Nebraska

Tokyo is a crazy city. Where else can you, in a drunken haze near dawn, stumble across a small rock bar with about 10 regulars and 7 bar stools named after your home state? And enjoy the remaining hours until dawn there, stumble “home” to the apartment of two martial arts scions where you are housesitting, and then have no idea where you were the previous night?

And, years later, stumble about in another drunken haze and rediscover the bar? Well, that could be done in other cities, I suppose.

But in what other city could you, more years later, return to the bar and engage in conversation about satsujinken and katsujinken with a rock musician / descendant of the Yagyu clan???

And then blend into a talk on the intricacies of kendo vs. naginata isshu jiai with another denizen of that part of the city crawling with rock musicians???

Alas I had to leave at an early hour to catch the last train home. I have already had too many last-minute runs up that loooooong hill to the train station. And more than a few have ended in rather unpleasant words upon finding the train platform chained off and the lights out. And a walk back to the same bar to drink or sleep until the trains start running again the next morning.

I should have moved closer to that bar….