the tall blond guy goes to japan

It's a verb

Roppongi

I wish I had pictures of this place. My digital camera, nice that it is, is not allowed to accompany me to certain outings. This was one of them. After work on Saturday night, myself and a few others from work went to Roppongi, the seedy clubby district of Tokyo.

It's near the American Embassy, and is therefore traditionally known for its high percentage of foreigners. I think I saw more of them there in a few hours than I have in the entirety of the rest of my trip. Simply amazing. There are bars with cheap food and drink everywhere.... one of the biggest chains is called "Gas Panic". Somehow, I've heard of them before now. I wish I knew from where though... Anyway, we stayed out until really quite late, then we took an expensive cab ride home.

Point One: Cabs in Tokyo are omnipresent. No matter where you go, there's a cab. Loiter on a street corner for a while, and one of two things will happen, depending on your gender. You will either be propositioned (especially in Roppongi or Shinjuku) or a cab will pull up and hover. On busy streets, the preferred method of hailing a cab is wandering out into the street and waving. Since traffic hardly moves in the entertainment districts, this is not dangerous at all. All the cabs are very clean, and the drivers are all older men in suits. I think they might be married to the cleaning gnomes I mentioned earlier on in this series.

One big word of warning here (and I can't stress this enough)

***DO NOT TOUCH THE DOORS!

The drivers have a special lever which they use to open and close the door for you. Always enter a cab from the left side (that's the back seat, opposite the driver). Do not touch the doors.

If you're reading these to try and learn a bit about Japan, and you only have space in your mind for one important fact, this should be the one. Do not touch cab doors. The normally mild-mannered, friendly drivers will reveal secret connections to the yakuza (Japanese mob) and kill you. Really.

(No, no, I'm kidding about the yakuza part. But still, don't you dare touch those doors).

Point Two: Tokyo apparently has no laws about the number of people you can jam into a small room. The laws of physics seem to also not apply. One of the places we went to was so packed full of people that it was impossible to move. It was like a mosh pit that never ended. I hate to think about what would happen if there was to be a fire or something nastier.

Point Three: It is next to impossible to get a mocha in Tokyo, except from Starbucks, which as I mentioned before, is not an option.