Mikawhere?: conference in the big city!

I am really behind in my posting so I may play a little catch up this week. The conference is couple weeks ago already. We reconvened in the beautiful Keio Plaza hotel in Tokyo. I don't recall if I gushed about my room there at the orientation conference but it was gorgeous. I didn't have a digital camera then so I only have real life pictures but take it from me it was beautiful. Now, I am absolutely grateful that my BOE payed for the trip and everything but my room was a hovel compared to the last. I wouldn't think a room that ugly and worn down could exist in the same hotel as the beautiful trendy room I stayed in before. I have noticed this trend in Japanese hotels to have very nice lobbies and shit hotel rooms. Back home if you have a shit room the lobby will typically reflect that as well, god know I worked in Howard Johnson. These Japanese are tricky that way!

Enough about hotel rooms, though. The conference had its informative points and many sessions that were a waste of time. We had a good time out in the city though.

We ended up eating at this restaurant called the Lock up and it was an interesting experience. Japan apparently has many themed restaurants and the lock up is a jail or a mental institution where you are lead to your room in handcuffs and locked in.

Many of the menu items are eccentric as well. Reggie and I tried the test tube cocktail concoction and my salad had a bubbling glowing dressing.

They periodically turned off the lights and had a "prison break" where the inmates come and accost you with glowing cleavers and mangled up faces. Jason came and made out with Chris or stole his soul, we have yet to decide.

We also went to a few clubs and let me tell you they are a bazillion times better than those in Niigata. They play decent music and people actually go to them. The drinks are quite expensive though. We encountered these crazy dancing guys at Gaspanic one of which had Melissa in their sights. Its been a while since I have seen so many foreign people.

We missed the last train and Reggie decided she had a late night ramen craving so we squeezed into a cubicle of a store and she had a good chat with an old Japanese man while Chris and I were falling asleep over our bowls.