Let's go back to when the bewilderment first started...

So, lemme go back to when I first got to Tokyo. My brithday was spent flying over the North Pole, so I thought I'd celebrate with a couple Bloody Marys, thinking I'd find some other fun-loving (drunky) JETs to help me celebrate. Wrong-o. My seatmates were huddled deep in their seats, focused on their laptops. So, I popped a Xanex, thinking I'd arrive fresh as a daisy in Tokyo. More like unconscious. Apparently, the plane RAN OUT OF GAS, and had to stop in Sapporo for refueling. I didn't even feel the landing.
Finally we get to Tokyo around ten. I wipe the drool off my pillow and start the painful process of getting off the plane, along with 200 other JETs on the flight. An hour later, still drooling, and in line for a bus.
We get to our hotel and I pass out, only to wake up at like, 5am. Woo!
Now, I'm not one to pass up a chance to explore, but I was so out of it from my Xanex coma and jetlag and carrying my 100lbs backpack, that I saty put in the hotel for the good part of two days.
When I finally stepped out, my world looked like this:




I trooped out into the Shinjuku area, where I was surrounded by lots of neon and HELLA Japanese people. Right. I'm in Japan. Makes sense. Looked around, just taking in the town and feeling like my eyes were gonna pop out of my head.
Okay, so back to the hotel room. I was comforted by the safety of other nerdy gaijin and seminars about stupid shit. So that I was ready to head back out again. This time we took a couple New Zealanders with us.
They had the brilliant idea of going out for Mexican food. Let's take in all aspects of Japanese culture.
So...
The Japanese have a hilarious idea of what 'queisadias' are like. "Well, they're just like potstickers, right? Just stuff 'em full a cheese and throw some ketchup on it for sauce. Damn, we are so down with internationalization!"

Right.




Apparently, they also think Mexicans are a bunch of fairies in skirts. Quisas...






There was more than just thimble-sized margaritas and cockroach infested blues bars (I think one Japanese woman got her first look at Mexican-American pink taco when she walked in on me hunched over the hole-in-the-ground toilet. Unfortunately, my camera was off when this occurred.), but the best part was the end of the evening. As we walked around, searching in vain for an open bar, we came across the lighthouse that is am/pm. We welcomed their delicious treats of onigiri and bento boxes, and found that their sake was kid-friendly.





Next up: getting to kouzu, or how I learned to get over my fear of dying in a Barbie-sized plane. But now, there's a typhoon about to hit, and I gots to get my underwear off the clothesline before the wind (or some dirty old man) gets them.