Yesterday was a train wreck of a day. It started out when I couldn’t find my watch. I spend a long time looking for it in my room. How long? I don’t know because my watch was missing. I did find it eventually, but was almost late for work.
After work the plan was to meet Marshall at Kawasaki station and go to GasPanic Yokohama. I had planned ahead by bringing a change of clothes to work (didn’t want to go out in my suit) and getting directions from other teachers. The one thing I didn’t do was get cash, because there were numerous bank machines around Kawasaki station. Right after work I changed clothes and headed to the nearest bank machine. No luck. I quickly tried about 5 more bank machines in the area, also with no success. I contacted Marshall and he said he would cover me, so we met at the station to go to Yokohama.
The train from Kawasaki to Yokohama is usually busy, but this was the most crowded train I had ever seen that wasn’t going to or from Shibuya. Seriously, if everyone had breathed at the same time the doors would have popped out. From Yokohama we followed the directions I had been given and took a train to Takashima-cho station. It turns out that the directions I had been given were CRAP, and after about 30 minutes of wandering around we gave up and headed back to Yokohama.
Since we were already out, plan B was to go bowling at a nearby bowling alley. The problem was that the alley had no shoes to fit 193cm (6’4″) Marshall. Dejected, we decided that plan C was to return to Noborito and go to Avenue Izakaya for some cheap beer and octopus. Avenue was a safe bet because it was usually open until 5:00am every night. We took the 27 minute train ride from Kawasaki to Noborito, walked 5 minutes to Avenue to find that it was closed and dark. Last night was the one night it was ever known to be closed.
One of the great things about Japan is that beer is easily available in convenience stores. Coincidentally, there was a convenience store directly across the street from Avenue (plan D for those keeping track). We went in to find that the store was completely SOLD OUT of alcohol. Seriously, WTF? We ended up going to the 99 yen store to buy some some mystery beverages which may or may not have been alcoholic, and then returned to Hello House.
I don’t know what I did to upset the universe so badly, but I am hoping that this will all balance out at some point. I should have just stayed in bed.
(partial rewrite for formatting and detail)
Drinking in Japan 