No Fairytale Travels
No Fairytale Travels
An Amazing Night Out in Tokyo - Godzilla vs John Wayne, Polite Racism, the Gay Goth Samurai, and More!
I had a blast in Tokyo and this is a story of my favorite nights in this crazy and cool mega city!
This is a retelling of my favorite nights in Tokyo, Japan - from the Gay Goth Samurai to being rejected from bars, having a chef literally walk out on us, without saying anything until we left, to bringing an entire bar to life, staying out until the sun rises in central Tokyo, and enjoying the best of times in a place called Golden Gai, a place of warmth and a welcoming spirit in the middle of a chaotic and otherwise seemingly impersonal city.
Tokyo is a crazy, cool, amazing city and I can't wait to go back!!!
I got a little carried-away with this story, so its a bit longer than my usual podcast, but I hope you enjoy it :)
Leave me a message on: https://nofairytaletravels.substack.com/
Hello. Hello and welcome back to no fairytale travels this week. I'm in a great mood and I'm feeling like we should talk about Tokyo. One of my favorite cities. I talk a lot about it in real life. Well, I guess this is real life also, and I want to tell you about it now because it's one of my favorite places to go. And it is also Tokyo and Japan in general is the only place that I've ever been, where every single stereotype about it is true. But here, I'm not just going to talk about all the little interesting, beautiful, crazy things of Japan and Tokyo. I have to force myself to focus or it's going to be an hour or three hour long podcast. So, oh, before I begin. Yeah, no fairy tale travels dot sub stack.com. If you have any questions or comments, go to no fairy tale travels dot sub stack.com. Find the post for this podcast and leave me a message. Comment, question, whatever you want. Give it a like, that'd be cool. So Tokyo, let me tell you just a little bit about how Tokyo is, and then today I want to focus on just a little tiny aspect of it that makes it really special, not just all the big things that you know about. So Tokyo is a mega city, a mega city of a mega cities. It is the biggest city I've ever been to. It is a sea of buildings. As far as the eye can see into the distance until you see Mount Fuji. I believe it is. I should have looked that one up before I said that, um, it's a sea of buildings and I believe I wanted to make sure I got this right. So I looked it up. The numbers are that the city has 9 million maybe in the very, very center and then 13 million in the metropolis. And the greater area is 38 million ish, something like that. And I believe New York city is 18 million ish or 15 or 14 million ish. So just to give you an idea of the size difference, I think it says the internet says the next biggest sort of metropolis area is Seoul, Korea, which I still vote on pronouncing seal. So I've been there as well as Tokyo. And it really is a mega city, but Tokyo just trumps everything. So it's a mega city, so many people so much going on, but so orderly and so perfect. It is if you are to look like if you are to be Japanese or to look Japanese. So I guess to be Japanese, you will disappear into a sea people and maybe never be recognized or noticed if you're a foreigner, you are going to be noticed very, very, very quickly because there aren't that many foreigners in Tokyo. So you get more attention. But what I just want to talk about today is how big and how vast it is, but that there is a kernel of comfort and coziness to the city that you can find that makes it truly, truly special. Because as you're walking through the streets around all the tall buildings, and then also the little buildings, depending on the area, and you're going in the Metro full of people and all the attractions and all the things you can do, it can feel overwhelming, can feel chaotic. It can feel like why would I ever want to live in this city? This is the least human interaction possible. You are like sardines in a can. You can't really well, you can express yourself, but it feels like you can't express yourself. You're just, I don't know. You're like a plankton in the sea, nothing special, just one of billions with everything else. But Tokyo has something really, really special to it. Something that has made it so that I, even though only I've only been there for 10 days, 10 days in total, I said one day in my life, one time in my life, I am going to live there. And the reason is because even though it is such a mega city, which by the way, it has three Metro lines. And I think it might have a fourth one. If you tried to go to the beach area, which is a little bit toxic, because it's also a port area, you, you can spend so much money on the Metro in a day due to them having multiple lines. Like it's just so overwhelming if you're not used to this type of thing, but it has all of these little tiny establishments throughout the city. So you're in a mega city, but when you go into a restaurant, you're going to be sitting there with 10 people or 15 people. The restaurant focuses on one particular dish. I'm going to do an episode just on the food in Japan, by the way, at some point, because it is the best food that I have ever had in the entire world. I believe seven of my 10 top dishes are all from Japan stuff that I never expected to be so good. But when you engage, especially in eating and drinking, that's when it can become more personal, more sociable, more cozy and comfortable, not in all of the city. They have a particular type of racism in Japan, which I like to call polite racism. It's a poll. They're the most polite racist you've ever met in your entire life. So when they reject you from some eating establishments, it's, it's, uh, in a very polite way, actually one chef, he just, he just left and didn't come back. But that was a small little eating, eating establishment where you would go in there only 10 or 15 people. And it's nice and it's local so local that they didn't want foreigners, but okay, I'm getting sidetracked. I'm getting sidetrack. The point is that I want to say about this big chaotic city, but you can get these small, local personal experiences. Now you're not going to get it in every single restaurant or every single place you eat, or every single thing that you do. In fact, the purpose of this talk today, this podcast is to focus on one specific area that makes it really, really, really special. And that is called golden guy. Sounds kind of weird when I say it in English, I'm going to go hang out in golden guy. Okay. I think if you say that in San Francisco, you are definitely talking about something else. So golden guy is this wonderful area in Tokyo, that's near Shinjuku shin shin. Juku is kind of a very interesting entertainment area of which there are many, but this is a famous one and golden guys next to it. And what it is is a series of small little streets, all pedestrian zone, kind of like cobblestoney streets with, I believe it's hundreds of little bars and establishments and every single one is different. Every single one seems to be owner operated, different style, different theme, maybe different types of drinks. And they seat between eight, maybe even less than that, eight to 30 people. So 30 is going to be a really big one. I'd say the average one seats, maybe 15 people ish, probably. And this is the place where you can come from any part of the city. And the moment that you step into golden di you feel that you have gone into sort of feudal Japan back in time, where there's no cars buzzing by and there's no chaos and things slow down. And when you enter an establishment, if you're allowed to enter, I'll get to that in a moment. When you enter an establishment, you, you are, you are somewhere, you are some, one you become part of a group, part of a community. Someone cares about you. It almost feels like it is personal people. Talk to you. The bar Tinder engages you. And I want to talk about three places that I went to in golden guy. I had, I went there more than that, but I'm going to talk about three here. And for my 10 days in Tokyo, I had number of events planned where I'm going to go to some interesting nightclubs that people talk about and travel bloggers, say, go here. It's so cool, blah, blah, blue, blue, and go get drunk there and see this and see that. But after my first night in golden guy, I stayed there until 5:00 AM had one of my best night out experiences ever only went to two bars. And for the next three nights in a row, went back to this place. It was that good. So let me pour some wine and let's talk about golden guy. Was that an intro? Does that count as an intro? That was a lot of talking that I did. Sorry. I didn't plan that out so much. I just want to talk about golden guy today. Oh yeah. That's a good amount of wine. Okay. This wine confidential, Reserva, Tinto red, apparently the wine bottles they import to America from Europe. They give kind of like dumbed down labels. So I can't give you that much information about this today. It's a wine that's from the region of Lisboa. I like how the labels in English, but they say Lisboa instead of Lisbon, because they want it to sound sexy. I guess maybe it does. I don't know. Anyway, it's from Portugal. Not really my favorite. I do miss the grapes in the Balkans. I missed the[inaudible], which I think is pronounced Vonage, but that's okay. Um, so let's cheers to golden guy. And I think by the end of this, you will also cheers to golden guy. So you walk around big, crazy Tokyo. You see some sites, you go to a special lunch with a Sumo and you watch a little Sumo exhibition. One of my favorite things in Tokyo, I'll talk about it another time. And then you go to this weird little place called golden guy, golden guy. What the hell is that? Why are you there? Someone in the hostel who couldn't stop talking about anime all day just said, let's go to golden guy and you don't know where the hell you really are. So you go and you get there and you're walking down the streets and you realize, wow, it feels like I've entered another city. You have two story buildings, everything feels small and cozy. And the local, not that many people can fit into each establishment. In fact, at least half of the establishment, maybe not half a good amount of the establishments have signs outside that say for Japanese speakers only. And what that means by the way is, uh, yeah. Uh, off foreigners. We don't want you, if you're not Japanese, we don't want you because, uh, I dunno if you know this, there ain't that many people learn in Japanese as a foreign language. And I feel pretty confident given some of my experiences that maybe I'll talk about in another podcast that, uh, uh, even if you spoke Japanese, if you are not Japanese, they would not have really been happy that you were in their bar. And then there are a lot of other little bars that say the entrance fee is eight euros or 10 euros or$8 or$10, something like that. And so you're thinking, oh my gosh, why am I going to pay$8 to go into this little bar or$10? And these places over here, they don't even want me w this is what am I doing here? And then you keep walking and you let the animate people in your crew, just say, Hey, Hey, calm, calm, relax. It's okay. And you go into the first bar and it's like, I want to say Gothic gay samurai. That's my description of this bar. God gay samurai, everything is painted black. The let's say camp looking, but also bad-ass looking. So I picked that word up from, from Britain. I liked, you know, camp using that word in that regard, let's say slightly interesting looking yet. Still bad-ass looking bartender who looks kind of like a samurai that may be favors the same sex, um, standing behind the bar. And now you're thinking I'm in one of the most traditional societies I've ever been in, in my life. And I'm looking at a gay samurai and a Gothic bar, and it only seats 10 people where the hell am I. And it turns out that the guy specializes in, uh, I think it's cocktails and Saki. And so we had some really, really interesting fun drinks, the bar tenders chatting to us, you know, when we went in, he didn't just walk out and disappear. Like the other experience that had happened to me in a different neighborhood, he engaged us. He talked to us, he gave me a lot of attention, which I have to say really kind of caught the girls off guard. Uh, they, they were a little bit annoyed by that, but it was great for me. I got all sorts of free Saki tasting out of it. And nothing that we experienced in that place felt like the big chaotic Tokyo. It was small cozy kind of weird kind of interesting. No, not kind of interesting, amazingly interesting fun and above all welcoming. It was great. The only bad thing about that experience was half the group or a bunch of negative Nancys. So that had nothing to do with the bar after this bar. Wait, wait, let me describe Mr. Samurai a little bit better. So, okay. Samurai guy. I don't know why some people think that Japanese people are short, maybe in some parts of Japan, they are, but in Tokyo, certainly not. So the guy is like a six foot, one, I think, or six foot. What does that one meter? 82 centimeters, 83, 84 centimeters, something like that. He's got big, broad shoulders, but it's kind of thin and has a long flowing, shiny black hair down to the middle of his back or a little bit longer. And he's got black clothes on and kind of silver ish rings on. He is the gay Goss samurai and a kind of campy look to him. What's the, what's the word in English for campiness? I don't know. There's a good one. Anyway, I'm going to use the British one. Kind of can't be look really funny. Dude, loved talking to us, loved, uh, meeting foreigners. And we had a great time there. So we spent a couple hours there and then the negative Nancy start complaining. So we go outside and the negative, Nancy's all go home because they're negative Nancys who the hell, even once I hang out with them anyway. And then we ended up being instead of a group of, I think, five, a group of two or three or six to two or three, we'd become much smaller. So we continue walking through golden guy. And I think it is now the negative Nancy's wanted to catch the Metro, which means they would have left around 12 ish, maybe a little bit before midnight because the Metro closes in Tokyo around that time. Maybe 1:00 AM. So we're walking around golden guy looking for other places and kind of, we're just a little bit dismayed. These people, they don't want us. So we had this great experience with the Gothic samurai dude. And now we keep seeing all these signs, you know, uh, only Japanese speakers, 10 year olds to get in, uh, what was it? Foreigners have to pay 10 euros to get in. That's what sign you'd see sometimes. And we're getting more annoyed, more annoyed. And then we get to the end of it and we make a sort of loop. And as we're making a loop on the end, we see one sign and all these signs are in English. We see one sign that says foreigners don't pay to get in. And he might've said also, um, locals pay 10 euros to get in. He wanted foreigners to get in. So we're thinking, whoa, okay. I don't know what's going on here. This is like the witch in the middle of the forest that offers you candy. So they can cut you up into little pieces. You know, they offer you something nice to kind trick you. Now, we weren't really that scared, but we just thought, oh my God, finally, someone who, who, who wants to meet us and Tokyo, by the way, it doesn't have that many foreigners in it. It's not like a Barcelona. It's not like a Paris, oh my God. Or a London or anything like that. It's so far away and so expensive to get to and so expensive when you're there that it really keeps out most foreigners. So it's not like in a one of these other big cities where you can imagine how people get tired of foreigners. I think Japan has gotten tired of foreigners just by, I don't know, reading about them, not experiencing them. I don't actually know, but we go into this guy's bar and it is a dude in his sixties who has owned this place for, I believe his entire adult life. He's got pictures of him with all local celebrities on the wall. He's got signed, handmade drawings, custom drawings made from top anime artists, which is a really popular style of, Ooh, I got to be careful what I say here. Um, artwork, it's not cartoons, but it's a really interesting style and it's very famous and popular in Japan. Um, they do, um, animated shows out of it. I believe it's animated shows and he's got all those song signed drawings on the wall. He's got baseball memorabilia everywhere, signed by the guys who are in the photos. And he's got baseballs that are signed by everyone on the team. Baseball is huge in Japan. It's a little bit different than the U S one, but it's pretty much the same. And he's watching a TV with a black and white movie and he greets us with smiles. And he's so happy when we come in. There's no one else in there. It seats about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. I think it, uh, it would seat six people standing room for 12, uh, standing room for two average Americans or 20 Japanese people. It's a wood bar. It's about two meters wide. He's got a wooden thing above it, where he used to sit when he was younger and play guitar. As the bar was filled, he had photos of it and sing to all of his patrons. So he's playing the guitar he's singing and everyone is down below drinking. And down below the, the ceiling was only about three meters, high, 12 feet higher. So we're 13 feet high. And this dude wants nothing more than to talk to foreigners and to get our experiences and to share experiences with us. So we get there around 12 ish around one ish, and we're told everywhere, kind of closes there around two or three. We stayed for hours, drinking, telling stories, reliving this guy's past and going through all of his memorabilia, watching the movie on the, on the TV here and there, or little scenes of it. I think it was maybe a Western movie or something from the U S just a really, really interesting guy who believes that the beauty of life is the diversity of our experiences in life. And that, that is what enriches us. So all these other places, not all of them, you know, we had Gothic samurai, dude. He was cool, but a lot of the other places, they just, they only want their regulars, which is very understandable, by the way, you want to get a stressful life. You want to hang out with the same crew. I get it. But this guy, he wants the differences. He wants the experiences. And we just got drunk with him for hours talking about everything under the sun, it was small, it was cozy. It was welcoming. It was lovely. And we didn't leave until, I don't know, 4:00 AM 5:00 AM, something like that. I think four 30. That was my first night in golden guy. So after that, you can imagine how the, the thought of just going to some club where I'm going to go, okay, look, I've been to a lot of clubs in my life. So the thought of just going to another club and dancing and drinking and having relatively similar experiences to all the other ones I've had in my entire life. And, uh, quote unquote, the world's nicest places or gloves or some crap like that is not appealing when you, when you get this beautiful, unique, amazing experience. And for every single night after this one, I went back to golden guy. I went to different bars and I had different experiences, all fun, all crazy, all weird and interesting, all cozy and all surprisingly welcoming. So for this podcast, I'm glad that I actually know what this thing is. Now. I went to recount one more of the bars in golden guy. There are many experiences that I have there, but I want to give you one more that I thought was really, really, really interesting. So one night I am in the hostel and I meet up with the Latin contingent. There are some central Americans and some south Americans who are there and I ended up hanging out with them. They're always fun to hang out with. I have to tell you, okay, I got to, I'm going to stay on topic. I'm going to stay on topic. Latin Americans are really fun to go out with. They're very loud. They move their bodies a lot without warning. If there's even a hint of music anywhere, or they even think of music. So anyway, I go out with him, we go to golden guy and we're looking for a new place and we go, we're a slightly larger group. So we can't go into the two places I just mentioned. I think we were six people. No, not at all. We were more than six people. I don't know. Anyway, the samurai guys' place was full, so we couldn't go in there. And the other dude's place was too small for us to go in. So we go in some place where you go upstairs, scary little dark wooden stairs without a light to a second floor where it looks like it's going to be some sort of a whorehouse or drug, uh, place, or, or just a place where you are not welcome in any other country. You, you would be, uh, a lot more scared in Japan. You're not that scared, but you're like, Hmm, maybe this is not for foreigners, but the bar didn't have anything on the outside that said we can couldn't come in or that we had to pay, or we had to speak Japanese or anything. So we go in on the second floor. And, and, and have you ever seen a Jean-Claude van Damme movie from the nineties or the eighties? Did he, did he make any in the eighties? I don't know. I've watched a lot of Jean-Claude van Damme movies. I love his movies. So go to like eighties, Hong Kong style bar, kind of, and that's what it felt like. It was a bigger bar. You could probably fit 30 people inside and had a full size bar in it. It had some standing tables and sincere sitting tables. The light wa all, all the lights had a red hue to them. And there were a couple of medium-sized chandelier's hanging from the ceiling as well as a couple of TVs, playing older movies on them, like karate movies. And I believe that the movies were subtitled in the same language that they were in. Like, I think it was an English movie, but with English subtitles or something like that. And so we walk in and we see all of these guys, I'm going to paint a picture for you some slightly chubby with all with black shirts and kind of jeans and some just, you know what, you, you know, skinny, taller types, whatever, but everybody kind of wearing black. Right. And everyone just sort of sitting down, talking, laughing, being loud and being what seemed like open. And we just sort of walk in and this doesn't happen in Japan. They're very quiet, very reserved, very thin. So you walk in, you see all these things you don't normally see. And I was like, holy, we do not belong here. This is not good for us. We need to get the hell out of here. But you with south Americans who had seen stuff and then, and been in, in, in, in dangerous situations, just talk to them about motorbikes. If they hear a motorbike sound that's loud and kind of behind them, they have PTSD from that because they think someone's going to steal bag from them. And so we go in there, they're like, no, no, no, everything's good. Everything's good. We're just going to relax. So we go to one of the stand-up tables and we order some drinks. And there is only a couple ladies there. I think one of them is behind the bar. Everyone is smoking like a chimney. I sit against the wall and I'm like, Jesus Christ. We are in a mafia bar. Like, this is, this is not going to be good. What the hell is happening here? And then about 10 minutes later. So our drinks come and then 10 minutes later, a round of tequila shots arrives at our table for free. And the guy who ordered them comes up and we all take shots and we talk and we laugh and we drink. And everyone in the room laughs and talks and drinks. And now that I'm saying this out loud, I'm thinking maybe he was the one that was sent to investigate why we were there. So it doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't some sort of mafia bar. But, but what I was thinking is either someone is going to tell us, get the hell outta here, or they aren't going to serve us. Or they're just going to be incredibly rude to us. But what happened is we got free drinks and throughout the course of the evening, not just that guy, but other people in the bar came up to talk to us. You don't have to go far to come up to someone there about a foot 30 centimeters, no, a couple of feet there. So like you go a meter, you go three feet and then you run into someone, you talk to him. So we got to meet all sorts of people. There were people bringing food to the bar from other restaurants. And so you could tell that everyone there was irregular, but instead of shunning us, which had happened at other establishments, not in golden guy, but in other places, they welcomed us. And we were there for hours drinking and having a great time at this place that looked like a Jean-Claude van Damme mafia bar from Hong Kong in the 1980s. And this is all in golden guy in Tokyo. And the other few times that I went there to different bars as well. The experiences were always different, always unique. Nothing was the same, nothing as far as the look or necessarily the feel, but the bars that we were able to get into and that we did go into the one theme that was consistent was cozy, comfort, warmth, and being welcomed. It was, gosh, it was so great. You know what? I'm not done with this story. I was going to end right there, but I'm not done. I'm not done because the, the story that I just told you the night did not end in golden guy. Then actually the night did end in golden guy for me that night I was there twice. So here's what happened. I'm going to tell you, okay, here's what happened. So that night we're having a great time and Latin Americans, they've always got big groups of people. I think it's just one of them dances somewhere in the city. And another one feels it that can sense the dancing. And so they, they gravitate towards the, the ones who are dancing on the other side of the city and they find them. So our group was quickly growing. There were some others outside. We went to meet up with them. So a couple hours after we've been in this bar, we said goodbye to everyone. They were so friendly. We had a great time. I'm not certain that they would want us to come back every night, but they were at least interested and welcoming of us that night. And I liked it. So we go outside and we then become a group of 10 people, which is basically impossible for us to go into any bar and golden guy. We're not going to get a seat. The bar would have to be completely empty and then they'd have to want to have a bar full of 10 foreigners. And it's just, and it's going to be really not a pleasant time. And you've got different English accents and a lot of people there don't speak English anyway. And it just, we weren't going to get into any bar and golden guy. And we didn't, we tried a couple and they were just, we couldn't too small. So we ended up going to another bar in Shinjuku. It was called cheers. And the moment I saw it, I'm like, oh God it. It's going to have a bunch of ex pats. It's going to have a bunch of drunk Brits down there and Brits, I love you. And I love to get drunk with you. But when you're looking for an experience in a foreign country, that's a bit more local. You don't necessarily want the experience you've had in London for months and months and months. You know, you want to see what it's like there, but whatever we go down there and our group has grown to 12 at this point, because like I said, Latin Americans, that can sense the dancing vibe. You know, they sense when the hips shake and Latin-Americans just kind of dance when they're walking down the street, if they're feeling like they're in a good vibe. So I can't quite do it, even though I just did it right then. And uh, so anyway, we're about 12 now. And we go down underground into this bar and not a single foreigner to be found. We are the only foreigners mind you, by the way, it's a Tuesday night or a Wednesday night in the week. It's maybe 11 ish, maybe 10 o'clock ish. The bar is full, almost completely full. We managed to get a table, but almost completely full it's only men except for one table with three girls in on it, which is usually a sign that the many things, none, necessarily positive for you. If you want to talk to a girl, led to an interesting story, I'll get to in a moment. So full of men, all wearing suits, black suits, black tie, white shirt, all drinking a lot. And smoking like chimneys, like chimneys, you can't smoke everywhere outside in Japan. In fact, there are very few places where you can't smoke outside. Some areas like around seven Eleven's and some other designated areas. That's where you can smoke, but indoors almost everywhere you can smoke. It's kind of funny how that works. So here you didn't, you didn't even have to light up a cigarette. It's it's like, uh, it was like the early two thousands in France or the nineties in America. And we're drinking, we're drinking, we're drinking. And we're looking around. Nobody is talking to anybody, maybe a few whispers here and there. No one's socializing. No one dare go up to another table that isn't their own table. One of the guys in my group did manage to convince me to go hit on the three pretty girls that were sitting on a table in the middle of the room. That of course failed miserably. This is Japan. So I don't think that they were working girls, but I do believe that perhaps they were literally the literal meaning of working at that bar and had just gotten some food after their last shift. That's what I believe they were doing there. So no one was talking to them. No one was hitting on them. No one was doing anything with them. Uh, and then when we went up, it was, I think there was a bit of laughter in the room. As in you, you idiots, you don't even know what you're doing. So that failed miserably. We go back to our table. We say, they're drinking for a couple hours. And then half of our group goes away because they want to take the Metro to go back home. The taxi home was$300. So you're not going to, or 300 euros. I forget which one, maybe it was euros. So you're not going to take the taxi home. Uh, so if the Metro closes, you're stuck there, you're stuck there. I mean, it's crazy. And the drive and the taxi would have been like 30 minutes. So I don't know, 300 bucks for 30 minutes or less than 30 minutes. The streets are empty. No one drives there. It's so incredibly expensive. So we're getting more drunk. The bars getting more drunk. We're allowed, we're talking. I am not the loudest one because I'm with a bunch of Latin Americans. So finally I, I feel normal because they're louder than me. And we start to attract people to our table. People who are sitting quietly at other tables, start to come up to our table. When other people see how welcoming we are to meeting these few people, then more people come up and more people come up and we drink more and everyone's buying everyone drinks. And then we have a group that's half Japanese dues, half Latin American dudes, and then me and we're all having a great, amazing time. I become John Wayne, the Japanese dude I was talking to becomes Godzilla. And then it becomes John Wayne and Godzilla getting drunk all night long. We have so much fun. And I really made me think all of these, there there's so many things at play. And what I'm saying here, by the way, if you just sort of analyze it a little bit, I'll do a little bit of it right now. All of these guys that are sitting quietly alone in their suits in the middle of the week at a bar, many of them were very happy to come up and socialize with us. They just needed a little indication that they were welcome to do it. And some alcohol, liquid courage, but they enjoyed our company. We enjoyed their company. We didn't go up to a single table. After the failure with the girls, they had all just come to us like imagine how many people are in this massive city that don't feel personal connection to others. That wish that they had more of a personal connection that wished that they could just go up and meet other people and talk about anything and laugh and joke and call each other Godzilla and John Wayne. So I'm telling you here about the amazing comfy, cozy feeling I was able to have in golden guy. And now I'm telling you about all of these people who I believe are lacking that feeling. So I'm aware that as a foreigner, sometimes what happens is you become a little mini celebrity. So maybe if one of these guys, they come up to our table, went to the three bars that I mentioned in golden guy. They wouldn't be so welcomed. They wouldn't have the, the, the Gothic samurai, give them some Saki and be so interested by them. They wouldn't be able to get into the place that said that the foreigners have to pay to get in. I mean, that locals have to pay to get in. They'd get into the ones that say foreigners have to pay to get in. So they'd go in there and maybe they'd just sit alone and not talk to anybody else. So their experience might just be very different than mine because the bar we were in, there was a 10 minute walking distance from golden guy. So we had a really, really great time, but it made me think about all those guys drinking alone in the bar. And by closing time, a lot of our group had left then two or three in the morning, but there were about 15 patrons who were still there. And there were at least five to seven guys were sleeping there. The Metro's closed. I told you it cost hundreds of dollars to get home. And I was staying in the central part of the city. So imagine if you're staying where it's affordable for you to live, maybe it costs 500 bucks to get home. Or even God forbid a thousand when the whole public transit system is closed and you have to go an hour and a half away, those guys were sleeping and they were sleeping quietly, no noise, no snoring, no vomiting, no urinating on themselves, no one telling them to leave either. And this is a part of their culture and a part of where I said all the stereotypes were true. So if your boss asks you to go out in the evening, oh, I said, I wasn't. I said I was going to stay on just golden guy for this talk, but I want to talk about this. Sorry. So if your boss asks or not ask, if your boss goes out for drinks after work, you are obligated to go out for drinks with him. Now your boss has money. Your boss can take a taxi home. You can't. And this is so prevalent that people do sleep in bars and that people will go to what are called. I believe it's manga cafes or Monga cafes. And I never really understood what that was. I think it's a place where you go and read their version of comic books. I don't think they like it. If you call it comic books. And by they, I mean, actually anyone who likes manga or manga, because I made a joke in the hostel with a bunch of foreigners about anime and manga, and it didn't go over very well. Um, so it's, it's not just a Japanese thing, but they had those cafes and these cafes, I think have become places where workers in the city will sleep. And when they wake up in the morning, they have machines vending machines where they can buy socks, underwear, and a shirt and a tie if they need it. And then they just go to work after never going home. So these guys are sleeping in the bar, peaceful, no trouble. The, you know, a lot of the world's, um, bar patrons could learn how to peacefully sleep in a bar and not themselves from these guys. I have to say, but, uh, I can saw, I think two of them sleeping, standing up, it was really impressive and actually kind of depressing because obviously they had learned to do that. Well, I'm depressing myself right now, but we're going to go back to golden guy in a second. So man. Yeah, that is depressing. That's one of those stereotypes that is depressing about. So, uh, at this point it's 3:00 AM. Now 2:00 AM. Everyone had left my group and it's me. And it's two local guys who are either journalists or spies. They spoke oddly amazing English. English is not spoken so well in Japan. Or even if they do speak it well, they're not usually so open to speak it. And these guys, uh, took me back to golden guy and we went to one of those bars where you pay to get in. And I told them, I'm like, we can go to one where you don't have to pay. Like, I think it's kinda crap. Like I'm a little bit morally opposed to this. And I said, nah, don't worry about it. So we go in and it's the, the two Japanese dudes, me and then the bartender. And we're all just sitting across from one another at the bar, bartenders behind the bar, just drinking, having a great time, talking about women for an hour or two hours. They're talking about their wives. I'm talking about some ex girlfriend or something, just shooting the for another couple hours, drinking with the bartender and they wouldn't let me pay for a single drink. Gosh, it was so great. Laughs, drinks, stories, men from different cultures, just getting along on pretty much the same topics you ever. If you're a guy and you ever want to get along, I don't know how to tell women to get along with other women, but if you're a guy and you want to get along with other guys, just talk about women. It's a, it's great. It crosses all boundaries. Uh, I've really was able to get along very well with a guy from Iran on an eight hour bus ride once just talking about women. And it's the great bridge for at least men. I don't know a women would talk about asks, ask a woman what you should talk about to other women from other countries. But the point is, it seems like talking about the opposite sex. It really brings you together. And we had so much fun and this, this, by the way, these guys, they weren't even the, uh, Godzilla guys. They were other guys. And it's so fun when you're, when you're getting drunk with guys. And, and, and he's trying to tell you how to say Godzilla properly because it's not Godzilla. It's like go Jayla, Godzilla. No good Chilla. Oh my gosh. Those are so there's so many fun experiences. And this wonderful night just began with me and the hostel in the common area, talking to people, seeing what they were doing and saying, does anyone want to go out for a drink tonight? And then the Latin group said, hell yeah. And then I ended up in golden guy in that crazy Jean-Claude van Damme, 1980s, Hong Kong bar, and then going to the cheers place, meeting all the locals, failing miserably to talk to the only three girls in the bar and then meeting Mr. Godzilla and then hanging out with these two guys and going back to golden guy and having a great time. And then after that, we ended up so drunk that I got these quiet and reserved guys to just be so loud that we go to a, a, a, a breakfast place at, I think 5:00 AM and people are taking the Metro to work at 4:00 AM, by the way, which means they've woken up at 3:00 AM. They've showered because they have to shower and get dressed and get ready and be fresh. And you'll see them on the Metro at 4:00 AM. You're you're going home completely messed up. And you see these people ready for work sad. So we go to the breakfast place at 5:00 AM and you pay for your food and a vending machine, and you get a little ticket and then you sit down, this is the impersonal part of Tokyo. So some of the food places aren't like this, but some are also like this. So you go and you put some money in the vending machine and you get a little ticket and they don't have an English by the way, for most of them. So you gotta be with a local or just play, you know, food roulette. I liked that game. It's fun. Um, you sit down and then you hand a guy, your ticket. And the two guys I was with ended up being so loud that they got told to be quiet and not me. So I'm pretty proud of that. It's the one time. And the people I was with were told they were too loud, but not me and our breakfast dish. I was also going to include this in another talk, but, but this is just so fun. This is all just one day, the breakfast dish. I didn't know what the hell I was ordering, but I love to try new things. It came with, um, a few different, interesting things. Japan is very good with that. They have, you don't just get one plate and a fork and a knife. You get lots of little things, put on a tray and you can combine them. And then you get lots of little, little like additions and tools. You get your chopsticks and a salt shaker and a pepper shaker. And the funny thing is there's, I didn't even know how to use it when I was there and your dish, it isn't completely mixed together. So in addition to those two things, right, doesn't sound like a lot. Chop six salt, pepper, just three things. But then you get a little dish with an egg, which is separate from everything. And you don't know if it's hard boiled or soft boiled, or you don't know what's going on with it. I had a fertilized egg in Cambodia. Once I tell you what you want a natural laxative, eat a fertilized egg from Cambodia. Okay. I told the girl I was with, I was like, listen, I know you want to go to this fair, but I got 30 minutes or less and something's happening. And I don't know what is going to happen. It's going up or it's going down, but 30 minutes or less. So fertilize that. So you don't know what's in the egg. Okay. And then you just get some, and then you get a lot of other little things on your plate and you, you don't know what the hell they are because the, the letters on the paper that you gave to the giant, Sammer a Sumo guy. Who's cooking your food. Those letters are in tic-tac-toe letters. So you don't know what's going on. And it's a raw egg that I'm supposed to mix in with the rice. And all I can think is I'm going to die. This might be worse than the fertilized egg, a raw egg mixed in with the rice. This is my breakfast. No wonder everyone is so depressed here. It was amazing. It was amazing. There were about six other parts to the dish, but those are all sort of normal food items. And I don't remember the names right now. I could say them and you'd be like, oh, nice normal food items. But the, a raw egg mixed in with the rice, with the chopsticks, it looks disgusting. I don't know what it smells like, but I lost my smell at that point in the night, you know, but it tasted amazing. And it did not make me sick. God, what a, what a great breakfast. Just three drunk dudes at 5:00 AM on a Wednesday. I think it was a Wednesday morning or a Thursday morning eating our raw egg mixed in with rice. That was, that was one of my, that was my most fun night. That was my best night in Tokyo. Two golden guy trips, another bar underground, local bar underground. Literally it was underground. It wasn't like hidden. And then a proper crazy weird little Japanese breakfast, big. Ooh, excuse me. Big Japanese breakfast. Gosh. I love Tokyo. I'm going to save up some money. And one day I'm going to go there for at least 30 days. There's so much more to this. I could talk for so long right now. You have no idea. There's so many great things from the arcades to the Pachinko. Oh my gosh. But Shingo is like, if you could make slot machines as addictive as crack or more or crack with slot machines, that's Pachinko. Oh, I love Japan. I'm going to give it third. I'm going to save up money. I'm going to give it 30 days. I think I'm going to stay in a hostel, not an apartment, a hostel, the hostels there. Uh, you have your own little capsule kind of thing. And it has ventilation and a little table, and it's really big. And it's so cool. And the toilets are heated and had so many electronics on them. You're afraid to push a button because you don't know what's about to go up your, but some sort of alien probe. I mean, it's just so, so cool. So, so cool. I've never been anywhere like it. Okay. I have to stop this talk now or do I, I don't know. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. What else do I want to tell you about Tokyo? Oh no, this is a long one. All right. I just checked the recording time. Okay. I'm going to cut this for now, but I'm coming back to Tokyo and we're going to talk a lot about it because there is so much more, so much more. Why don't I just make a Tokyo? I mean a Japan podcast, only Japan. All right. I'm getting a little bit too excited by this, but uh, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. And if you have any questions or comments or thoughts, please go to a no fairy tale travels dot sub stack.com and find the post for this podcast. And you can leave a comment there. And also if you go there, give it a heart or a like, or a thumbs up, or however you signify something positive there, I'm still getting used to this, this thing, this communication medium. Anyway, I hope you have a good weekend and a great week.