IDidItMyWay

I haven’t mentioned this previously but from mid 2006 until late 07 I lived in Tokyo, Japan. Now I’m sure in hearing that many of you may have just envisioned the small, peaceful, always smiling people of Japan, the cute, non threatening, never violent people of Japan. Now I’m not here to argue the stereotypical image you already have, as I too shared the same perception for almost a year of living there. However that all change when two of my friends dropped by for an 11hour stopover on their way to another country. This is how it went down..

Well I knew my friends were getting in to Narita airport at 7:30pm, as I had made numerous trips there in the past I didn’t think it actually took that long from my place (the other side of Tokyo). So I thought I had left in plenty of time at 6:00pm but I was wrong. Starting from around 7:45pm I started to get calls along the lines of “where the fuck are you man? You said you would be waiting at the front of arrivals”. So thinking quickly I said “grab a drink at the bar and I’ll be there soon”, however when I hung up after the suggestion I began to realize that I was still quite some time from the Airport and that they had probably already been drinking for the duration of the 8hour flight from Australia to Japan.

Well 8:30 comes and I walking towards the escalators when I hear this loud almost scream “SWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!” immediately I know who it is, I look up and my friends are riding down the escalators looking (and sounding) quite drunk already. I ignore this and decide this shall be a night to remember. So we book their luggage into holding and find an international cash machine for them to collect some local currency for the evening ahead.

[Now before going any further I would like to add that I had been talking to them before they left Australia about how crazy the red light district of Japan is and how you can get away with anything so they automatically said that is where we shall spend our night.]

So we are on the train to the dodgy city and immediately the results of the alcohol are becoming obvious on my uncultured friends with one of them spotting a man reading a rather ‘erotic’ comic book. So rather than simply mention it to us he decides the more appropriate approach would be to point and yell ‘he’s fucking looking at a cartoon porno’ to which everyone on the train (who probably have no idea what he said but completely understand the body language of a point) look at the man who looks at us with one of the most genuine death stares I have received.

30minutes later and we are now finally arrived in the city; we are all pretty keen to start hitting the drink hard so the partying can begin. As the only local of the group I recommend we go to the English bar as the drinks are the cheapest and it is a great place to start a night, my friends oblige.

About an hour passes along with it a number of pints of beer, which was make quite fast with my tales to the guys about Japanese Gentlemen’s clubs and the events that have taken place within them. So they are keen to experience these for themselves so I tell them ok but to try our market value first as when in Japan’s Roppongi it is very common to be hustled by club owners to come into their club. The smart visitor will walk the entire street then come back before deciding which club is offering the best deal.

So 15 minutes later we have made our discussion and are in the club. It is $20 for an hour of all the drinks you can drink as well as the company of any dancer in the club you want, with an extra bonus of a strip show every 15 minutes. So we immediately pick out a girl each and order three straight bourbons.

[Another point to mention is when in Japan spirits are cheaper then beer so the bar tenders are quite generous when it comes to pouring them]

So the host comes back with our drinks which are in a 200ml cup with about 170ml of bourbon and 1 ice cube, no coke as it seems that shit is too expensive! So we throw it down our throats like there is no tomorrow, then almost united as one we immediately call for another. Just to be an extra dick I tell him to not water it down this time. He returns with 3 more only this time it is completely full of bourbon minus the ice. We again drink it as fast as an athlete who has just finished a fucking two day marathon. The results are almost immediate on my perception of things it seems to be doing the same for my friends. I see one of the guys jump up and start pole dancing with the girl on stage. He is quickly ushered off and upon his return he gives me one of his almost patented ‘fuck yeah’ nods with a grin.

The girl I’m talking with is semi interesting, she is from a country town and has only been in the city for 4 months and works in two clubs. I tell her I’m a tourist as it’s so much more fun when you know the game but you act like you don’t know the rules. So she as pre programmed mentions she is thirsty and could she have a drink (which you end up paying for and are around $20 each). I quickly give her a ‘fuck no you can’t, your working’ response.

I then turn to my friends who have just bought their girls a drink each. I get up and tell them what the deal is and how you have to cover that charge, one friend understands and assures me no more. The other however I know didn’t have any idea what I was talking about and 35minutes later his chick has 5 empty glasses in front of her. At this point I’m completely aware that this isn’t going to end well as he only started the night with $100 cash. So I quickly think up an idea, I tell the girl to talk a walk as I need to talk to my friend; she leaves and I tell him the shit he is now in, so I give him the escape plan.

Go to the bathroom (right near the entrance of the club) then when exiting the bathroom just walk out and wait for us a bit down the road, no one will know any difference. He pulls it off and my other friend and I leave thinking we are smart. We are walking up the stairs when all of a sudden the angry bouncer runs out yelling stop and where is our fuckin friend? We act dumb and as if we never had another friend with us. This again seems to work until the idiot jumps out from behind a wall and yells ‘hey guys’. The bouncer sees him and tells him to come back in to fix up his tab. He tells the bouncer to get fucked as he already paid the dumb bitch at the front counter, even going as far to tell the bouncer he will even prove it.

At this point we all know we now need to revert to the tried and trusted RLF Plan (run like fuck) so we together start walking back down the stair towards the entrance while I countdown the steps 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and we again united turn and get the fuck out of there in three different directions. I run for about 500metres and then glace over my shoulder to check I’m safe and then slow to a walking pace.

I’m feeling pretty pleased how things went down now but then I remember that they don’t have cell phones and I’m not sure if they even have my number on them.

I now go down the street by myself into a club called ‘gaspanic’ (those of you familiar with Japan will know that these places aren’t the classes clubs by far!) So at this point I need to think what I’m going to do, so I get a beer and grab a seat next to the dance floor on some crazy designed red chair. I’m sitting there hoping that regardless of what happens they make it to the airport in time. After five minutes of this my chair falls backwards, (I didn’t notice until I hit the ground) I open my eyes upon impact to see my friends staring down at me.

Now that we were together again everything seemed fine, we were talking with a few Japanese people, having joke fights with each other etc, this went on for about 40 minutes. Then one of my friends hears one of his favorite songs, so jumps up on the couch and starts to jump up and down. Immediately the bouncers are on to it and come over, I assure them there is no need for force, and that I will get him off. I tell him so he gets off. I think that solves that then he gives a ‘NOT’ and gets back up. The bouncers see this again but this time are accompanied by the club manager. I tell him how I promise this is the last time. He tells me that if he does it again he will be out, no more excuses. (Well he didn’t tell me in those words since he barely spoke English but the tone and veins sticking out his neck kind of gave away he didn’t think it was as funny as we did). So again I tell my friend to get down, he looks at me steps down puts his full beer to his lips until it‘s empty and throws the empty can across the room while yelling ‘FUCK EM’ and jumps back up on the lounge and now is running along it.

I now know that this is it for this place, security comes from all directions. They grab him and start to escort him off the lounge gently. He looks at the one who has his left arm and yells ‘you fuckin pitched me you cunt’ and with the force of a typhoon uses his right hand to land a punch straight into the bouncers right eye. It’s safe to say security now were not so gentle, they get him to the front balcony and throw him over the railing. Upon impact with the ground a sound similar to when you snap a large branch in half came from his right ankle.

He decides that he now needs to get them back for this so runs at the doorman, the other bouncers anticipate this response as are already on their way down the stairs. They surround him while he is hopping around and swinging for the fences. I run in to help him and land a few but then realized the other friend is gone? I look around and seem a Japanese bouncer have him in a sleeper hold that Hulk Hogan would have been impressed with and to my surprise it was actually working! He was slowing sinking, so I run across and with my best Liu Kang Dragon Kick ever, I get the guy in the side of the head which he instantly is KO’ed from.

Thinking I’m now the fucking man I turn around to go back to the pack fight when one of the bouncers who mustn’t be a Mortal Kombat fan coat hangers me and knocks me to the ground big time. Not only is it bad that I’m now on the ground wondering what the fuck just happened but I also now have him and the other two idiots thinking it necessary to start stomping on me. I yell in Japanese “OK, OK” which they take as a white flag and stop and walk away. I get to my feet and with possibly one of the top 13 sucker punches in history I get him right in the ear and run the other way.

I finally stop and realize I have blood all over my face where my lip and nose has split open, so I thought it a good time to quit, I run back in and grab my friend from the pack of wolves and carry him over my shoulder down the road a bit to where the other friend was sitting on a gutter. I evaluate his ankle which is now the size of a volleyball and realize he has no shoe on that foot, it must had flown off during flight or upon impact with the ground just like in the movies, so we all had a giggle about that before realizing that they needed to be at the airport in just over an hour.

So we started to bid our farewells, I see a stripper from a gentlemen’s club I have been to ask her to get our ‘one’ holiday picture together and off they went.

The good news is they made it to the airport in enough time and were even given propriety treatment which included a wheelchair and not having to line up in queues. So they weren’t too disappointed with that.

Oh yeah… almost forgot after they boarded the train I went back to the stripper and hung out/made out with her for the rest of that day.

Yep….

Its 8:38am Saturday morning, my heads is killing like someone has just driven over it four times, and cheek is aching for some reason. I’m lying on my friends lounge with a red and white teddy bear blanket on me with my hoodie over my head. At this point I’m very confused as the friend whos house I’m now at didn’t even come out the previous night.

I slowly sit up and zombie walk to the bathroom, relive myself and now proceed to wash my hands, as the water is running I look up into the mirror and realize I have a huge bite mark on the cheek that was aching. (it is clear that it’s a bite mark as you can see the teeth imprints)

Now I’m really confused, the last think I can clearly recall is drinking a tequila shot and explaining to the hot bar tender that you eat the lemon before you drink it in Mexico which is of course just some bull shit I made up to get her talking.

So I start looking for more evidence that can some how help me piece together the events of the previous evening. I realize that my left ear is purplish in parts as well.

At this point I hear a door open and its my friend wandering from his bedroom, he sees me and just cracks a huge smile. I’m guessing this smile was because either he knew what the fuck had happened or he could see the bite marks and just imagined what may have happened so rather then let him clarify which it is I ask “What the fuck happened to me?”

Friend: dude you came back here about 3:30am banging on my bedroom window yelling you knocked a chick out.

Me: huh

Friend: man I don’t know I was pretty trashed when you told me what happened; anyway you look like you have bite marks on your face.

Me: fuck….

So he had to go to work at that point so I jump in my car I left there the previous night before I went out drinking and head home, my dad sees me first I look like some homeless bum in our backyard who has just lost his last 3cents on a disabled horse race. He immediately hits me up with a “what happened to you, you look like shit”. At this point I had the drive home to recall some of what happened and it was coming back in parts.

Me: I remember a girl with glasses and my phone going dead

Dad: oh that explains it then

Me: yep

I am still so tired and in pain so I decide the best method of a quick recovery is to sleep it off, so I plug my phone in to charge and go to bed. About 4 hours later I wake up and go turn my phone on, I have 3 messages all basically along the lines of “aaaaahahahahaha you idiot, only that could happen to you”.

Now I’m really curious as to what may have happened so I call up my friend and he gives me the night in detail. I will skip to the period of the night following the tequila as before that it was just me drinking casually and talking shit.

11:40ish I decide that we would continue the night by proceeding to another night club but I needed a quick strong drink for the long 5minute journey so I get the tequila, my friend sees me talking to the bartender and excuses himself to the bathroom, he comes back and insists that he buy me another for taking so long so again we have another tequila shot and walk out.

12:00 we arrive at a gas station across the road from the club, I purchase a lighter. As to why I did this even he couldn’t explain.

12:20 I’m now on the balcony talking more shit to a bunch of just legal kids about how I could stab them if I wanted to (younger guys thrive of this aggression and will often become ‘night groupies’ due to this) so they start buying me drinks asking for more stories.

12:40 I’m really busting to go to the toilet as it has been over an hour and numerous liquids are now resting in my body. But as I’m in the middle of another completely awesome bullshit story I think fast and while I’m still talking one of the young guys lifts his leg up real quick from under the table. Because he did it so quickly everyone is quite surprised and he looks under to see me pissing and announces it to the other groupies who all think that this is just great and get me another drink.

1:20 Dancing on the dance floor when some girl in thick black rimmed glasses is looking at me very strangely.

1:23 I decide this is not right and approach her, I have no memory of what I said but my friend said it was definitely only one or two sentences before she threw her head towards mine with mouth open and latched onto my cheek. Out of natural reaction to something like this happening I give her my best Mike Tyson hello with a round house to the head that not only knocks her to the ground but her glasses fly off into the crowd.

1:24 She wasn’t alone I now have 3 maybe 4 guys punching the shit out of me and I have now hit the floor. Security rushes in to sort the shit out.

1:26 I’m now standing outside the club planning how I can ‘re enter’ the club but decide I should notify EVERYONE I have even known where I now am by scrolling through my phone index. Before I get to the D’s my phone is dead and I am stuck.

1:30 Lucky a guy who went to my school but a number of grade lower sees me not happy at my phone and offers me a lift home, I agree and direct him to my friends house, once there I realize that my car key is inside his house but his house is locked up so I bang on his bedroom window to which I later find out he wasn’t even in but his girlfriend who had only just gotten to sleep after picking him up from a drunken evening at the local bar isn’t that happy to hear from me. ‘Sway you fuckin suck!!’ She gets up opens the door and walks back without even saying good morning. I see my friend passed out on the lounge I run and jump on him to wake him up before thinking perhaps its best if I apologize for waking the girlfriend up.

1:40 I walk in to the bedroom turn the light on to which again she isn’t happy to see me and makes it very clear with a non warming tone of voice ‘FUCK OFF SWAY”

1:41 I return to the living room and pass out.

So overall I feel as though I didn’t do anything that embarrassed myself in anyway but instead I can now tick off ‘Get bitten by a chick in glasses before knocking her to the floor’ from my list of things to do before I die.

So what makes a beer stand out from the rest I hear you ask as you look in your local bottle shop fridge, pondering which will be the lucky brand to get you smashed and for you to see hours later what the body does to it as your throwing it up.

Well to help you poor fellows out I have had a good long think about what put a beer above the rest and what beers are best for which situations.

So to make this description valid I of course have taken quite a few for the team over the last few months at Jules World Beer Club. Here I have tasted some of the finest and some of the most awful beers on the planet.

So lets start with alcohol percentage. Depending on the country the alcohol percentage will range from around 3% - 8%. So now your probably wondering what is better…? Well it all depends upon you purpose. If you would like to be able to swallow the beer without holding your nose and tilting your head so far back that the beer won’t touch the taste buds you should aim fro around the 5% types, as stuff higher than that is starting to enter the ‘tastes like shit’ bracket.
But if you only have a few bucks or are in a hurry to make a complete dick of yourself than aim for the 7+ bracket as within a few you will start thinking that the beer ‘isn’t that bad’ you may even start to make up shit to your mates how you have actually been drinking this stuff for a while now and believe its among the best on the market.

But remember if you hear yourself ‘thinking’ or ‘talking’ about that then its defiantly time to either stop drinking or drink faster so you can’t witness the downfall of all those years of respect you have earned.

Next is the taste, so what makes a beer nice… some beers are very weak so go down very smooth. Although these are great on the taste buds and throat they will leave you with the feeling you are less than a man, also open you wide up to all types of bulling from the kids on the real stuff. So it’s important to get a beer that is not weak as piss, but not as harsh as a bottle of petrol. Believe it or not this is a fine line, but just let your taste buds help you find the taste that suits your character.

Smell, although many of you at this point are wondering what the hell smell matters as it down the throat before any smell matter. Well try telling yourself that while you’re brewing your own beer from the mouth factory at around 4am.
So now it should be obvious that choosing the smell of your beer is up there with choosing the smell of your cologne, so try to find yourself a beer that you believe will hold its odor, through even the darkest of hours. BUT before you go picking the strongest odor available keep in mind the ladies and what they will think at around 1am when you talking bullshit in there ear with the breath of a corpse. So either find a nice scented beer that the ladies won’t mind or make sure you have a packet of mints handy for those crucial moments.

Packaging, now the look of the beer is almost the most important decision you will have to make. Its what you will be judged upon while your drinking it so in a way it is defining your character. So its very important not to go with some sissy colored girly looking logo. Instead look for the darker/more manly logos so that those who are looking for the weakest link at a party shall pass right by you. Also it’s important from the ladies perspective as they do not want to be seen with a guy who looks like he is drinking warm piss out of a kiddy bottle.

The color of the bottle can also come into play, depending on the occasion. So in saying that the clear bottles are great if there is going to be a lot of lighting at the party/gathering, where as the brown bottles are best kept for those darker parties where you may need to throw it at something/someone later to show you might. The green bottles are like a white shirt they can appear at most occasions but be careful not to only be associated with the greens as after a while people may start to ponder your sexuality and if your wearing that pink playboy wrist band is really because you said a chick gave it to you.

So overall take as much time choosing you beer as you would your woman for the night, think of the occasion and which of the beer family will ‘fit’ in more. Never accept the first one you see or the only one they had left as you may be remembered for it from that night on.

If you take this advice into consideration you shall win the girl of your dreams and if you don’t, you must be to ugly anyway and no beer can fix that my friend, unless of course you somehow get the mystical girl to try some…..

Ok having recently gone through separation after seven years it has come to my attention that relationships are

• A) difficult
  
• B) leave you feeling like shit when they are finished.

I compare a relationship to a good night out,

Meeting the Girl and potential to date:
At the start of the night you are all excited perhaps starting to have a few drinks with your friends a little light headed with great great ambitions for what will come of the evening.

After a few months:
A few hours later you are in the middle of the night and your feeling content, maybe the night hasn’t gone to plan but at least your still having fun.

The Break-up:
The next morning has come, you are now hearing of the shit you did and can’t believe that you would be possible of doing such things, adding to this self esteem depression is the fact you feel like you going to be sick and your not sure if it’s due to the drinking or the embarrassment that it ever happened.

Now don’t get me wrong, those of you out there currently in a relationship probably think this could and never will happen to you. There is a possibility that it won’t, but when should it occur you will reach the phase that I now call ‘fucking over it’ when you see the other person out and it’s a surreal feeling because it almost feels like you are still together but then you see them trying to hook up with the strangest looking individuals (isn’t it weird how when you see an ex with someone else you almost instantly turn into a model thinking to yourself that ‘phhh I’m so much better looking than him/her) and it complete fucks you night.

Ok ok now that I have given you enough information to feel the pain next comes my solution (to date) go out but make sure you will not see the ex (actually seise all contact with the ex, mentally acting as if they are no longer on earth will greatly help you in the moving on phase) soon as you see a member of the opposite sex that you feel is up to your standards do not hold back and instantly talk to them. But in your head think that your actually to good for the person and you will be very very surprised at how that can change your confidence levels.

Overall I guess I really wonder what the point of a relationship is as after a few months things will never be the same you and the person know that, you know that the feeling that you both felt is gone for ever and can only be felt again when you find someone new. Its kind of bull shit how that feeling can only be found through moving on but then you carry the baggage of wanting the other person to not move on, to remain frozen until the day you want to feel shitty again.