Jan 18 2009
On the way to Japan…
1.18.08 – 5pm
I was trying to take a nap, but after several attempts and creating a comfortable bed in my two little airplane seats, I’ve given up. It could also be the fact that I’ve already napped – twice, but who knows right? Anyway I decide if I can’t sleep, might as well take this opportunity to start journaling my trip for you all.
It’s 5pm California time right now – so we’re almost half way through our flight. If you’re wondering – it’s 11 hours and 35 minutes to fly from San Francisco to Tokyo. I thought for sure with 6 people, 9 suitcases, 2 guitars and a case of equipment the start of our trip would be for the lack of a better word – a real bitch BUT surprisingly everything went really well. We managed to avoid the $250 in charges we thought we’d incur for extra and overweight bags and breezed right through security. In fact the one “snag” we hit was a security guard who didn’t want to let me through with a purse, backpack and suitcase. So easy fix – hand the suitcase to someone else to roll past him and – problem solved! I even lucked out with no one sitting next to me on the plane. I’ve been able to sprawl out and have stuff everywhere; which is nice when you have hundreds of pages of California vehicle codes, cases and other information to read through. Not to mention this is a pretty sweet plane. I don’t have a foot rest or a bed or anything that fancy but have you ever had shrimp cocktail on a plane? Or how about the ice cream sandwich I just had delivered. And of course there is the personal TV I have that includes movies, music, games and who knows what else – I’m still trying to figure out the remote. I guess the rumors are true, law students are technologically inept.
As far as the overall trip - only five hours in but so far so good. I’ve only discovered two things that I’ve forgotten so far – my glasses and my retainer. How cool do glasses and a retainer make me sound? But in the grand scheme of things – I won’t die without my retainer and as long as no one wants me to read anything at a distance we’re cool. And I was smarter this trip than when I packed for Italy. For those of you who don’t know – when I visited my friend Sarah in Italy for 10 days – I had no luggage for five of those days. Luckily for me I had ONE extra pair of underwear but literally that was it. I had the clothes on my back and that one pair of underwear for five days. I didn’t even have real shoes – I wore my slippers on the plane! Luckily Sarah hooked it up with some clothes, I had a place to wash my undies and I had money to buy socks, a pair of shoes and a few clothes. So anyway, at the risk of losing my luggage again – I packed all my underwear and socks in my carry-on a long with a couple of shirts and I wore jeans and legitimate shoes on the plane, so no matter what happens – I’m good!
Ok seriously – Northwest Airlines just got another 5 points. Since I’ve started writing this they’ve brought me an ice cream sandwich and now water. I’m not parched and hoping to God that someone will maybe happen to come by and I can get a drink!
Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what all we’ll be doing while we’re in Tokyo aside from “work.” At this point we have a fairly busy schedule. We arrive in Tokyo at about 5pm Monday January 19 – yes we will jump from leaving at noon on Sunday to arriving at 5pm on Monday. From there, we only have 1 REAL day off. Now that I’m writing this out, maybe I should explain why I’m here, because I realize now not everyone knows the deal. So let’s start with a little history…
About 4 or 5 years ago I was at Santa Clara University seeing my friends’ band play. Kathleen, the manager for the other band playing came up to me to compliment me on a top I was wearing. We started chatting and by the end of the night I was offered a “job”. (I call it a “job” because let’s face it, it’s never felt like work.) So began the late nights of marketing and promotions, booking shows, finding placements and tequila shots. And when I say late nights, I’m not joking. I mean after working and going to school all day, she and I would stay up until 4a.m. working. We had a lot of fun and did a lot of cool stuff with MiGGs, my person highlight is still being back stage at HP Pavilion in San Jose the night they opened for Train. In the early half of 2007 I stopped working for Miggs and soon after Miggs decided to pursue other paths for their career, but I still maintained my friendship with Kathleen. Now that I’ve entered law school the goal is to pass the bar and then together she and I will of course take over the world.
So fast forward to now – Kathleen has begun managing a fabulous band named Punchface (http://www.myspace.com/punchface) and about 10 days ago she called me up while I was watching a movie so I didn’t answer. A few minutes later I got a text that said – “Want to go to Japan?” Now I’d like to say I just texted her right back said “hell yes” grabbed my passport and sat in waiting, but not so much. In fact, I thought it was a joke so I didn’t even call her back until much later. Then of course I had to weigh out leaving for that long. My main concern was (and still is) Sancho. I’m not going to lie, I cried after I dropped him off with my friend Gene and his (Sancho’s) girlfriend Athena. I am missing two weeks of school and I was actually booked on a cruise. Let’s all take a moment and get over the shock that I gave up spending 5 days on a cruise ship with (pause for dramatic affect) HANSON. But really, who gives up a trip to Tokyo to go on a promotional tour with a band? So now, 10 days later… here I am on a plane and now I can finally show you what our schedule looks like:
1/19 [mon] arrive
1/20 [tue] shibuya O-NEST
1/21 [wed] inage K’S DREAM
1/22 [thu] hatsudai WALL
1/23 [fri] yokosuka PUMPKIN
1/24 [sat] shinjuku ANTIKNOCK \1000 equip fee
1/25 [sun] OFF
1/26 [mon] nishikawaguchi HEARTS
1/27 [ tue] hachioji MATCH VOX
1/28 [ wed] yokohama CLUB LIZARD
1/29 [ thu] shibuya CLUB ASIA
1/30 [ fri] ikebukuro 手刀 CHOP
1/31 [sat] koenji CLUB LINER
2/1 [sun] shinjuku LIVE FREAK
We’d definitely like to make it out of Tokyo at least one day and explore a little and see some history – and Frank has set up with the Tiffany and Co. flagship store here for us to go in and look at some things. But other than – we’ll just see where the days take us.
But right now… I think I might take in a movie…
I’ll write more when we arrive.
And of course – I will post pictures throughout the trip.
