After a challenging week, DL and I headed to Shinjuku on Saturday, as the boss was in town for the weekend. He wanted to have dinner with us and some other business associates/friends. He invited our co-workers, who backed out at the last minute. Perhaps it was because the weather was so bad-the rain was coming down, and the temperature dropped to the low 50’s-or they don’t like us. Either way, we aimed to have some fun. We ended up at a yakiniku place. Korean style. The beef was exceptional, marbled, thin, tender. The pork was OK, and I tried the tongue, and two things that were intestines and stomach, or intestines and tripe? I am not sure. It was chewy, but surprisingly not bad tasting. We had plenty of nama and then lemon sours (shoju and a tonic water like mix). Cigars were smoked, some karaoke was sung, bad English tips were given out to the Japanese, I got “U-no” written in kanji (Language field?), and I became “Mika-chan” to a couple of guys. One Japanese guy who just joined our company said-through a translator-that his sister’s name is Mika, so he feels like he has to call me Mika-chan. Her name means “beautiful smell”. I’ll take that meaning too as I do enjoy the way I smell. I think “Brake-san” is too difficult for the lazy speaker. I could not think of waiting for the trains to start again at 530am with DL, so I got pointed in the right direction, and left for Yokota by myself on the last train. 1100pm in the streets on Shinjuku is rife with drunken businessmen and women. Staggering, laughing, 3 of them vomiting on the sidewalk. The train from Shinjuku to Tachikawa, the transfer point was the most crowded I have experienced as yet. The train attendants actually pushed people in to fit. I didn’t need to hold on to anything to stay standing. I transferred to the Ome line, and waited for it to depart. It was less crowded, with small groups of tired drunk young people. One small group had one guy who was falling asleep standing up, he would talk, then his eyes would roll back, and he’d nod off as his friends laughed. Literally 45 seconds before the train departed, the sleepy guy let go the contents of his stomach and ran like a cartoon, hunched over and very quickly off the train. His friend feebly tried to feign cleaning up, but he decided he had better run after his friend. Luckily there was person and a good 2 feet between me and the edge of his vomit. About 8 of the people on my half of the car fled like scared mice and presumably hopped into the next car. I moved down, not having any time to flee. I could not smell anything strong at first, and luckily I had not drunk that much, so I had to laugh about it. I stood by the doors so I could get fresh air at every stop. I was next to a guy who fell asleep with is head against the door. He was impressive. Like a marionette. His head lolled, his arms were slack, but he stayed upright for the most part. Every 10 seconds or so, his knees would buckle and he would dip down, then come back up, still asleep. He did this amazing puppetry for about 10 minutes, until he finally slumped all the way down to the floor, his head between his knees, and dangerously close to the opening door. I watched him while getting my whiffs of fresh air at the train stations. By the time I got to the Fussa station, I had been assaulted with more vomit at 3 different station stops-the doors would open, I would push my face out to breathe to cool fresh air, and not 2 feet from the open door was a pool of vomit-THREE DIFFERENT stations! I had also saved the poor sleepy guys’ umbrella twice from the train car door, as it would shift and stick out of the open door. Needless to say, it was a great train experience.

Guess who owns Seiyu, a chain of big department stores here in Japan?