Bloomsburg 2012 Version

All right, I'll catch you up on the weekend I passed on writing about: it included five-hour energy drinks, Town Tavern, my roommates walking up to ladies they think are Japanese and since they speak a little of it they start using it to them who turn out to be Korean from Virginia, snow, throwing snowballs at cars, losing my friends while throwing snowballs at cars but finding a random person there staring at me whom I then befriended or at least I think that's how it happened, Honey Pig Korean food, a casino party at my house, and Town Tavern again for the NFC Championship game. That's about it. Not really blogworthy, so not blogged about.

My aversion to appearing cliche or unoriginal is no secret; hence, I no longer write about going out and experiencing all this city has to offer because a more well-known DC publication has taken the idea. DCist has a thing called New Kid in Town where this person goes somewhere touristy in DC every weekend and writes about it once a week. I mean I am still original because I didn't know of anyone that had done it before me, but now that someone else has taken my idea I can concentrate on being a better social human being, which inevitably means going out on the weekends. I don't provide people with random ideas or insights into all the things to do in the city anymore, but I am a lot better at being funny and a lush than I am a travel writer. And now there is this new kid in town who writes about that stuff for you. If you want to read about what it's like to be an awkward 26 3/4 year old and growing male in Washington, DC living in Columbia Heights that leaves the house primarily to drink elsewhere on the weekend, this (see what I did there?) is your blog. Sorry, Beth. I hope you don't think too much less of me.

Anyway.

Yeah, I drink too much. On the weekend.

It's only a matter of time that someone of consequence reads this and the repercussions of that will be made apparent to me. I hope jesus doesn't have the internet.

Let's review what Bloomsburg, PA is: a nice little college town in central Pennsylvania that requires you to drive through areas of earth that inspire horror movies until you reach this little oasis of acceptability in the vast expanse of trees and republicans. Oh and my sister lives there.

We get in to the b-burg at 10:30pm, just about 4 hours after leaving Washington, DC. There is a nice little bar void of college students in a college town called Russell's, so me, my roommate, my sister, my other sister, and my one sister's friends go there. I remember b-burg having more expensive drinks than one would assume a college town in central PA having, but I was kind of mistaken. We drank several of them each and called it a night. I came back, passed out on the futon, and woke up face down on the floor.

When one thinks central PA, they almost inevitably think Japanese food, so, of course, we went to a hibachi restaurant for lunch. And then we drove around campus. And then we watched the movie 50/50.

My favorite food is burritos. What's yours? Yeah, those are delicious, but not as good as a burrito. I just had one for lunch today, actually. You know the last time I had a burrito before that? Saturday early evening at one of those classic little college town burrito joints called Ready-Go Burrito. As a burrito aficionado, I definitely recommend this place if you managed to survive the trip through central PA and end up in Bloomsburg (don't stop at the Stone Castle Inn, though. But you'll know that if you see it. Its proximity to the strip club is enticing, but there's most likely a reason there are no windows in that motel.).

I've had a couple interesting experiences with five hour energy drinks (see: above and the post with college in the title) but this one with a six hour energy drink did not yield the same results, which is probably a good thing. We were tired so we got one and I was wide awake and coherent for the whole b-burg bar crawl. There was the bar with the all the race car memorabilia where I learned that in some places if you put an empty bottle on a bar it means "one more please" (if you do not want another, put a coaster on top. what to do if there weren't any coasters was not clarified); Turkey Hill brewery where they had a super long wait to eat and a very good beer sampler; Marley's where they also brew their own beer, have a really good sampler and wings, and where a stranger inevitably insinuated that my roommate and I are lovers; Good Old something or something where they charged you $4 to get in and then only $1 for a pitcher once you do that; Hess's where it was pretty much just us in there like the last time; a bar called Hardware, which it wasn't the last time I was there, where you paid $5 to get in and get 10 pennies to exchange for that many drinks at the bar and where my roommate was abused by a female on said bar and given some alcohol for his troubles; Capitol having an irrationally long line, thankfully; a hookah bar that didn't serve alcohol; and Russell's again.

But a night like that can't end any other way than waiting for pizza for like one hour playing my version of innumerable questions. Good pizza, too.

And there went b-burg 2012. But not before stopping at the chinese buffet by the walmart, which had all three criteria needed to be considered an acceptable chinese food buffet: 1. sushi; 2. hibachi station; 3. self-serve ice cream machine; (my personal fourth criteria: fried squid--also met). Most other aspects of a chinese buffet are the same so the existence/variance of the above criteria is what really sets apart the  more than worthy chinese buffets from the less worthy ones (all chinese buffets are worthy, FYI).

Then we are walking out of the establishment, passing by the requisite gumball and such machines when I see a little University of Tennessee helmet in one of those machines that dispenses little plastic football helmets, usually NFL teams. I ask my sister for 20 quarters so I can try to get it but she didn't have 20 quarters for some reason, or any for that matter. My roommate, who is also a graduate of the University of Tennessee, says he has three quarters, which is exactly enough, and that this must be a sign. He puts them in little slots, turns the knobby thing, a helmet drops, which he sees to be white and covers immediately to build the suspense...It's a little University of Tennessee helmet!! I wouldn't believe it either if I didn't see it, and I say as much.

And then we drive back to Washington, DC.

If you scored Japanese, Tex-Mex, American, Italian, and Chinese foods for the weekend, you are correct.

MLK, Jr. Day Weekend 2012

"And we end up in Clarendon. Which is not where we want to be. Ever."

I wrote those words way back in 2011. We had got lost looking for Sweetwater Tavern and ended up in Clarendon. Remember? Well, the quote still holds true, but since I am a hypocrite, I went there willingly Friday.

One of my favorite feelings in the world is that which I have upon leaving work on Friday--another reason to take off on Mondays instead of Friday, if you work for the government and get this option. Part of me walks out of work saying it is like any other weekday until it gets late so I will work out or do something "productive", but most of the time I just go home and sit on my couch and relish the fact that I don't have to be up early the next day and can forget any morals that I have in regards to eating dead animals (new policy: meatless weekdays; holidays and vacations don't count--see, week in Tokyo; and, entire tray of Chick-Fil-A nuggets). And of course there is the consumption of alcohol, which I don't usually do during the week. If my whole life were the weekend, I think I would be better at it.

So we bring out the shochu, which is japanese sweet potato liquor that I brought back from Japan, and we drink some of it. Then we head down the street to a friend of a friend's house to "pre-game" but to me this was all part of the "game" itself. I finish my glass of shochu that I brought from my house because I didn't have any plastic cups lying around and was seemingly inable to part with my last connection to Tokyo, leave said glass at the friend of a friend's house, and have to face the truth that, after several inquiries into our whereabouts, we can no longer delay and must go to Clarendon. It was for a friend's birthday so it wasn't about me anymore.

He was at a bar called Ri Ra, which is probably gaelic, but certainly lame. $5 cover. This fact makes about as much sense to me as the fact that there were plenty of people willing to pay it. Joke's on you, bar, I have a flask and I am going to get $5 worth of free coca-cola classic from you (we thought we were going to be metroing there; we taxied it; and probably still cheap bastards). Not much more I can say than that though about the experience.

But let me stretch this one out, anecdotally: There is a friend of a friend of a friend in the group of people there for my friend's bday. She leaves her water on the table we are standing near and when she comes back she asks around if we think anyone rufied her water. Because I am a terrible person and am bored in life, I say "yea, probably." After some convincing her of this fact, she goes to get a new water and her friend starts scolding me about how I shouldn't lie to her friend that her water was rufied and tells me I should go tell her that her water isn't rufied. I say I am not going to do this. Then her friend comes back with a new water and I think everyone won there: I enjoyed the moment and she got fresh water as her old one may or may not have been rufied and it wouldn't surprise me if it were as the clientele in there reminded me of the frat guy-frequented bars from college where there was a moderately good chance your drink would be rufied. You're welcome, friend of a friend of a friend.

But really I shouldn't joke about rufies. Sorry. So, moral of the story: Clarendon is still terrible and I do not want to end up there ever unless it is someone's birthday. And then it's probably a good time to evaluate your friendship with that person.

Then I woke up at 10am on Saturday. I have no explanation for that happening. And I cannot say that I took much advantage of it except for getting to the library before it closed and the gym before I was to start eating and drinking unhealthy things during the San Francisco 49ers-New Orleans Saints football game.

Speaking of which, I am pretty sure the best food/drink deals to be found in the city are at a bar in Adams Morgan called Town Tavern. During the game they had a pitcher of beer and a dozen wings for $10. That's crazy. This bar is also the 49ers bar so it was crowded, which was fun when they won. And during the game for that matter as that was one of the better american football games I have ever seen.

Another anecdote (disclaimer--it's a little PG-13): so we are standing there watching the game when this girl walks in the bar with very white, fuzzy boots. My roommate comments that she resembles a Clydesdale. A little proof the jesus exists: this "Clydesdale" comes up to him and asks where is he from. He lies and says Tennessee. She starts kissing him, tongue version. Apparently she has on her bucket list to kiss someone from every state. I later asked her if she would have kissed him if he told the truth and said Virginia. She said no. So that happened, unbelievably.

From 8-10 it is all-you-can-drink at Town Tavern. So we stayed there for the New England Patriots-Denver Broncos game, too. And finally Tim Tebow will be gone. I hate Time Tebow, partially because he owned us in college, but now because the media pays too much undeserved attention to him. I know, that's not his fault, but "the media" is too abstract an entity for me to "hate", so Tim Tebow is the object of my disdain. As a graduate of the University of Tennessee I think I am entitled to that.

I had off Monday because my employer isn't racist, so let's skip Sunday and let me tell you about it.

Have you ever heard of the Palisades in Washington, DC? Probably not. It's not metro accessible and there are no monuments there so really that's understandable. Well, geographically, it's just about due-west from where I live, which would make getting there quite simple you would think, but I didn't take the due-west route as I wanted to stop by a couple places on the way.

First stop, Tudor Place. Now, I like architecture and I really like what I think is Tudor architecture, which is this. The Tudor Place is not what I consider Tudor architecture (but what is, really? am i right?), so it didn't incite the same feeling inside me attractive architecture usually does. So I moved on.

Much like how when I returned from my beer drinking weekend in Denver the next weekend I went to some breweries here in DC, I went looking for some good sushi here in DC after being in Japan for some time. So I asked my friend who lives in Japan where his favorite sushi place is in DC because if anyone knows where good sushi is it is my American friend that has lived in Tokyo for like six months. He said Kotobuki, which happens to be in the Palisades and is actually the reason I chose to visit the Palisades as a blogworthy neighborhood. Now, I know what you might be thinking and if you're not you will be shortly: "but your friend lived in DC before Japan so why would his opinion on a good sushi place be more merited than anyone else's?" Stop thinking that.

So I am at the sushi place eating my miso soup when I see this individual sitting next to me reading what is one of my favorite books, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (if you're in a bookstore, find it, and read the last 50 pages or so. or just buy it. it won't take you long since there isn't much on each page and thank me in the comments section below. you'll feel alive. or at least i did. but i also am borderline incapable of real emotion so it was like an oasis of truth for me, an individual parched of real feelings.). So I'm like, "hey guy, that's a great book isn't it? it's one of my favorites" he says, "yeah, so far." "yeah, just wait till you get to the last 50 pages or so. it's a beautiful turn of events. anyway, sorry for interrupting. i do admire your ability to read here in a restaurant, though. i'm too self-conscious to pull that off." "yeah, i'm a pretty big nerd. i love sushi and reading, so this just makes sense." "i hear ya. but um yea i really wish people didn't speak of being a nerd so derogatorily. i mean i don't really know you, but it just seems when people say that it makes it a bad thing to appreciate things that require an intellect to enjoy. and it's a bummer that is such a popular sentiment, you know." Then my squid and tuna nigiri, and shitaake mushroom roll arrived and since I am pretty singularly minded when food is in front of me, and thus a fast eater, the conversation ended there.

Other than a few restaurants/stores on MacArthur Blvd, there really isn't much to the Palisades if you're not looking for expensive houses, trees, and the feeling of being in the suburbs somewhere.

Boom. Two posts in three days; prolific like Agatha Christie.

A Week in Tokyo 2011-2012

O hi there. It's been a while, huh? Sorry about that.

Do you remember how we had a going away party for a roommate that was moving to Japan a little while back? I dressed up as a geisha. OK, well, I went to go visit him and his new city of Tokyo, Japan, Asia from the days of December 29, 2011 through January 6, 2012. Crazy how it's 2012, right?

Anyway. I took some pictures when I was there. Here they are with some words below them written by me.

My friend lives in an area of Tokyo called Shinagawa. This is right outside the train station. It's pretty quiet and not stereotypically Tokyo here. He says it's like the K St. of Tokyo as it is mostly businesses and such so dies down at night. 

So shortly after I got there we went to Shinjuku, which has the busiest train station in the world and is stereotypically Tokyo. 

The madness that is the intersection outside of the train station  in Shinjuku. There are a lot of people in Tokyo. And lights.

The first thing I ate in Japan: random parts (liver, cheek, etc) of chicken on a stick and raw horse. Now you probably won't find raw horse in the US--and that's probably a good thing--but if you're in Japan, you should try the horse as it's delicious. Don't judge me. At least not too harshly, please.  

All throughout the city there are vending machines like this one where you can get hot drinks like coffee and tea in addition to the normal soda and watch and such. Tommy Lee Jones is a spokesperson for them. 

There is an area of old Tokyo in Shinjuku called Golden Gai that is a series of alleys that have dozens of very little bars. It was my favorite part of Tokyo. 

This is the little place that we ended up in. Most can't fit more than like 7 people at a time. Really delightful. 

My first bowl of ramen of the trip to cap the night. 

A view out of my friend's apartment.

This is Japanese fast food and it is the fastest food I have ever been served. They are really efficient there. 

In an area of the city whose name I cannot remember we came across some busyness on a side street...

It turns out people were clamoring for some octopus leg things and giant crab legs, which are not pictured.

We had some time to kill before my other roommate got in so we sampled some sake, beer, and horse jerky from Nagano.

And then I had my first sushi of the trip. This was one of like three of these plates that we had in this sitting. 

Once my friend arrived we went out to Shibuya. Outside of the train station there is a statue of a dog that was famous for his loyalty. Apparently he would meet this guy outside the train every day and when the guy died the dog kept showing up. For like 10 years. It's hard for me to respect an inability to learn. 

Shibuya. We were looking for places to go out here and we ended up at this club that was charging like a $40 cover so we started walking away when the "bouncer" came after us and said we could enter for free. We ended up being like the only three people in the place. 

We drank for like 12 hours straight the day before so this was our hangover curing lunch. 

Akihabra, Electric Town. There are a lot of electronics stores here.

Random temple in Electric Town.

If you can't make it out, this car has like 10 electronic devices in it in some pretty dangerous looking places. 

Harajuku. It's a really touristy place. 

This was the only place in the city that I found street vendors. 

This is probably the most random thing I encountered in Tokyo--three slices of white bread packaged for like $1.50.

After drinking some champagne in the lounge of my friend's apartment we get in the elevator to head out when three Australian girls get in and convince us to go out in Shibuya. We ended up at this bar here where people were doing these things on the stage. 

After the above bar, we stopped in a British-type pub by my friend's apartment.  This lady was asleep on the bar the entire time. 

On New Year's Day we ended up by Tokyo Dome. A brand unfortunately titled Kinky Kids was selling stuff and there was quite the line to buy it.

I was standing right here when the ground started shaking from the earthquake off the coast. 

Eventually we made our way back to Harajuku to this microbrewery. In addition to the beer, we also had a tray of raw chicken. Again, probably not going to be found in the US but in Japan it is delicious. 

I have found that I have gone out pretty similarly for both New Year's Eve and the night of January 1st. This year we ended up in an area of Tokyo, Roppongi, that was like the Adams Morgan of the city as that is apparently the place for young people and tourists to go out. 

Every year on January 2nd the emperor comes out to say "hey, yall, happy new year. stay safe and prosperous"  or something like that. So we went down to the Imperial Palace to see him do this. This is a nice photo taken outside the Imperial Palace.

So guess which I saw first: the emperor of Japan after having been in Japan for like 4 days or the president of the USA after living up the street from him for like 3 years? You already know the answer to that question. 

And then we had curry, which was delicious as everything there was.

So I was told Tokyo has ten times as many restaurants as New York City. It's probably because they cram them in story upon story in the buildings and underneath the bridges and train tracks like this...

...and this.

Tokyo International Forum. Nice architecture that we photographed and moved on.

There is only so much yakatori, or random parts of chicken on a stick, that one can take. This was me reaching my limit.

McDonalds in foreign lands is usually a good cultural experience so we tried it out. Everything is the same at the ones in Japan except they offer a shrimp fillet sandwich, which I had.

Edo-Tokyo Museum. The inside was not nearly as imposing as the exterior.

In the museum they had a section on Tokyo during WWII. The red areas on the map are where the US bombed the city. It was almost completely destroyed. I was looking at this when a little girl looked at me and said something in Japanese; probably, "you did this you bastard white man." Obviously her math is a little suspect because no way could I have been alive to do this, child.

Visiting this temple and throwing coins in the fountain, or what I assume was a fountain (I couldn't see where I was throwing my coin I was just throwing it where everyone else was), for good luck in 2012 was the most touristy part of the trip. 

Ending up in this random restaurant landed me with one of the the best meals of the trip. Raw horse again. This was also really the only time where a language barrier came in to play. We had been trying to find restaurants with pictures on the menu, which are really common, but this one did not so after just pointing to something entirely random they brought this out and subsequently stared as I struggled to figure out how to go about what to do with all this. My friend had a translator app on his phone and I wanted to ask him how to say "stop staring at me, bitch. you saw that i had no idea what i was ordering so why are you so amused by the fact that i am equally clueless as what i should do with it?!" But I didn't.

I spent the entire time in Tokyo except for the day we went to Yokohama, which is still in the Tokyo metropolitan area but I guess different, technically. There is a Chinatown there, so we went there and got Chinese food. 

That's the tallest building in Japan.

People wear pretty much whatever they want in Japan. Costumes like this aren't normal but it wasn't really abnormal either. 

Ramen Museum--the world's only food-centered amusement park. It's basically a re-creation of old Tokyo with several ramen restaurants built in. 

And get delicious ramen like this. 

I asked my friend where the Columbia Heights of Tokyo is; you know, where all the young people live that aren't rich. Apparently this is it.

I really like this building in the skyscraper district. 

We went to the top of this building, the Metropolitan Government Offices, for the observation deck.

That's Mt. Fuji there to the right of the sun.

Back in Shinjuku we visited a video game store. I was told people sleeping in pubic is pretty common.

We went back to the area with all the really small bars that is awesome and found this one. The no charge is referring to a table charge where they charge you just for entering and then charge you for what you buy. It wasn't really a deal here though because the beer was like twice as expensive as normal. But he did speak English.

For dinner on my friend's birthday we ended up on one of the top floors in this restaurant. 

Okonomiaki. I don't know what all is in that other than egg, squid, and mayonnaise but it was tasty and the largest portion of food I had there. 

The morning that I was leaving we got up really early to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market. They have a couple places where you wait in line for like an hour and for like $50 you get like 15 pieces of the best, most fresh sushi you can probably possible have. 

The sushi guy said "shell fish. it's alive." My roommate said he saw it move. I panicked mildly but I didn't see it move. I just tossed it in my mouth quickly before I either started crying or threw up.

The best sushi you can get is oh toro, or fatty tuna. This is like a $10 piece of sushi and it tasted like $100. 

Fish at the fish market.

That's me leaving Japan.

So the biggest takeaway from my eight day trip to Japan was that I was going to start eating smaller portions because no one there is fat and I want to be like them. 

The first meal that I had upon returning to the United States was a giant tray of chicken nuggets from Chick-Fil-A. It was my roommate's birthday so we went and got 500 nuggets of chicken on seven different trays for each of us. 

It's hard trying to be someone I'm not.

And then jet lag kicked in and I slept 14 hours on Sunday.

O and my right ear still hasn't unpopped from the plane ride. And I can't get it to go back to normal. Does anyone know if this is fatal?