Teenage boys in Tokyo.
It's not what you might be thinking.

As it may be apparent, I got all my traveling out of my system fairly early.
Here are a couple of roasted peas from my teen-aged school trip to Japan.

Australian Teenagers Drunk and Disorderly in Japan!

Is what the headline might have read.

When I was 15 I went on a school trip to Japan. I'd been learning Japanese for 3 years and this trip was comprised of about 3 classes from the Yr. 10, 11 and 12s. Some of my other adventures from that trip can be found here.

We had a month of homestay with our "brother school" near Osaka and then about 3 weeks where the teachers had to go to a conference in Tokyo - woo-hoo, unchaperoned!

Of course I fell in with the bad crowd straight away (maybe they fell in with me..) - as we were exiting Narita Airport we discovered everything could be bought at a vending machine. Everything.
Thus began our nightly routine of buying a bottle of cheap, shitty sake and a 5L keg of Asahi between the 3 of us.

We ended up in Hiroshima for a couple of nights. We spent the day at the Peace Museum. Want a quick way to turn a gaggle of noisy schoolboys into a group of quiet, sombre young men? I'd start there. The thing that stuck with me was the granite stoop where someone had fallen as the flash had happened. Their silhouette is raised nearly an inch above the rest of the steps' rock that was burnt away.

Cheap gyudon dinners and then down to drinking and becoming obnoxious Aussie teenagers. At about 0300 we were staggering back to our ryokan thru the Peace Park when we came across a young couple canoodling - hence our need to repeatedly ask them "Omeko suki deska?" which literally translates as "Like fucking?".
Then we find the saxophonist. This guy is standing on the edge of the park practising his cyclic breathing by blowing the same notes for minutes at a time. At first we're asking him "Okama?" or "Faggot?". Then we stop to listen.

Long, careful notes played over 5 to 10 min at a time. The only sound apart from the sax is him breathing gently thru his nose. Over the next few hours it's just us, quietly passing a bottle and cigarettes around with him. Occasionally he gave us little ditties, sometimes he blasted through long rambling Coltrane pieces.
As the sun came up and the city began to wake up he launched into a haunting solo which had us mesmerized. Until we realised that it was "Wind beneath My Wings". Then we stumbled home.
tl;dr? - Even if Bill Clinton plays 1, saxamaphones are the shizzle, yo.
Length? - A 3 tatami room is exactly that. 3 teenage males cannot comfortably fit into a 3 tatami room.

Narita Carrots.
Alt: We nearly got smoked in the Cunt-Ass.

Many, many, many moons ago.
Stop! Context time: I studied Japanese at school for about 5 years. I would call myself a dyslexic Japanese communicator - can speak some good but shit at writing (can hardly remember any kana let alone kanji).

Anyway I went on a school trip which culminated in me and 2 other blokes staying in a dodgy ryokan (B&B style inn) in Shinjuku (seedy nightclub district of Tokyo) for the last week of the trip tasting the seamier side of Tokyo whilst our teachers went off for a "conference". Including amongst other things: us buying a fucking huge stick of pot off some dodgy bloke at 0300 one morning for what amounted to AUD$60 - what a deal! Man, I know it's a cliche but, the things you can get from a vending machine in Tokyo - that's just absolutely astounding!

Anyway we find our young ringofyre on the bus to Narita Airport with the rest of the group ready to go home. As the bus approaches the entrance we notice hundreds of heavily armed guards and dogs. Apparently the government has annexed some farmland to extend something or other. Farmer's were supposedly unhappy and had threatened to retaliate - hence the heavy hardware everywhere.
Cue our trio of adventurers suddenly remembering we had a shitload of pot still on us. So we split from the group & proceed to roll up 2 huge spliffs that put shame to the Camberwell Carrot which we then proceeded to puff as quickly as we could hunkered down between some parked buses in the carpark (no Honda Accords in sight & this is Japan people! Japan!).
Then we entered the airport. Where things rapidly went from stoned to paranoid. Soldiers with guns and fucking sniffer dogs everywhere & I'm not talking Beagles, I'm talking big, fuckoff Alsatians that could rip your throat out with a snarl.

It didn't help that the Japanese way of pronouncing Qantas sounds exactly like "cunt-ass"! End result tho - got away with it. As the plane took off I listened to "Learning To Fly" by Pink Floyd on the new Sony Walkman my host family had given me earlier in the trip, and then as dutiful teenage boys we decided to try and beat Boonie's 52 not-out. We didn't and our parents weren't happy to see us pissed as farts coming off a 20 hr. flight on a Sunday morning from a school trip.
Jouzu desu ne!
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sat 20 Apr 2013, 2:40, 59 replies)

I hate you and i wish you were dead.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 8:08, closed)

Runs upstairs, slams bedroom door and throws herself onto the bed, sobbing.
(Brigadier an old boot sitting on a man's face - forever, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 8:50, closed)

Please don't be unkind to janet
I'm sure Rory would be more than happy to step in as a father figure for her.

I just enjoy watching the drama unfold - for me I consider it training for when my daughter reaches puberty. And decides I am Satan and wants to join my hordes. Just like Janet. Or disowns me.
Whichever.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sat 20 Apr 2013, 8:58, closed)

YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO

(Brigadier an old boot sitting on a man's face - forever, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 14:04, closed)

When your daughter reaches puberty she'll likely want nothing to do with you after the second or third time she brings a friend home and you get all American Beauty on her.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 17:59, closed)

And her friend.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 21:21, closed)

Better American Beauty
than "Chin'll Fix It!"

Sorry BD - I know it was shit, I'm just not playing my "A" game this week. Good thing you're about the smartest one in this thread giving me shit otherwise I really would be in trouble!
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 22 Apr 2013, 5:39, closed)

Whole lotta love in this thread

( 2 Can Chunder Word to your mums, I came to prod bums, Sun 21 Apr 2013, 9:39, closed)

I'm feelin' it .

(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 21 Apr 2013, 12:08, closed)

So are you the new, shitter Legless then?

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 11:22, closed)

& Chinny's in the mix.

(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sat 20 Apr 2013, 11:25, closed)

now i also wish to abuse you
i was wondering why people were calling you names recently
(ajarn_B, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 12:50, closed)

That is nice.
The end of the queue is over there somewhere.
I think.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sat 20 Apr 2013, 12:56, closed)

Do you think the fact that everybody finds you unutterably dull might be a lesson to stop being unutterably dull?

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 13:02, closed)

I doubt it. Like his predecessor, Legless, he has no self-awareness whatsoever.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 17:57, closed)

Cheers.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 18:42, closed)

cheers.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 21:18, closed)

Cheers.

( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 22:02, closed)

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 22:53, closed)

Plummie!

(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 21 Apr 2013, 0:40, closed)

I'm taking a non-partisan standpoint on this relationship you fellows have.
But I saw those granite steps and it really does tend to shut a room full of tourists up. that and the massive keratonomer on display the size of a hot water bottle that they peeled off some some poor girl's back years later.
I was however, rather pissed off with the constant "Oh, us poor, fluffy Japanese who were so nice to everyone in WW2. Why did the evil, nasty US drop this thing on what was clearly a factory for producing fluffy bunnies?"
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Sun 21 Apr 2013, 21:42, closed)

Furry muff.
Having had relatives who served in Burma and ended up in Changi during the war - I wasn't standing up for the Japanese, just more a point about that place and the effect it can have on people.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 21 Apr 2013, 22:54, closed)

Oh, I agree, it is horrifying.
It's definitely a story that needs to be told, but then it's the hurt surprise that appears to be all through the museum.
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Sun 21 Apr 2013, 23:33, closed)

As it may be apparent, I got all my travelling out of my system fairly early.

I've only been on holiday once.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Mon 22 Apr 2013, 4:52, closed)

Nope.
Been on most continents (South America and Antarctica) by the time I was 7.
Traveled all over Africa, top to bottom by land, sea and air.
Done dribs and drabs of Europe whilst visiting the grandparents in the UK. Make that ditto for the UK as well - as far north as Aberdeen and down to Portsmouth.
Seen most of Australia. North and South, East and West. Funny how no one mentions going to the Middle. Been there too.

Since I've been house-trained I've spent quite a lot more time (did a fair bit in my younger days) in the South West of Western Australia.

So in answer to your snide comment. I've been somewhere man.
I may not have racked up as many Frequent Flyer points as some folk here but really I've explored all of the world I wanted to.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 22 Apr 2013, 6:32, closed)

this is a whole new level of dull tedium

and I'm a research scientist I've spent days cataloging coronary atheromas
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Tue 23 Apr 2013, 11:02, closed)

Don't tell me you actually read it?
You daft twat.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 23 Apr 2013, 17:59, closed)