countless chrystal chandeliers

The Tokyo sky burns an electric blue and neon orange tattoo on to the eyes of all who dare to look. Buildings soaring so high in the air that their tops break the stratosphere, past the smog and neon lights. On the ground everyone is small and insignificant. From the fortythousandth floor of this enormous hotel, the vast metropolis pluses and glows. Like a moth drawn to a lamp, millions cannot resist the lights. We need the fire. But the fire can kill us. This city will swallow you alive if you're not careful.

After an incredibly toxic and equally sleepless 38 hours, the 200 of us from the Chicago area arrived at the hotel. The plane ride from O'Hare to Narita is horrible and long. I ate two hydrocodone and started drinking bloody marys as soon as we hit 30,000 feet. When you can't feel your legs, a 14-hour international flight in coach is infinitely more bearable.

There are more than 1,500 first-year participants on this program. We were all comfortably packed in the exquisite Keio Plaza Hotel, which is in Shinjuku--the heart of Tokyo. It's the kind of place where you can order a $12 cocktail from the penthouse skybar and walk underneath countless crystal chandeliers as you navigate your way through the vast marbled lobby. We stayed in Tokyo for 3.5 days, the intent being that we would attend a two-day orientation conference. That, of course, was not an any reasonable persons' agenda.

Don't think I'm not grateful for this opportunity. Imagine how many hundreds of thousands of dollars the Japanese government (well, probably their tax payers...) has spent to pay for the international flights and hotel bills of about 1,500 people. And they've been doing this for 20 years. Jesus. The first few days of this program were some of the most insane days I've ever put myself through. I met so many amazing and wonderful people. I drank far too many beers and smoked and endless amount of cigarettes and probably spent way too much money in the process. Oh well...

You can drink and smoke anywhere in this country. God help me.

As soon as we arrived at the hotel we were eager to get out. I found myself in a group of people mainly from the midwest. We left the hotel in search of food and drink. We found it not far away. A nice traditional Japanese restaurant. It was reasonably priced and the staff spoke English, which was nice because it's a pain in the ass to translate for eight different people. I ate tenzaru soba. The only reason that's relevant is because tenzaru soba is absolutely my favorite Japanese food and though here it is ubiquitous and the epitome of Japanese cuisine, you cannot find it at any respectable Japanese restaurant in the states. Think cold buckwheat noodles and tempura fried giant shrimp and veggies with a savory, tasty dipping sauce.

By the time we left the restaurant the sky had erupted in a thunderous downpour, sending everybody scattering for cover from the rain. I had no umbrella and no problem being wet. I started walking down an unknown street with a guy from Nebraska named Matt. We spent about 10 minutes walking along the glowing wet Shinjuku streets before we decided it was time for a drink. Soaked and in need of spirits, we starting looking out for a bar. It smacked us right in the face when we saw a small black square sign that read BAR in white letters hanging from the fourth floor of a nondescript building somewhere along the neon streets of Shinjuku. This was the place. At about the same time, we were spotted by a flock of JETs from England. There were about half a dozen of them. One of the guys stopped us and asked, "Aye, do you know where the bah is?" I pointed to the sign and told them to follow us.

Once we were upstairs and out of the rain and into the light, I could see the faces and bodies of the beautiful people I randomly encountered. One of them I particularly fancied. Becky. She is exotic and alluring. Her eyes are mysteriously Asian and her hair is fire orange. She is the definition of fabulous. There is a hole in her tongue where a stud used to be and she embodies this strange Euro-fashion chic that I will never truly understand. She wet to university at Edinburgh and studied archeology and can't speak any Japanese. Coincidentally, she was placed in Koriyama, which neighbors Iwaki. What a weird and small world.

We spent the night getting pissed on Japanese beer and talked about how the whole world hates Victoria Beckham. Equally interesting: British women have just as much of an interest in the television program Desperate Housewives as American women. They also like Radiohead just as much as we do. I managed to see Becky over most of the orientation, as we attended many of the same workshops and mandatory prefectural meetings.

The next night I went out with five people from the Chicago group. Kipp, Annie, Danielle, Ryan and Stacie. I had become familiar with them because they were members of a facebook message board. None of us are placed anywhere remotely near one another, so it was a rare opportunity to be able to hang out with them all together. We left the hotel after the sun had set and started walking to the into the pulsing neon unknown. Even though Tokyo is the most international city in Japan, being a foreigner still gets you stares. This is compounded when you are sauntering down the narrow roads in a drunken horde. We found a small whiskey bar on second floor of a random building miles away from our hotel. They played quiet jazz and the setting was intimate, only about a dozen seats in the whole place. The problem with drinking at a bar in Tokyo is that almost anywhere you go you're subject to a 500 yen table charge on top of the already overpriced drinks. You can't think about money the same way in this country. It comes and goes with incredible ease.

We stayed at the intimate bar for several rounds. At one point I was drug downstairs to the adjacent sex shop to help Stacie from Iowa in her selection of a new vibrator. It's not safe or appropriate for a woman to walk into a sex shop in Japan by herself. I was happy to be of assistance. After thorough deliberation, we decided on a gurthy pink one with metal beads near the tip and strange tentacles affixed to the shaft. I am told these do wonders.

After purchasing the item, we went back to the upstairs bar for another round. When we left the tiny bar it was pouring rain again. Umbrellas in this country are more or less free for the taking. You sort of pay it forward. Buy an umbrella, use it while you need it, ditch it somewhere once the sky dries up. This works out, as often you get caught in the rain without an umbrella. The bar had a full selection of abandoned rainshields. I chose a yellow one and ventured out into the wet neon streets. Our goal was to find a karaoke box that charged a reasonable price and included drinks.

We found a good spot that cost 2000 yen an hour and included all you could drink. We stayed for three. You can only imagine what six incredibly wasted Americans belting out tunes like Bohemian Rhapsody, Gangsta's Paradise and Champagne Supernova sounds like after they've all been chain smoking Japanese cigarettes and drinking whiskey for hours.

I don't know if it was through my initiative or hers, but once we left the karaoke box and stormed back into the rain I found myself in the arms of a girl from Minnesota. Her name was Annie. She seems like a hipster type and knows Japanese better than me. We made out in an enclave for an eternity. Our heads were full of booze and lust, so we hailed a cab to take us somewhere to unwind. It's hard for the Japanese to get away from the millions packed like sardines in the heart of Tokyo. Young couples, many of whom still live with their parents, need a place to have some privacy. There is also much perversion and prostitution. To cater to this, there are what's called Love Hotels. They're incredibly discreet and also very clean and charge by the hour. We had the cab take us to one of these. I can't remember how much it cost, but we were able to negotiate a room and fell quickly into bed.

We all met again the next day for an equally entertaining, though less insane, night. It was sad to leave these people. We are placed in various off-the-map towns across the island. The chance that we'll all be in the same place at the same time ever again is incredibly slim and I cherish the few short days we had together. If anything, I for sure have places to crash as I travel to the various corners and islands of this strange and beautiful country.

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