Jenni Tarma

oh yeah! contrary to what you might think from checking out this blog recently, a whole bunch of stuff has happened, including a magical week in Tokyo with Eskimohunter. in fact, that week in particular is the reason why i haven't updated a goddam thing recently, that's how action-packed it was. there's literally a zero percent chance that i'll be able to adequately describe the awesome times we had using mere human words. ugh... departure to LAX got off to the usual shitshow of a start, complete with excess baggage issues (not on my part, thankfully), forgotten meds (again, nothing to do with me), and, most spectacularly of all, OUR DRIVER GETTING PULLED OVER AND TICKETED FOR SPEEDING ON THE WAY TO THE AIRPORT. which isn't exactly the sort of thing you want to be spending time on when you're scheduled to catch a plane to the other side of the world. anyway, long story short, we somehow managed to bundle all four of our selves onto the right plane, and settled in for movies and drinks and the usual bullshit dinner (guaranteed to not leave your system for the next week). i watched 500 Days Of Summer (very cool) and Julie And Julia (also enjoyable, although the main thing i took away from it is that Julia Child must have been really, really annoying).

so, we landed in Tokyo, got our Suica cards, hopped on the train, which, i might add, will sell you a nice can of cold beer if that is what you want, which is more than can be said for the United Sates Of America, and cruised into Tokyo. needless to say, we were all feeling totally gross after the long flight, and more or less delirious navigating the subway system. when John and Jason came to Tokyo last year, one of the main disasters of that trip was that they got separated on the subway, with only Jason being in possession of the address of the hotel, much less a functioning cellphone. on top of that, John had been saddled with an extra guitar, so not only did he not know where he was going, we was trying to get there loaded like some sort of armless camel. his only clue was that it was close to the "tallest building in Tokyo." anyway, as that particular anecdote had reached near-mythical status in the Eskimohunter camp by that point, we were all VERY on the ball with getting off this train, all at the same time, so as to avoid any of us being lost in the foreign-language wilderness. we made it to our apartment without any major hitches, and since all apartments in Tokyo are the size of shoeboxes, we immediately re-arranged the furniture to make it so that we would all fit in there. well, almost fit in there. unrealistic, vague plans to hit the town and grab some drinks were abandoned almost as soon as we parked ourselves on various horizontal surfaces and proceeded to pass out.

the next day had us up at the crack of dawn, and only midly off-schedule i spite of the 11hr time difference. Jason had some science to work on, but the rest of us headed to Asakusa Temple, where we gawked at the beautiful shrines, took photos and acted disdainful to the other tourists. John ate some soup which seemed like it would be tasty, but on closer inspection turned out to consist mostly of tripe, and was thus swiftly abandoned. we re-grouped at the apartment, gathered our mounds of gear, and hauled ourselves to the first show at Earthdom. after various linguistic barriers were over-come during soundcheck, we had some dinner and watched the other bands- our tour buddies Vinyl Screen Image and Ceremony were both really impressive, and the club had a sweet backstage bar/hang-out for everyone to have drinks and get acquainted. some guy at the show had even brought a polar-bear piggy bank that he wanted us all to sign, and Jason was given some "welcome to Japan" origami too. see photo evidence below:

in other news, i am currently super tired, and just decided to make the historic Japan Blog Post a multi-installment affair. which means i'll get back to this tomorrow, and will now watch the Daily Show instead. good night!