The Latest From T in Japan

Hope you have been enjoying my brother's updates from Japan. I am LOVING them b/c I wonder if my Dad's trips (he traveled constantly) were like this. :) Here is the latest. :)

Ok, I have no phone, will explain later. I'll keep the updates going from where I left off... We made it down from the mountain I was talking about two days ago, barely. While we were up there, I decided to try out my new found lung capacity and decided it would be a good idea to sprint up a mountain that was about 1km away. My lungs worked fine but my legs now hate me! When we returned to the refinery, there was media all around taking pictures of our equipment etc. We later found out this made us famous! We were in the newspaper, tv, etc. That night we ended our tour of Akita with yet more drunken karaoke. There was some convention at the hotel so the place was packed and we were taking requests from the crowd, everything from "Iron Man" to Elvis love ballads (They LOVE Elvis).Flash forward to the next morning.... almost died several times on our way to the airport due to our driver (I have many pictures). Once we arrived we realized that there was no way we could carry all of our luggage and fire gear around Japan so we had to find some way to send it back. Easy right? WRONG! Apparently they don't understand "I pay you ship my shit back to America!" We ended up giving our fire gear to the rental car place to ship back COD to the office (most likely about $1,000!) We made our flight, barely. Some of us parted ways at Haneda airport to head home and my co-worker Hank and I headed to Tokyo. We arrive in tokyo where I unpack and realize there's no room for me to walk bc the room is so tiny (most Tokyo hotels are). We head to the underground for lunch with our agent who is helping us map out places we should check out. I had the absolute BEST SUSHI and Shashime ever! There is no way any place in the states even comes close! We had eel, tuna, octopus, saki (of course) and plenty of other goodies. It was absolutely amazing and will now make USA sushi taste like a garbage can! BAD NIGHT!: We went to Roppongi last night. Awesome place, tons of people, lots of things to do, etc. but also very dangerous on the wallet! We started off in a basement bar and had 4 beers, which cost 50$ (Tokyo is very expensive, we walked by a Porcshe/Audi dealership and a regular Porsche Cayman was over 7 million yen, or $700,000 US!). Ok, move on to us trying to find a new place to drink. We found a club that was 5,000 yen all you could drink happy hour. We thought this was a pretty good deal. In Tokyo every club has women that sit with you and chit chat, etc. all of a sudden a bottle of Moet Rose shows up and I get a bad feeling! I fake a phone call to a "client" and tell Hank (my co-worker) we have to go. I go to cash out and the bill is almost $700 US for 3 beers a piece and a bottle of champagne! OH SHIT! At least my company can't tell what is was for since the receipt is in Japanese! So they try to keep us there with free shots, etc. but I refuse so I get taken up 2 floors with a large Nigerian man (scary) where I cash out and we run outta that place. I'm not angry/worried about the money, I'm PISSED I got taken. However, at least I was smart enough to catch it before it got really out of hand! We walk around some more, take a cab back to our hotel and walk the Ginza shopping district (NEVER come here for anything but electronics! Any brand name costs AT LEAST 3 to 4 times what it would in the states!) I go to bed more intoxicated than I have been in several years.....then I get the following call early am...."Tim, it's Hank... remember our gear bags we had shipped back to the states? I left a part in there that we need to install when we go to Sakeide.""Oh Fuck"Hank is now on a bus back to Haneda airport where he will fly North to Akita to meet our bags (which luckily haven't shipped yet) grab this part, and come back to Tokyo! He'll be back at about 9pm tonight. Crazy.So this brings us to current.... I'm in my room about to grab a shower and head to Akihabara (Electronics capital of the world) to check out technology that we won't see in the states for years to come! We're headed south tomorrow on the bullet train and I don't know what the internet situation will be like there but I'll text.Sorry this update isn't as creative as the text ones were... feel free to edit to facilitate fb humor/enjoyment.... I love what you did with the other ones and people seemed to enjoy them =) talk to you soon. Love ya'!