Shinjuku

The beginning of our weird Saturday night. Andy has befriended one of the more important people at Tecmo, Matsui-san. Much of my trip he’d been telling me “Matsui-san this” and “Matsui-san that”, and hoped to get us all together for a night on the towne. Saturday night was looking the most promising, and we went into Shinjuku to hang out until Matsui-san called to let us know whether he’d be able to come see us. First we wandered around and did some shopping, then made our way to a Mister Donut to have some donuts and bottomless coffee. At the Mister Donut we sat at the little bar facing out the front window of the shop, and there was a stereotypical kogal-type leaning up against the glass in front of us for about half an hour. She called a number of people on her cell phone, fidgeted a lot, took of her shoes, socialized with some guys who she may or may not have known, got her butt grabbed, got a phone call, and left. Through all this I kept trying to get a photo of her bare feet on the concrete or her charm-adorned cell phone, without seeming like a _tousatsu mania_, or “hidden-camera freak”. I couldn’t get one. We got a call from Matsui-san, still at work at 21:00, saying that he might be able to come out in a few hours. We made our way to a _manga-kissa_, a “comic cafe”. These are just a few of the shelves and shelves of comix available there. They also had PS2 games, movies, and unlimited drinks. We picked out some good comix and settled into our tiny little booth.