Gropezilla hits Japan: Tattooist said no beer

We had been really lucky with the weather for most of our time in Japan but as if the weather decided to match my mood when I got up on Saturday morning the heavens had opened and it was raining the preverbial cats and dogs. Having to change hotel rooms means we needed to get out of the hotel early which gave me time in head to worry about what was to come, I headed off on the train to Shinjuku thinking I was giving myself plenty of time to get there, find the studio, grab some food and relax, for anyone that has spent any time in Japan I am sure you know where the next bit of this story is going!!!! Japanese train stations are confusing and despite previously heading to the studio and trying to dillegantly pay close attention to my surroundings and exits so I could find my way again I got catastrophically lost and on checking my watch 45 minutes quickly got eaten up. I was LATE and saturated and hating life. I ended up finding the studio at about 12.10 (my appointment was at 12) and was ushered in and told to sit down.

Normally when I get tattooed there is friendly banter with staff, I feel at home in my surroundings, but in a non English speaking Tattoo studio that doesn’t really happen. I sat in a corner, trying to look at books written in Japanese to distract myself from what was going on. The artist came out and showed me my design and thankfully it was amazing and nothing needed to be changed (I can imagine this would have been a struggle to try and communicate), after watching him set up (This was very important to me, I wanted to see that they were fresh needles and equipment, having been tattooed as much as I have, I think I know the set up pretty well) we smashed the stencil on and were ready to start. He did know one English word “Ready?” and to this I meakly nodded my head. Let me tell you, my heart was in my throat and I thought that it might explode because I was so nervous. I am pretty sure that the tattooist might now think I am a crazy cardigan lady because after the first two lines I started to laugh manically. I had built this experience up so much in my head and thought that it was going to be as painful as stabbing myself in the eye with a rusty spoon and infact it was pleasant and easy!!! He had the softest touch and his lines were so fine and gentle that I could easily forget that I was getting tattooed. 2 hours later and we were done, the final result speaks for itself, I am over the moon

Stencil On

Bahhhhdahhhhhh

After hobbling awkwardly back to my hotel and a few hours sleep I was ready to smash it!!!! The tattooist had told me “iiee Beeru” which translates to no beer, but he didn’t say anything about no Chu-Hi and because I had missed the festivities on Friday night I wasn’t going to miss out tonight. It was my last night in Tokyo and I wanted to go out in big styles. The plan was the same as the night before, meet the boys at Shibuya crossing at midnight and we would find somewhere to go and celebrate.

One thing that always astounds me about the people in Japan is their sociability, despite the rain and the late night hours the crossing was still packed. I met up with Luke and Aarron and we sat in Starbucks drinking our Chi-His (yep you can drink on the streets and in random Starbucks stores as well it seems) and kept an eye out for Stewy, there is really nothing as good to me as standing amongst a mass of people and taking in the atmosphere and the crossing is one of my favourite places to do this.

When Stewy showed up the decision was made to go to AgeHa which is the biggest club in Tokyo, there is a bus that goes out to it so all we needed to do was find the bus stop and we would be set, we wandered around to cries from Stewy of "this looks familiar" but in the end we gave up and asked some people and the Japanese being so lovely walked us to where the bus would leave from. It was by asking randoms where to go, that we found a fourth person for our adventures. We met a Canadian from Montreal who was travelling by himself and was looking for night life, and he decided that he would tag along with us. To me, this is travelling, when I was alone I used to just tag along with people given any chance, its how you build your experiences.

AgeHa Entry

We jumped on board the bus and headed off to the club Mecha that was AgeHa, on arriving our only instructions was "Dont Jump in the Pool or they WILL throw you out", we put our coats in the coin lockers (and my camera, no cameras allowed, devo) and headed inside and by golly was this place HUGE and awesome. They have rooms for all your favourite genres of dance music and straight away we headed out to the DnB room and cut some shapes. One of the Unique things about this club is there a pool on the outside deck, while it was cold outside everyone was still tearing it up, what more can you want in a club, great atmosphere, great view BLISS (well actually I would have liked there to be a higher number of tall gorgeous single millionaires (or even one would have done) but you cant win them all). The rest of the night was flitting from room to room soaking up the atmosphere of the place and dancing. God it felt good to dance.

Lasers in the Main Room - Mental

The song Reflections by Bliss N Eso goes "Its not the high when you're running round, its the friends that you find when you're coming down" and this has rung true for me many times in my travels (not the getting high bit, getting high in a foreign country is just a silly idea) and this night was one of these. We ended up breaking out into the day light at about 5.30 in the morning to make our way back to Tokyo, the last bus is at 5 so we started walking towards the train station. On our journeys we met some awesome Hawaiian guys who chatted to us because of my shoes (I was wearing my drift cats for those playing at home), turns out they drive 86s and have been living in Japan for 11 years. To me its the little coincidences in life that can make me look back and smile about my experiences. They helped us find out way to the station, get on the right train and bidded us farewell... its the little things right.

6am Tokyo Sky

Someone I know said that 0430 - 0630 were the best hours in the day, for everything and on this one occasion I would have to agree, there is nothing like the morning sun rising over a sleeping city, the passed out people on the train, the garbagemen, the old people going for walks, the clear stillness in the air, there is nothing like it at all. I walked back to the hotel listening to Aussie Hip Hop with a smile on my face , because this is living