15th Dec 2006

Made some apple crumble today…and chips….well potato wedgy things. Not all for me though because I’m going to French-dudes apartment tonight then apparently we are going clubbing. But this is clubbing Tokyo-stylie…where you can’t get home between the hours of 00:00 ‘til 05:30 because the train system is shut and there aren’t really any night buses and taxis are extortionate…anyhow I decided that I would head home after my Japanese lesson in the morning then cook stuff then go back in for the evening seminars (5pm-7pm…I KNOW! How rude…so late on a Friday night?!?!?! Shocking…anyway that’s not as bad as YiPing’s Prof scheduling a seminar on the 25th of December…when they say that the Japanese don’t celebrate Christmas they really mean it….however, they have really gotten hold of the true essence of Christmas – buying presents) luckily the seminars were actually rather short…I *love* the undergraduates and masters students…they don’t go on for hours and hours like silly PhD students…

To be honest the amount of travelling I’ve done today probably wasn’t worth it…but hey…

So, after the seminar I head home again to pick up the crumble (which I left cooking in the kitchen…I had horrible images of it slowly burning down the dormitory because I hadn’t actually set it to stop after 45mins properly…but it was all Fine!) packed up the food, got dressed and went off to Shinagawa to meet Greg and Annalisa.

Now. You wouldn’t think that getting out of the station would be that hard right? No? well, not if you’re wayway…I was told to go to the Konan exit…and usually there are signs all the way through the station, from the platforms to show you how to get out via different exits…but I couldn’t find any…and there was no mention of the Konan exit on any of the maps on the platform…So I got up to the concourse and found the central exit and there was also a small sign for the konan exit pointing to the right…so I followed that and ended up in a shopping centre…which was weird…I walked around and then thought I’d try to go more to the right…but that just took me to the entrance for the Shinkansen trains…so I walked back…then Greg called me to find out where I was…unfortunately I couldn’t understand a word of his instructions. This stresses me out somewhat and i walk around a bit more before deciding to go out of the central exit anyway…That’s when I run in to Greg. It was just my incompetent sign reading that made me turn right too early…usually station exits all have their own ticket barriers for that exit…but HERE apparently there is just the one set of ticket barriers then the exits…argh! Too complicated for my poor brain…L anyway he’d left Annalisa with some shopping and we picked her and shopping bags up before walking to Greg’s apartment…which looks more like a hotel than my room does…he has free breakfast and room cleaning and a spa in his serviced apartment…VERY posh…

Anyway the first thing me and Annalisa do is look around the apartment…Annalisa manages to show Greg a light he didn’t know he had…I find a cupboard that he also didn’t realise he had…he obviously hasn’t been exploring his room enough…Apparently it took him 3 days to find his washing machine, which was hiding behind his bathroom door….craziness. I point out that his ‘microwave’ does have an oven…He lied to me and told me it didn’t!!! which is one of the reasons why I cooked at my place and brought the food over! Only then does he look at his instruction manual again…the fool!

Anyway we get a good feed and then at midnight Rei turns up…dragging Greg away from his crumble (he seems to have gotten rather attached to it and isn’t happy about leaving it) we finally leave for the club at about half past and as the trains have stopped we get a cab. I say get a cab, but what I really mean is TRY to get a cab…which for some unknown reason is rather hard… all of them seem to be going to Shinagawa train station for a rest… and not to pick up new customers….weird. After launching our selves at several cabs we managed to get one and head to Ebisu. We get ID’d on the door (compulsory here, has to be photo ID and you must be over 20) there is some horrendously high cover charge to get in and it’s house music…some DJ dudes are actually mixing live…which is nice…but not really my kind of thing…

Greg however is exuding energy for some unknown reason…he loves clubbing in foreign countries. 1) they can serve redbull (illegal in France-land) and 2) you don’t have to wear a suit to get into them (like you do in France-land), odd eh?

We drag Greg away from his clubbing at 5am (he’s noticeably upset by this…poor mr. froggy…) and Head home on the first trains…I swear I’m too old for this kind of thing…but was good to try at least once. Okay, now I know I’m too old…
Winging about clubbing indeed…oh well who cares…