Very tired at the moment, so only the highlights right now, cats and kittens. The destination was Tokyo (more specifically Shibuya ward) for my birthday festivities. We went to Kujira-ya (awesome whale meat restaurant) for the main course, and then back to the Lock Up izakaya (see my previous post with Nikki's Lock Up experience) for drinks and apres diner goodness.
I forgot my camera, unfortunately. I really seem to do this a lot, so I didn't get many good pictures, having only my cell phone camera at the time. I got zero pictures from the whale restaurant, which was lame. They had a great, short and to the point sign right at their entrance boldly proclaiming "WHALE MEAT ONLY". You know you're at the right place when you see this.
We had lean whale sashimi (as opposed to blubber sashimi. ick), whale blubber bacon, tempura whale, fried whale, and whale steaks. Along with rice for everyone. We all agreed the teriyaki whale steak was by far the best (followed by the fried whale, which looks like its encased in salt), and if we ever go again, we will just buy a bunch of whale steaks. mmmmmmmmm. I also want to taste the caudal fin special. No word on what kind of whales these were, but they tasted intelligent.
There was quite a wait at the izakaya, so we grabbed some pre-game Starbucks at the busiest Starbucks in the world (but not nearly as busy as the SLC Tim Hortons) and headed back. Unfortunately in the interim we lost a bunch of people to late night cross-Japan trips and picnicking plans. But we were ready to sojourn on.
I told them it was my birthday, so I got the VIP treatment with visits from monsters and murderers and everything. Plus some free cake with a sparker, yay!
One of my drinks. It came with a pipette and everything! No dry ice in this one though. :(
Lars injecting his alcohol right into his veins. Hardcore.
Arianna got a litre of beer in a massive graduated cylinder.
We picked this plate to munch on just by looking at the pictures. Turns out it was fried chicken joints. Ugh.
These capsules were so tempting we had to order them. I tried asking the waiter what they were, but all he said was "Spirit Capsules". Skkketttcchh.
We opened one beforehand to figure out whats in them. Tasted like very very potent food-coloured Whiskey or something. It had an alcohol rating of three skulls on the menu, but theres no way it could be that strong, even that amount of pure ethanol isn't much.
This one was wayyy stronger. Just called "Blue Spirit" on the menu, we cooled it and then did shots out of the test tubes. Arianna complained that test tubes were less than ideal vessels for shooting out of.
At one point the lights went off (and black lights went on), followed by an invasion by monsters and murderers and stuff into our cell. Awesomely, this ended by playing the "Ghostbusters" theme song repeatedly and having a bunch of scantily clad "police-ladies" running around with cap guns shooting all the monsters.
My birthday cake with my name on it (Bureiku).
On the way back to Shibuya station. These "Who is my boss?" docomo ads are all over the place suddenly. They feature Darth Vader speaking Japanese in the commercials, and its fantastic. There are three or four massive (10+ storey) TVs surrounding this intersection, and docomo has their Vader ad on all of them at once.
While waiting for my train, found more of these. BTW, they point towards this website (
). Here you can put your name in katakana (no English accepted, sorry. ブレイクファロー is mine), then take a picture of yourself with your webcam (click the webcam button), then keep clicking the orange "Next"/"I accept" button until you get to a video. Then enjoy.
Ad on the train back home. Its business time.
After the last train into my home station for the night, these two guys were practicing their break dancing infront of the mirrored windows of one of the stores. Well, the one on the left was breakdancing (fairly well), but the guy in yellow was just watching himself shake his hips. While passers-by watched in awe and disgust.
Thanks Arianna, I shall treasure this symbol of all that I hate in Japan.
Thanks Lars for liberating the 1-litre graduated cylinder/pitcher from the izakaya. You so sneaky.