Today is my vacation. Last night I drank whiskey until 3 am. I woke up this morning in my bed with the light on. I was hungover, but I felt excited to be on vacation. Yesterday was my last day at my job. I cooked some eggs, and had a shower. I was planning on meeting my friend, Troy in Harajuku. Tim called me and said to come over and have some whiskey before I go. I got over there around 2. We had a few drinks and chatted about the state of affairs, and religion. Ken was hanging out with us. He's on his way to Hokkaido tomorrow to work at a ski resort. He told us about how in Kansas they teach religion in schools based on the premise that the existence of god cannot be proven, so a group of people created their own religion. Its called The Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster(look it up on wikipedia). So after a few stories, I finally convinced everyone to go with me. Of course I was already late meeting my other friend. So we all got on the train to Shibuya. It was just mad in Shibuya. We immediately got separated because of all the crowds. So we just decided to keep walking and wait for a call. We got to the convenience store to buy some beers. The line was about 20 people long, which I've never seen before in a convenience store. I got a beer and some salt and onion chips. We got outside and the other guys found us. We walked a little more. At the end of the street there was a fountain and some people dressed in Anime costumes. My friend tried to talk and sit down next to this one girl, but I guess he was coming on a little too strong, so we kept moving. There was an earth market happening. Organic vegetables and hand made crafts lined the pedestrian street. Some people were making Tatami mats, and another guy had some unique instruments for sale. After that it was street musicians. I was a little buzzed from the alcohol and the crowded streets. The first performance was a group of six girls imitating some idol group. Then there was a guitarist playing alone with his black brimmed hat and studded leather belt. And then there was the guy dressed in green looking like a leprachuan. We started singing with him, but after 30 seconds I lost my attention. Then my favorite was this guy who had a big white round mask with a face painted on it and wore a blue jumpsuit. When I walked up to him he spoke to me in Japanese through some sort of audio microphone filter which made him sound like a robot. He was writing Japanese on cards and giving them away. My friend got one. At the end of this street there were a bunch of street vendors. Tim got some okonomiyaki. We sat down next to these two girls who were studying Japanese from Korea. They were here for only a month. At this point I told my friend who was still waiting in Harajuku to come down to where we were at. There was just too much distraction to move any further. So I walked around a flea market next to all the street vendors. A couple were meditating, there was a pony you could ride, over in the band shell some Taiko drummers were performing. One stall had a couple of gigantic dogs from Germany. And then there was all the cheap clothes. People were selling them for as cheap as 100 yen an item. Groups of women were digging through heaps of them. There were rows and rows of old sneakers. At one point my friend, Austin, was stopped by one of the vendors, they were handing him things to try on. Eventually they just gave him a hat for free. Then I was walking around with Ken, he said he was sad to leave Tokyo especially after just witnessing all of this. Finally my friend Troy called, and I met him at the bottom of these stairs. We grabbed a beer and then ran into this American guy who was asking us about finding jobs in Japan. He came over here to do interviews, but was having a real hard time getting a job. Then we walked back over to the guys who were now trying on strange clothes. I took some pictures of everyone. It was quite amusing. Then Mark and I sat down and chatted about women. He told me he wanted to marry his girlfriend and have lots of children. We all sat around there. Ken started rapping about Tim's new costume. I took a video of it. The sun began to set. It was a fantastic afternoon, a little drunk in the comfortable autumn air.
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