was closed—although still impressive from the outside.

Then we walked around Japanese parliament, which we also couldn't go inside of, until we came to Santuario Hie. This was a beautiful and very randomly located shrine, which was also mostly outdoors. And it was still raining and starting to rain even harder.

We walked towards the baseball stadium, since we had tickets for the Yakult Swallows game that evening. We ended up there 2 hours before the game was set to start, but the place was already packed with fans buying merch and food. We learned that it was "Ladies Day", which meant that they were selling special pink jerseys, would be handing out special t-shirts to the first few thousand people to show up (hence all the early arrivals), and also had done a promotional photoshoot of the best players on the team dressed for the female gaze—meaning sparkly and wearing blue jeans and white t shirts.

I bought a jersey for Tsubakuro—the Swallows' mascot who wears 2896 because apparently that's a pun in Japanese (I don't get it)—and couldn't wait to get into the stadium. It was still raining, but not too hard, and the Swallows fans are famous for the "umbrella dance", where all the fans open umbrellas and pump them up and down to music, so I figured the weather was sorta appropriate. Then there were several announcements in Japanese and all the food and merch stands began closing, but nobody was leaving and everyone seemed pretty happy, so I was very confused to discover that the game had been canceled due to rain. I'm so used to America where people would at best be loudly complaining and at worst literally burning the entire city to the ground—shoutout Philadelphia sports. So the fact that these people didn't even shrug their shoulders, just accepted that this is how it was and went about their day was a true culture shock moment.

Miles and I went back to our hostel to dry off and then decided we'd try something new tonight. Psych! We ran it back with sushi and Golden Gai. Look, sometimes you gotta play the hits. But also my friend Aintzane happened to be in Japan at the same time as us and so we'd met up with her for the night and she hadn't done either of these things yet and was leaving soon. Plus, there are over 200 bars in Golden Gai so even though it was my third time going, I'd seen less than 2% of it when you really think about it.

We traded off choosing bars to pop into, which is a really fun way to spend a night and also takes away group-decision-paralysis.

First, we went to a place that featured Habu-shu: rice liquor with Habu snake extract and herbs, featuring a snake soaking in the jar. His name was Habutaro and when I pointed him out to Miles (after he had already drank the shot), he said "wait—I just drank that!?" I love influencing the youths.

Next up, we went to a place with a massive turquoise wall that was completely empty except for the two bartenders. We were chatting amiably when all of our phones let out horrible screams. Unlike in Okinawa, the emergency alert was translated so I was aware that an earthquake was coming approximately 15 seconds before the entire room began shaking. Miles and I looked like we were going to lose our Habu-shu, while Aintzane (who is from Chile) and the bartenders rolled their eyes and said "ah, okay, just a baby one." Yeah, totally. Just the entire earth shaking and grumbling for thirty seconds. Totally, yeah, just a baby magnitude 5.6 earthquake. Yep. For sure.

Aintzane's friend Caro who's working in Tokyo on a 3-month program came to join us, and we continued on to a beautiful upstairs bar that made their own yuzu sours from fresh juice, which were phenomenal. I don't mean to gatekeep these places, but I also couldn't possibly keep track of each individual bar at Golden Gai, and I'm not sure that all of them even have names. Sorry! But honestly, most of the fun of Golden Gai is picking random spots and popping in for 1-2 drinks before hitting another spot. So if you go, just do that!!

At our last bar (4 people, 4 choices), we were greeted by Tadao, the young bartender who was very drunk and very strange—he showed us how a stuffed kangaroo would have sex with the stool he was sitting on, he showed us a stuffed cat that had "committed suicide," and continued to make approximately 245 suicide jokes over the course of the next hour. I'm guessing part of this is a cultural difference—suicide has traditionally been a more acceptable part of Japanese culture, versus in the West where it's traditionally been considered a sin and unacceptable. I'm currently reading Shogun by James Clavell to understand a bit more of Japanese tradition and culture, and I would say that more than half of the dialog is essentially "oh my god I'm so sorry I accidentally used the wrong word when referring to you. Please let me kill myself as soon as possible. PLEASE." One of historians' major criticisms of the book is the frequency with which characters request and actually do commit suicide, but talking to Tadao, you'd think the book was dead-on.

Miles had to use the bathroom, and this bar did not have one—most of them in Golden Gai do, they're just so small that your knees are usually touching the door as you use it, but they STILL ALL HAVE BIDETS LETS GOOO. Tadao said there was one 100 meters down the street, and so Miles stepped out and disappeared for 25 minutes. Thankfully, I had his location, so knew he was still in Golden Gai, and when he came back, he said that he had been taken all the way to the bathroom by one of the guys hanging around the entrance to Golden Gai whose jobs are to connect tourists with local sex workers. You know that this is their jobs because they start shouting it at you as soon as you get in shouting distance of them. He was barking up the wrong tree with Miles, obviously. When Miles tried to come back, he had accidentally walked into the wrong bar, where a group of Italian rugby players had bought him two drinks. Like I said—everybody loves Miles.

We decided to end the night with karaoke in Shinjuku. Instead of a private room, we went to a nearby lively karaoke bar, where the presence of two women made the American men in there do double and triple takes and immediately come over to us. And immediately buy Miles—and only Miles(?)—a drink. They were from Michigan and Texas—the Texan's shirt was literally just the Texas flag—one of them was a certified Japan Boy, and the other one began telling Miles that he NEEDS to go to Osaka because the girls there are so much better than the girls in Tokyo, at which point he pulled out his phone to show Miles photos of him making out with various sex workers. Miles looked wildly uncomfortable, and as soon as the guy left our table, he shouted "WHY DOES EVERYBODY HERE THINK I WANT A PROSTITUTE!?"

The American Trio departed pretty soon after we arrived, meaning we had the bar essentially to ourselves except for one older Japanese man sitting alone at the bar. This meant we could choose our karaoke songs (Chappell Roan, Abba, etc.)

instead of the American Trio's songs (Radiohead, Pearl Jam, etc.)

Miles left to go to the bathroom, and Aintzane took this video of us singing, but more importantly, Miles's interaction with the lone Japanese man at the bar as he returned. I'll let it speak for itself.

June 27-28: Shibuya

The next morning, we moved to our next hotel: a "capsule hotel" in Shibuya. Capsule hotels are a common Japanese style of hotel in which you don't get a room, you just get a "capsule." Typically, these are tiny, like the body drawers in a morgue or a deep sleep chamber in a sci-fi movie, but ours was a little boujier. Your "room" still consists solely of a bed protected by a screen, but it was a sizeable bed that could recline or sit up, and you had a full ceiling above you.

Shibuya is the busiest area of Tokyo. It's famous for "Shibuya Crossing", which is the busiest intersection in the world. Each time the light turns green for the pedestrians, up to 3000 people swarm into the middle—usually with an influencer or two leading the pack with their cellphone or 360 camera filming.

Today was the day everyone had been talking about—the "double typhoon" was coming. Two typhoons hitting Tokyo simultaneously, a storm of epic proportions. We bundled up in our rain gear, took to the streets ready to scream in the face of mother nature like we had the day before. GIVE US YOUR WORST!!!!

The typhoons didn't make landfall. It rained less than it had the previous day, just drizzling for a few hours. You probably could have played baseball in it. Not that I'm bitter.

We had some fantastic truffle ramen from a fancy food court and explored the enormous 8-story "hands" department store. Like Don Quijote, it also appeared to sell everything that exists, but unlike Don Quijote, you did not feel like you were on crack while you were inside of it.

We strolled over to Yoyogi Park, a massive park that houses many of the stadiums that Japan used to host the 2020 Olympics, and the nearby Meiji Jingu Shrine.

This was an enormous Shinto shrine that you walked through a gorgeous and spooky forest to reach. The path contains a massive display of sake barrels, each painted differently, which are given as an offering every year by major sake producers to pray for a bountiful and tasty production.

At night, we met up with my friends Kat and Yuka, a couple who are living in Japan for the summer. Yuka is originally from Japan and was curious about what it's like visiting as a white, American tourist and what the people I've met are like. After a few stories, she and Kat immeidately understood the vibes and heartily assured me that I am not a Japan Boy. PHEW.

We had massive eel bowls before heading to a reservation that I'd made and done my best to keep secret from Miles until tonight: the Muscle Girls bar.

The name is pretty self-explanatory, but this is a themed bar where each bartender is a Muscle Girl. It is all-you-can-drink for 80 minutes and the muscle girls put on a SHOW. They begin by making their "signature cocktail"—which involves crushing a grapefruit with their bare hands. Ren, our party's dedicated muscle girl, insisted that it had to be done directly onto my head, although this was certainly not the case for other parties. We quickly came to learn that Ren is a bit of a sadist and is absolutely in the right line of work.

You could pay "muscle dollars" for extra treats from the muscle girls—including slaps...

piggyback squats

and "honeymoon poses."

Kat and Yuka earned us extra muscle dollars by doing 50 chest presses, while Miles and I failed to reach the required amount and were mercilessly (and fairly) berated by Ren.

When we left, I was sore, giddy, and so sticky from the grapefruit juice.

Like the Taiwanese toilet restaurant—you simply must go if you are ever in Japan, and I have no plans or desire to do that ever again.

We ended the night at "Nightfly", a very cool listening bar in the area where the owner would let you choose records off the wall from his enormous collection, and he would spin a song from them for you (if you picked a song/record that he liked). It was only slightly mellower than our previous stop.

The next morning, Miles and I explored Shimokitazawa, a very trendy neighborhood known for its vinyl and vintage clothing shops. This felt more like I was back in Brooklyn, because everyone was dressed so stupidly but simultaneously so fashionably. For example, I bought a trenchcoat made out of denim because I was unaware that that was an article of clothing that existed and I know that it will make people in Bushwick's eyes pop out of their heads when I get back. I also bought way too many vinyl records because the Japanese pressings of records are famous for being high quality, they were way cheaper than buying vinyl in the US, and I am a pretentious douchebag who loves physical media and has minimal self-control. A low-intelligence mammal, one might say.

We stopped back at the capsule hotel to drop our stuff off and get changed, and in the elevator a woman looked at me, pointed directly in my face, and shouted "HANDSOME!" I'm not sure what it is about Japan—I'm guessing that most of the Americans here make me look very good by comparison because I shower daily—but I can't believe this happened twice in two weeks. This time, I was way more prepared, and so I handled it perfectly. I bowed and said "arigato gozaimasu" ("thank you very much" in Japanese). This is when she informed me that she was from Hong Kong.

Miles and I walked to a music venue around the block for a concert Kay had gotten us tickets for (because you needed a Japanese phone number to buy them). It was for a somewhat-underground Japanese rapper named "CAMPANELLA". There was only one other non-Japanese person in the sold-out 500 person room, and it was one of the coolest concerts I'd ever been to in my life.

Before the concert started, it was bizarre how quiet the room was. People were talking at a respectful volume and I understood what Yuka had meant about "American decibels" in our conversation about tourists. When CAMPANELLA came onstage, everyone respectfully clapped, with only a few cheers. It was the most respectful crowd I'd ever been a part of in my life—and we were at a rap show. The only other rap show I've been to in my life was BROCKHAMPTON in 2018—shoutout rappers with uppercase names I guess—and the crowd was so insane I thought I might get trampled to death when they just walked onstage. Here, I was worried that if I cheered too loudly I would cause a scene.

CAMPANELLA did his show with his regular DJ onstage the whole time, and he brought on guest act after guest act to do songs with him that they had been featured on in his latest album, or their songs that he had been featured on. I don't think these names will mean anything to anybody reading this unless somehow you are big into underground Japanese rap, but each of them and their corresponding vibe was:

• Chinza Dopeness - a skinny guy with bleached blonde hair and so much energy that I did a triple take when I found out he was 45 years old. One of the songs featuring him uses the word "Shinkansen" (bullet train) several times so I was automatically obsessed with him because YEAH TRAINS

• C.O.S.A. - a large guy with a deep voice. One of his songs features the only line I was able to sing along to: "Five Four Three Two One" (in English)

• Daichi Yamamoto - a black Japanese guy who everyone in the crowd seemed obsessed with—to be fair there are so so so few of those—and whose name appears in tons of songs that he's not even featured on. Or maybe they just really like talking about the bases of mountains (which is the translation of "Yamamoto")

• KID FRESINO - a skinny guy who both mixed beats live onstage and rapped. He was remarkably charismatic and talented when a song was playing and he had something to do, and then remarkably awkward afterwards.
• Senninsho - a skinny guy (okay, yeah, look, there were a lot of skinny guys) who was a great rapper and did a long riff/banter session with CAMPANELLA in between songs where they definitely talked about beer ("biru"), but that's the only word I picked up on. The crowd was laughing, though!
• STUTS - an adorable man who I thought was younger than me and now know is 37 years old. Similarly, he mixed many beats live onstage and then would switch over to rapping. The women in the crowd LOVED him, and he was cute and shy and demure until he got on the mic and proceeded to absolutely spit

The crowd went NUTS for one song that featured nearly all of them onstage simultaneously, but when I say went NUTS, I mean respectfully cheered and clapped and bounced their hands up and down to the music. People here are so goddamn polite it seriously rules.

We finished the night off with all you can eat yakiniku because I thought Miles, being a 19 year old boy, would go feral on AYCE meat. I was 100% correct.

WELLL here we are again. I'm not even going to apologize for the length this time!!!

Just kidding. The Japanese are so polite and apologize for literally everything so I'm taking a cue from them and saying SORRY SORRY I'M SORRY!! IT WILL DEFINITELY HAPPEN AGAIN!!!

This one at least was shorter than the last one and covers more days!! So efficiency-wise, I'm doing WAY better! But yeah, I'm aware that I'm falling farther and farther behind schedule since this was all 2.5 weeks ago now... Yeesh. My manager (me) needs to be more inspiring and then maybe I'll write faster.

Love you!!! Thanks for reading!!! See you in Kyoto!!!