Halloween Horrors

So I pretty much gave up on my costume. I had been hoping to get a red bow-tie so that I could go as Detective Conan; unfortunately, could not find one for the life of me. Some of the girls were going out on Friday, but V and I still weren't feeling hot so we opted for a low-key night. We went to try this sanuki udon place across the street.

I'm not at all certain what the differences between these different types of udon are, but apparently Sanuki is a region that is famous for udon. I specifically ordered a niku bukkake udon. Bukkake udon is usually topped with fried vegetables or seafood, but in this case it was topped with meat and burdock.

I'm not sure, why but a lot of udon places also allow you to pick out various pieces of tempura. I haven't figured out if you just eat it separately or put it in the udon. Somebody needs to teach me about udon I think. It was really good and I'm sure that I'll go back for an udon fix, but V says there's another place around the corner which is just as good. Too much food to try.

Woke up on Saturday, did nothing all day, grabbed some curry for dinner, and watched a movie. This is the first time we managed to take a picture of Coco Ichibanya without eating it first. Doesn't look like much, but I tell you it's good. Actually this time it was kind of salty...

We had a pretty good time watching 14 Blades, a Donnie Yen movie, over dinner. Maybe a bit intense for dinner material, but I had a good time at least. After dinner, I wrote that last entry you all undoubtedly read and then headed to Diana's to meet up with some girls before our Halloween party. V was in no shape to pull an all-nighter, and even I was fighting my desire to take a nap.

But I only have this one chance to experience Halloween in Tokyo, right? Had two drinks with Diana and Miwa before heading to Roppongi Hills. The club was actually on the 52nd floor of Mori Tower and had pretty sweet views of the city.

There was a bit of a line to take the elevator up, but once we actually got up there the crowd was surprisingly thin. Met up with Izumi, Fuyuko, and two other girls: Kyoko and Keiko. I had invited a bunch of guys to come with me, but everybody lamed out. This is what they missed out on.

No but seriously, it was like that all night. I met up with Gosia, Josephina, Chang-min, Magdalena, about seven other girls, and maybe four guys. Next time I go out, I definitely need some bros with me. You guys know who you are.

Halloween in Tokyo is not too different from Halloween in Chicago. All the girls get to dress up like *ahem* well you know, and the guys use their costumes to get a little closer to girls than usual. There aren't too many other days that you can get away with touching each others tails. Sometime during the night, I dropped my camera and the lens got stuck out. The thought of being in Japan with only a broken camera that my wife had bought terrified me. Luckily, I was somehow able to fix it later.

As a result, I only got to take a limited number of pictures. As the night went on, the place got totally packed. Trying to get a drink at 3 AM was absolutely ridiculous. This was also about the time when I couldn't figure out how drunk I was after a bunch of rockstar vodkas. My cold was totally starting to get to me and everyone else was starting to crash a bit. I'm not totally sure what time we left the club, but the metro doesn't actually start running until after 5 AM, so sometime after 4 AM we bailed and hit up a ramen place while we waited for the trains.

Diana and I both ordered this Taiwanese Ramen which was a fairly light broth with just a hint of spiciness. It was pretty good and I really appreciated the bean sprouts. I had a tough time finishing it, but with Diana easily handling hers, I couldn't leave any behind could I? Photo courtesy of Diana.

Wasn't too hungover the next day but decided to stay in for a lazy Sunday. I originally had plans to go watch a Waseda-Keio baseball game, but the first one got rained out, so I'll be going to the next one instead.

V had the brilliant idea of heading back to Okubo for some bibimbap. So we headed out to browse menus and maybe go to the grocery. On the way we saw this awesome dog just roaming the street. He seems to be a well known resident of the area. One girl called "Ma-chan!" to him and started hugging him. He looked so nice.

Found a promising looking place down the same alley as Donki and sat down for some dolsot bibimbap and seolleongtang.

You can't beat Korean food on a chilly day. It's just not possible. Well, I personally think you can't beat Korean food, but yeah. Had a really good time there, and we'll definitely be back. We were checking out the rest of the alley when we saw this place called Honey Cafe. A picture of their patbingsu called to us, so we sat down to split one.

I know it looks brilliant and all, but I think vanilla ice cream would have gone better. It was just a little too fancy for my tastes. Needed more red bean and mochi and less fruit cocktail.

It did barely rain today for the first time really this weekend. Typhoon Chaba was supposed to wreak havoc on Okinawa and dump rain all over Tokyo, but instead it just totally avoided Japan.

I feel fortunate, but I also feel like someone just totally messed up their hurricane calculations. You know what I mean? This coming week is some sort of culture week at school. There are a bunch of important baseball games that I plan to go to and the school festival is next weekend. Should be interesting. Keep you posted.