My Birthday, Friday

For those of you on Facebook, you know I got to Tokyo, got a hotel, and went clubbing.  You also know I got back safe.  This is to fill in all the missing info. My birthday was Friday, January 22 and I'd decided the month before that it would be the weekend I finally got to Tokyo and have been planing it since then.  Most of December I was debating where to go and if I should invite anyone for the full weekend.  During the holidays I decided to invite my friend Alex and our friend Brian, whose birthday was this past Wednesday.  My plan was that we'd get a triple room with three twin beds and I reserved a hotel for three.  Then I talked to Brian and he said He'd stay at a friend's house at night and could hang with us during the day so I didn't need the extra bed.  Oh well, I'd made the reservation already.  Well, last week I lost my credit card (I think I accidently threw it out with my tray.  I feel smrt.  :) ) and took the oppertunity to cancel those reservations and set up a cheaper reservation that was for a small two bed room with barely enough room for the beds but I liked the location and figured we wouldn't be in the room much anyways.  I was figuring we'd be getting out of work early afternoon like usual.  That would work since checkin time around here is early afternoon and I hadn't asked for a late checkin.  unfortunately, I learned last Thursday that work wouldn't get out until late afternoon at earliest and with changing and taking the train, we wouldn't get to the hotel until at earliest 6 o'clock.  That got rid of any chance of sightseeing Friday in the daylight, which was one of the reasons I wanted to get to Tokyo.  Call me crazy but I still want to see the cultural stuff when I go to a famous city, not just party and sleep.  I was kinda worried about the timing, but I figured it would work well somehow.  Then last Friday I was told that the contractors were coming Saturday so I had to sit in my cold workspce from about 8 am to 3 pm all weekend and up until Wednesday watching them work.  The problem had them stumped until Wednesday afternoon so they tweaked this and that all week and left Thursday morning telling us that we needed a new part but that the part we had now would still work if we maintained certain conditions and our boss would have to request a new piece and another visit from them.  Yay.  So Friday morning dawns andmy system broke.  Yay.  The contractors were here all week messing with things us lowly maintainers aren't supposed to touch since we don't have the "specail training" needed to work with small chips, just the large modules.  (My theory is that the companies just don't want to loose the contract and money they get from not letting us do our own work but sending others to do what they say we can't. )  We had the proper conditions to make the thing work, now we had another, very different problem.  My theory is that they didn't connect everything correctly but I'm too new to see what goes where perfectly.  I looked anyways but saw nothing off to me.  Then one of my bosses told me that the high boss may want us to come in Saturday if it isn't better.  That would completely kill my weekend.  not only could I not sightsee on Saturday, but I couldn't stay in Tokyo on Friday night.  I would have to be at work by eight which means there by 730 to change after an hour plus train ride and twenty minute walk.  I'd have to be out of my hotel by about 5 after cleaning up my stuff, possibly packing everything.  So much for sleeping in or staying out late.  Li'l B does not do well on little or no sleep.  I nearly cried.
However, the boss never said anything before I was dismissed for the day about 230 pm and my lowest level boss told me that if that needed someone to come in, they could call him in.  They don't have my phone number.  I left before he got furthur word.  However, Alex and Brian didn't get out of work until about 4 and we didn't get out in town until well after 6.  I'd called the hotel and been told that they'd hold the room until 8.  Well, the other two decided on sushi for supper so we went for convayor sushi at Daei Mall.  Conveyor Sushi is Japan's version of fast food, sorta. The room has one huge table surrounded by bar stools on one or thre sides, depending on room size, and tables connected to the main table on the fourth side, or some variation of design.  The inner wall of the table supports a small conveyor belt that circles the table.  The sue chef (sorry, that's probably spelled wrong) stands in the middle of the table and makes small plates of two individual size sushi, usually the same type, and puts them on the conveyor.  When the plates come around, the customer picks up the plate and eats the sushi.  If someone wants a specail plate, they can request it for no extra charge.  You pay by plate, which are color-coded to say price.
After we paid for the meal, we got on the train to Tokyo.  We finally got to Tokyo closer to 10 pm than to 9, well after the 8 o'clock deadline to check in.. a quick call to the hotel got no answer so Brian went on to his friend's house and we went to Roppongi, the big club area in Tokyo.  We were first ent to Hotel Ibis which wad a nice location and really nice hotel, but a little expensive for us so we turned around and found the Hotel Arca Torre.  It's a hotel on the same block as the subway station, it's right on the main street, and a better price.  we wound up getting a small room with a double bed and mini bathroom (the tub is just big enough to sit down in if wanted and there is barely room to turn in the bathroom) but it has some floor room for us to mess up, which is nice.  as annoying as it can be to live in a mess, somedays perfect order just needs to be ditched.  Heaven help us if I ever get truely OCD, I will truely drive myself fully insane.  We spent a few hours lolligaging around and doing hair and makeup (Alex did my makeup and my hair basically had a tussled look helped by mousse).  We left the hotel about midnight to go to a club that she'd heard about.  The DJs were very popular and the music was awesome but there weren't many people there and it was rather small for my taste.  The room was basically a two floor room with a dancefloor a little longer than my hotel room is with a large bar by the door, a smaller bar by the stage, and a few tables people were playing musical chairs with.  We met some friends of hers that were fun, unfortunately one thought he wanted to get with Alex and was already nearing drunk when we got there.  I learned that although I can tolerate more alcohol than I thought I could, I can't pick up other people's rythym.  I can move to the music, but when one of her friends tried to dance close to me and teach me how he wanted to dance, I couldn't follow.  Happened before with my ex.  I just can't work on other people's beat.  It took me many months to learn to march with others and that is as they shout out the rythym.
Anyways, we left about 230 am when Alex was starting to weave standing up but not before the guy had proclaimed his undying love for her.  apparently allshe needs for guys to love her (or get obsessed) is to ignore them and tell them she doesn't want them.  Lucky girl.
We left to realize the trains shut down at midnight so we took a taxi back to the hotel to realize it had been close enough to walk to then decided to get some sushi for snack.  there was a sushi shop on the corner so we got food and went to bed earlier than she had panned but she slept 'til 930 this morning so it wasn't too early. We got up and went looking for brunch.  We found a good restaurante that served mostly soup with thick or thin Odon noodles with a little meat and a few spices.  It was actually pretty good, a quiet but good flavor and filling noodles.  After that we went back to the hotel to be told that the room was getting clean and could we return in ten minutes? so we went to a nearby bookstore that was an interesting blend of English books and Japanese books.  It is now 330 in the afternoon, Alex is sleeping on the bed behind me as I type and I am munching on the raisen clusters my mom sent in the latest care package.  Hmm...is there anything more divine than chocolate covered raisens?  Well, the candies designed to taste like chocolate covered strawberey shortcake is pretty good...  Hm, there may be a challenge coming....  :)
Well, That's all so far, check again tomorrow for what I do Saturday night.  This is Li'l B signing off to do more explorations.