Work on Wednesday (Yesterday)... We went searching for some golf stores to gather intel for a client: Sassy Swings. That was alright. A lot of walking. Basically there was a lot of walking that whole day. After the golf stores and lunch, we went back out to Tokyo Big Sight for the ifia Conference (international food ingredients and additives). That was really freaking cool. sooooooo many free samples of totally random stuff. I had, uh, green tea flavored soy milk... gold film candy (yeah, real gold film)... yogurt flavored energy drink... a lot of soy bean stuff; edamame, etc... much much more, but i can't remember right now. it was really neat and interesting, though. Oh, yeah! My favorite was this fruit that I had never heard of called Acai (the 'c' has that french thing under it that makes it sound like an 's', but I dont know how to type that), which is apparently the number one super food, according to that dude who wrote the super foods book. It was sooooo delicious. I can imagine it being really expensive though.
Wednesday night, I played at the Ruby Room again. This week they had the open mic earlier on (from about 7-9 pm) because they had a real band scheduled to play later, but they actually scheduled my own time in for me because they liked me so much the previous week. My time was from 9:30 - 10. And there was nobody from 9-9:30, so I actually ended up starting a little bit early and I had a good long set. I felt real good about my set and it was a much bigger crowd than last week, AND they invited me back again for next week, but that's not even the best part of the night! My friend Satoshi came to see me again, which was so nice of him and he bought me a drink after my set. We have plans to hang out soon outside of the Ruby Room sometime. When I wasn't playing I shared a table with a girl named Yuki who I had met last week. She played guitar and sang solo, and she did again this week. This week she had brought along two of her friends whom she is actually in a band with. A pretty darn good band. They're called Yucca (and if you click on that name, it'll take you to their website), and I'm now friends with all of them. Well, all except one. It's a 4-person band; two guys and two girls. The two girls are Yuki and Aya, and the one guy I met is Yuusaku. We talked for the whole night, and then exchanged phone numbers and everything. Aya actually took the photo that you can see above and to the right on her own camera and sent it to me. They're so nice and exactly my kind of people and, well, it just so happened that I suggested we hang out again the next night and they agreed! but that story will continue later... Among other friends I made: exchanged phone numbers with Ako, the girl at the bar, who just started giving me free drinks after 11:00, and also exchanged numbers with an American named Matt, who has been living in Tokyo for like 10 years now. Ted, one of my bosses, also came to the show, which was so nice of him, and he brought along a "friend" who was clearly his girlfriend, or one of his girlfriends, I dunno how Ted operates... hehe.
Anyways, when the main band got up on stage, everybody was on their feet and dancing, it was so fun. It was... *sigh*... so much fun...
So then today I woke up at the normal 7 AM, got ready for work, put on my suit and all. Today was the first day of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) International Conference, which both Ted and I would be attending. It was held at the Okura Hotel, one of the biggest and most popular (and most expensive, I'm sure) hotels
in Tokyo. And it also happens to be, like, 5 feet from our office building. Seriously, it's right across the street. So that's convenient. Anyways, the conference was boring as hell, but at the same time really really neat. It really is an international conference. I think I met people from about 15 different countries, and I didn't even talk to that many people compared to how many were actually there. I met someone from Portugal, Turkey, Canada, France, China, India, Nigeria, South Africa, Korea, Colombia. There were apparently two attendees from Hungary, but I never saw them. And of course, a good amount of people from both Japan and the US. It was an all day affair today, with speeches from 9 Am to 6 PM with, seriously, not enough breaks in between. I got really really antsy at some points. I think the coolest person I met, though, was the executive producer of everything Pokemon! He was hilarious and way over-energetic. I guess you have to be, though, to have that kind of a job.
Well, since I didn't get home until nearly 7 PM, as soon as I changed clothes I went right back out to meet up with Yuki and Aya. They said Yuusaku is a mysterious boy and he often goes and does his own thing
and nobody knows where he is. Reminds me of Neal, but anyways... I met up with them at a small concert venue in Yoyogi (don't worry about where it is), and from there we went around, just the 3 of us, from concert house to concert house to bar to concert house, checking out all these local band concerts for about 10 or 15 minutes at a time. It was sooooo fun. And also apparently these girls are really popular because they knew people at every freaking place we went to. It was wild. Apparently their band is really popular in Tokyo, from what other people were telling me. Yuki said they can sometimes draw crowds of up to 300 people to their shows. So at one of the places, the band that was playing knew the girls and were like "come on up and sing!" but Yuki was shy so just Aya went up a
nd sang and it was awesome, and I felt so freaking cool cuz I was like "I'm with them" and nobody could freaking believe I spoke Japanese like a normal Japanese person, just with a smaller vocabulary. Apparently my accent is getting really good because Aya called me and she said when I answered she thought she had accidentally called one of her Japanese friends instead of me. I know I'm rambling here, but bear with me, I'm really excited. We finished the night at this little hole-in-the-wall (or rather, hole-in-the-basement) bar that was devoted entirely to Bob Dylan. It was pretty awesome. They just played Dylan music nonstop and about halfway through the time we spent there, they put on a DVD of a real old Dylan concert. It was really and amazing night. I have never done anything like that before and I can't wait to do it again in two days. Oh, yeah, we're hanging out again on Saturday. I'm meeting Yuki at 4 PM, but actually Aya has to work until 9, so we'll meet up with her later on. Anyways, I have these two pictures of Aya and Yuki, but I suck at taking pictures and Aya took a few at the Dylan bar, so after she sends those to me, I'll be sure to post them.So yeah, I know some famous Japanese people. Not only that, but I'm good friends with them. I was skeptical about their popularity at first, since I seemed to so easily become a good friend, but I experienced it firsthand tonight. People love 'em.
Both Yuki and Aya have webcams and Skype, and they want to keep up the friendship after I go home, too. I really got lucky, meeting these girls. I guess I just happened to have one of my rare outgoing nights yesterday, which seem to happen more often here. I guess I'm more confident here. Yet another indicator that this is actually my homeland. haha.
Well, It's 1 AM and I have to get up at 7 again for another full day of the boring-as-hell OECD Conference, so I better hit the sack. I don't know when y'all should expect another post from me, since I won't be able to write at work tomorrow and it seems like I may have a busy weekend ahead of me, but I won't make you wait too long!
Love,
Lawrence!
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