Have you ever pulled an all-nighter in Tokyo?

No?

Me neither…but I`m only a couple hours away from having done so.

Seeing as I lost the first bet, I`m on a tight budget in one of the most expensive cities in the world, so I figured `hey, I`m jetlagged and semi-hallucinatory already, why not run with it and save the cost of a night`s accomodation by roaming the streets of Tokyo for an evening?`

Like a lot of my ideas lately, it seems solid in the planning stage, then hits a snag in the execution part.  Namely, I`m freaking exhausted.

The last hour I`ve been walking around the Roppongi area which is still pretty busy this time of day as it is loaded with bars and people trying to hustle you into said bars.  I haven`t partaken in any drinking myself though.  The jetlag/haziness is more than enough buzz for me at the moment.

I stored my bag at the train station, so don:t have my laptop to upload pictures, so this post will be words only til I can add some later.  I`m typing this at a internet cafe I popped into in the Shibuya neighborhood.  I wish I could upload a picture–this place is hilarious.  Dozens and dozens of little cubicles where you can go online, play video games, watch DVDs, read a fashion mag…whatever your thing is.  There is wall after wall of DVDs to choose from.  It feels like you should be doing something illicit here, but it:s all clean-cut fare.

At least I think it is…I haven`t stood up to look over into my neighbor` s cubicle to see if that was really animal porn he took in there with him and not the latest anime.

While on the plane today I read a couple of my mom:s old letters.  While still in Vermont, I photocopied a bunch of ones she wrote between the year she met my father and the time he died.  As I make my way along his path here, I plan on reading them in a somewhat chronological order to get a little more flavor. 

It was pretty amazing of my mom to let me, not only have these personal letters, but also write about them.  It`s wild to think of her blowing through these parts on her own back when she was early 20`s.  One of the ones I just read, she was in Japan–a couple weeks before she would meet my father on a plane from Cambodia.

Little does she know what`s coming. 

It`s kinda cool to see all the small, seemingly inconsequential decisions she makes that alter her path just enough to get her on that plane.  At the time of the letter, she has just met up with a man she knew from the states.  They had planned to spend part of her trip travelling together.

I had come across this guy`s name in some other letters last month and asked about him.

`Who`s Bill?`

`Oh, we travlled together.`

`Together together?`

`Oh, no, it was platonic`

`Huh. You say here in this letter that you two had discussed marriage down the road.`

`Well, it was sort of on and off  platonic.‘

And now this one I`m reading, she describes their trip together in Tokyo and how she plans to check out Hong Kong and a couple other places while Bill goes on a pre-arranged tiger hunt in New Delhi. After that they plan on meeting back up in Bangkok.

Unforotunately for Bill, that flight into Bangkok is when she meets one Hector del Prado sitting in the seat next to her.

That`ll teach you to go shoot tigers, huh Bill?

I was thinking about the next bet. If I can, I:d love to bet a sumo match. First I have to see if sumo is in season． And second, whether you can bet it.

Generally, as my old bookie The Pistol could attest, if you find the right person, you can bet on anything.  Unfortunately it:s a little more difficult finding the Pistols of the world than say, a JP Morgan bookie…er, banker. Find one of those and you can `bet` on anything from oil futures to CDOs and it:s considered legit. To bet on a sporting event is looked upon as kinda sketchy. When you can explain to me how the stock market is any different from betting point spreads, maybe I`ll admit one shouldn`t do it. Until then, I:m going to look into this sumo thing.

Also, today I hope to track a lead I found from when Hector Senior used to come through Tokyo on business for Time-Life.

Might go to the early morning fish market too seeing as I`m already up.

Might sleep too.

It has crossed my mind.