Crazy Shibuya Halloween Weekend 2021

Street Halloween in Shibuya was strange. The stores didn’t sell any alcohol, because a few years back, there was an incident where some drunk people got crazy and flipped over a car. At least that’s what I heard.

Lucky for me I had some canned lemon sours in my bag. I had bought them a few towns back, during my two-hour bicycle trek across Tokyo from Kiba to Shibuya.

To make this Tokyo Halloween even stranger, there was, of course, the whole COVID thing, with the masks and everything. All in all, it certainly made for a unique Halloween.

Didn’t stay too long; caught the last train around midnight.

Did wear my Gopro. Did shoot footage (below).

Getting too old to stay out all night and get wasted. But you can see toward the end of the video the night’s insanity really starts to ramp up right around that time.

Also, apparently some guy dressed up like The Joker stabbed someone on the train that very same night.

Drunk, Friendly, Japanese Locals

So I caught the Oedo line home, which isn’t my normal train, and so I had to walk quite farther than usual. And as it happened, on my way home, I passed a bar that had never been open since I’d moved to that part of town. I walked inside around 1 AM and was told that last call had already passed. But I hung out at a standing table with some randoms and we started joking around and they bought me a tequila and we drank together and then this drunk guy fell over backwards and hit his head on the floor.

He was fine.

And I made friends!

We marched over to the next town to have a couple gin tonics before splitting up at around three.

The Misadventure

I had another misadventure that very same weekend. I was on my way home from that same crazy town, Shibuya, and I had to transfer at Daimon Station.

I got off my train, checked my phone. 11:59. I really had to pee. I power walked to the restroom, did what I had to do, and emerged at 12:01 with plenty of time to go downstairs and catch my transfer train.

A police officer stopped me and asked if he could search my bag.

There I was in a full Winny the Pooh body suit, just after midnight, waiting to get on my transfer train.

The asshole held me up until exactly 12:09. Can you guess what else was supposed to happen at exactly 12:09?

Missed It

The police officer completely disappeared. I was miles from home.

First, I argued with the guard downstairs. “What am I supposed to do,” I said.

I caused a bit of a ruckus, but to no avail.

At the Koban (Police Box)

I went to the police box outside and explained what happened. They said I should walk home, but I insisted that that wasn’t good enough.

By the way, the cop who had held me up was right there.

The officers said I should call my friend to pick me up, and I said, in my broken Japanese, “what friend.” Then they said I should call a taxi, and I said I didn’t have enough money. Then they ransacked my back and wrote down all my information: what company I work for, what kind of phone I have, etc.

Next, they put everything back in my bag, made the same round of suggestions another time, and then searched my bag all over again. The whole time, I just stayed demure and humble, bowing a lot, just trying to explain that I wasn’t angry, that I just wanted them to help me fix this unfortunate problem that the guy caused.

And guess what? Eventually, they actually took me the fuck home. Yeah, the sergeant or whatever stupid rank is in charge of the koban, he drove me home with another officer chilling in the backseat with me. And when I got out of the car I praised Japan, I said in my own broken Japanese, “this country is very good.”

Getting Too Old for This

After two consecutive days of drinking like a teenager, I was all set to sit at home, drink bottled water, and watch Seinfeld, which had only just come to Netflix.

The writing on that show is fucking phenomenal.

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