In the Club. November 20, 2008

Thanks for the support everyone!  I’ve been in a state in which I have to seek advice and encouragement from people who matter, and I’ve accomplished the mission.  I still don’t trust 99% percent of the people I know here in Japan, but it helps knowing real dudes and chicks are just a 14 hour plane ride away.

So I should tell you about my last clubbing experience ever.  That was also my first clubbing experience ever.  I got spiffed up at 9PM–layers: a sweater over a button up; this is important–and left my house for the train.  I arrived in Umeda (a huge stop in Osaka that’s close to us KGU kids) close to 10PM, found the people I was going with, met the new people I was going with, and headed for the next ride–this time, subway.  This subway ride was my first public transportation experience in Japan that was so packed with people that I didn’t have to worry about falling over if the train stopped too fast simply because I was being smushed on all sides by people.  It was uber packed with businessmen and Halloween-costume-donning foreigners.  The whole time I was excited about the coming long night, but was a bit scared as well.  You see, if you commit to missing the Shuuden (last train), you commit to staying where you are until the next morning.  And I just wasn’t sure how it would go, ya know?

The path to the club was crazy.  I took a picture at this one bridge we had to cross of the smelly, crowded city of Osaka that was lit the fuck up.  I think I heard from 1UP that Yakuza 2 presents an accurate picture of Osaka, but just check pictures or something.  It’s crowded as eff; lit-up as eff; smelly as eff.  It’s crazy.  Of course, Tokyo dwarfs Osaka. . . . which is to say I never ever want to go to Tokyo   So as we found the narrow street that club Pure was on, we had were getting brushed by cars, dodged by bicyclers and Excuse-Me’d by drunken old businessmen holding hands with drunken hostesses.  It was scary, but it was city life, huh?  I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing, because I was surrounded by it.  It wasn’t on TV.  I was there.

We got to the club before the main crowd.  It was around 11PM and the club had just opened.  I paid 4-GD-thousand yen to get in because I’m a man and I wasn’t wearing a costume.  Yup.  Actually the truth is, I thought that was a lot of money, even though I knew that included all-you-can-drink, but I realized it was a good value later.  In fact, it was a bit cheap, which makes sense because the club was fucking terrible.

My first two drinks were easy to get.  I walked up to the bar, chose my drink, asked the American bartender dressed like SFIV Ryu, and got it.  Easy.

The first several songs were easy to dance to.  Most of our group (Oh, the group: me, Chen, Shaun, Aki, Lauryn, Meiyo, Azusa, Lars, Andreas, Min, Ji Yon, Junko, and a few others I don’t know well) formed a circle on the dance floor and had plenty of room to enjoy ourselves.  Easy.

Talking was possible at first.  The music was loud, but reasonable.  Easy.

The bathroom was, I imagine, managable at first.  I didn’t have to go yet.  Easy.

There was an insanely high proportion of foreigners.  And since they didn’t look like students or JET teachers, I was a little scared.  Uh-oh.

The crowd thickened, the music got louder, the fog machines turned on, and the dance floor became virtually unusable.  Dammit.

I transferred to the pool (billiards) room where a few of my people were sitting.  I kind of re-met them all, because I hardly knew them at all before, and we were all beginning to feel the effects of alcohol.  At one point, someone told me not to sit in one of the chairs because the AC unit was leaking.  I was drunk and had a sweater on, so I didn’t feel the water until my sleeve was soaked.  Yeah, I immediately sat down in the wrong seat.  Fuckin’…

This African guy was playing pool near us.  The club was incredibly small and crammed, so he had to say Excuse me when he had to shoot from one side of the table.  He actually said it though; he was very nice, which I appreciated.  But at one point we started laughing, I think because it took our drunken minds a long time to notice he needed us to move, and he saw us laughing and said, with a smile on his face and a kind tone, but still a very scary air, “Yes, laugh.  Enjoy yourselves.  Because tomorrow you will all be dead!”  What the fuck?

I kept laughing and going along with it because I felt like he meant nothing by it–just giving us the “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry” bit, but he kept saying “You will all be dead tomorrow!” in his cool African accent, and it was super weird.  Weeeeiiiiirrrrrd.  But nothing happened.  I survived the next day!  But still weird.

It became nearly impossible to get a drink shortly after the club started really bumping.  Giant black guys were hogging the bar counter, flirting with slutty Japanese girls; and otherwise, more slutty Japanese girls were hogging the bar counter.  Just standing there like they weren’t in someone’s way.  Plus, you had to basically throw your glass at the bartender’s face to make him notice you.  It was like Hungry Hungry Hippos, but with people and alcohol.  Ugh.

Min, this super sweet Korean exchange student, got too drunk too fast, and combined with her extreme lack of sleep, she became totally dazed.  So dazed that she had to go outside and sit on a stoop on the side of the street next to a pile of garbage bags and try to sleep and recover.  A few of us checked on her for a while and rubbed her back to make her feel better, but it didn’t really help.  Shaun stayed for another hour until they both came back in, but Min was in such bad shape that the bouncers kicked her out for what I assume was Taking up space and not clubbing hard enough.  Lame.

After that, the rest of the night was spent searching for lost party members running around Namba, Osaka.  Stressful.

I finally really had to pee, so I went to the club’s bathroom.  I went into the one stall, found out the lock was broken, but toughed it out.  It was super crammed and I could, of course, still feel the bass shaking my body standing there.  And tons of people were crammed in the bathroom waiting, too.  But at one point, a guy opened my door.  I quickly grabbed the handle and pulled the door shut, but I could not possibly go in that situation.  I waited a while longer, and the dude opened the door again, to which I replied in my thoughts, “Fuck this, he can have the damn stall.”  So I ran around the city looking for a bathroom, and finally found one by pretending to want ramen from this one restaurant.  Terribly painful.

We all stayed outside the club for the rest of the night, but every time I reentered, I was a little more sober, and I realized more and more that I hated that place.  I didn’t drink but maybe 5 drinks because I was concerned about Min and the well-being of others, including myself.  It was such a horribly trashy experience.  Plus, at 3AM, time slowed way the eff down.  Noooooo!

We finally just walked to the subway station and rested on the floor next to the ticket machines until 5:30AM or so.  By the time we got on the train home, the sun was rising and we were all either sleeping or laughing hysterically.  I was laughing because I was hysterically tired.  I couldn’t believe the night I had just had, and I knew for sure I would never do that shit again.  I got home by daylight, slept till 2PM, and fucked most of my plans for the next day accidentally (it was the weekend of the school festival, so I had a LOT of plans).  Yep.

I’ve heard not all clubs are like that; and that Pure itself is better when it’s not Halloween.  But I just feel like…fuck that forever.  I know what clubs are.  I know why people go to them.  I even know why they enjoy that kind of stuff.  And I certainly know why I do not.  But I am glad I met the people I did; and I’m glad I did it once, so I have a better foundation on which to judge clubs’ shittiness.  Wow nightclubs.  Wow.

For now, I’m off to eat dinner with some peeps, then drink a little for Anna’s birthday.  See ya soon!