First. Sorry Mom.

Second. Yes. I am holding a man I thought to be Mister Miyagi in a train station. We all did. Wax on, wax off!

Third. 11,000 people (incredible. Thank you) read my last blog entry about drunken shenanigans so who am I to not ride the wave? I figure a drunken story brought you all here so I'll tell you debauchery filled stories about my life to keep you coming back.

This episode starts with a close friend of mine that I used to work with at an airline. He had won two return tickets to Tokyo, Japan at a company party and invited me to go. We had two weeks off around Christmas and decided to head over to the land of the rising sun before the tickets expired. You'll find some of the photos in the gallery below.

The night before I'm supposed to fly to Tokyo, I find myself flying from Calgary to Vancouver with The Legend (yes, that's his real name, no not the guys I went to Japan with) who happened to have two floor tickets to see ACDC at GM Place. I'm not really a rock guy but the idea of getting out to Vancouver a day early for my flight just seemed to make sense and the concert was just a bonus. The concert was awesome. Drunk as fuck on fireball and way too fuckin' many beers consumed equaled a pretty good time. After the concert we had plans to hook up with one of my best buddies who works at an extremely popular rock bar in Van.

Everything is awesome, were partying and having a fucking beauty night with some random retired NHLers. BOOM.  The ugly lights come on. Party over. My buddy grabs myself and The Legend and ushers us out the back door carrying his backpack which is FUCKING FULL of airline-sized liquor bottles, were talking hundreds. The three of us start to tuck into these tasty morsels in the back alley like we were homeless men finding... well... like homeless guys finding a shit-tonne of free booze. Good and shitfaced we stumble off to what was described as an "apartment trashing party" where one of the tenants had been evicted due to him and his boyfriend(?) making loud gay-sex noises during their gay sex. Or something like that.

We arrive at to this party at 3am. Loud gay porn music playing, gay disco lights flashing at seizure pace, gay dudes running around everywhere and all sorts of other non-christian behaviour being displayed for the public eye. As we come in through the sliding door we are greeted by a rather large lesbian lady who is stapling thousands of gay porn pictures on the wall. Not one square inch of this apartment wasn't covered in some sort of anus smashing, pole sitting, gay rodeo kind of visual entertainment. We made a hasty exit from what truly was the weirdest and most visually disturbing party I've ever been to.

I wake up fully clothed and sleeping next to The Legend on a 'rape' mattress in the living room of my buddies house the next morning. I'm still pretty drunk. My flight leaves in 2 hours and I'm 30 minutes from the airport. I smell like a bag of smashed asshole and I'm sure my breath could start a diesel engine. Panic sets in. Bypassing the shower, food, or any sort of sobering measure, The Legend and I catch a cab to the airport.

Arriving at the airport an hour and a half before a major international flight looking and smelling like someone just kicked you out of an AA meeting isn't the best idea when you're trying to get bumped up to first class. The Legend ditches me for his flight back to Calgary and I meet up with my travel companion who we will call - Hanamasa (He's Caucasian but it means "cheap groceries" in Japanese and that's a pretty accurate description of this kid). After standing in line for what seemed like 3 weeks while using the baggage cart for balance we get to the front of the line. The only two seats left were first class. Bingo. We just paid under $150 dollars for a round-trip, first class ride to Japan. Fuck all of you.

After spending the first night at my buddy Mantwon's place in Tokyo we take the train to Hiroshima the next afternoon. The minute after we checked into our hostel and got our bearings, we did what any Canadian on foreign soil would do. We went in search of sweet lady liquor. Shocking. It's a week day and there are four (4) other  people in this Irish pub (yea, we went to an Irish pub in Japan. Eat shit) and not one of them spoke any sort of English.

After what seemed like a thousand beers later the two of us start to get a bit... Canadian? I mean in the best, most polite, peacekeeping, let the world know you're friendly kind of Canadian. We invite the four Japanese dudes over to our table and using the international language of drunkenese, are able to communicate somewhat effectively. We're like the UN right now, except wicked drunk - as in we're smoothing over international relations through alcohol. The amount of alcohol consumed starts a whole series of events that included us going behind the bar to pour our own drinks, shirts off arm and leg wrestling,  and finally, Hanamasa peeing into a Christmas Tree which eventually lead to us being kicked out of the bar. This means there are two large, drunk as fuck Canadians loose on the street at 11pm or so we think. Look out.

Somehow we got rye-whiskey drunk while punishing beers like it was our fucking job. Two large guys that are ryetarded in a country full of small quiet, respectable humans can only equate to one thing. Godzilla. The streets are getting torn up, traffic cones are flying into the street, signs are being used as stripper poles, bushes are being jumped into, mayhem ensues. Then as quickly as it started, we got bored and we flag down a cab.  Fun fact - Almost every cabby in Canada takes Visa. With Japan being a technologically superior nation we assumed that this one would too. Politely, we ask the cab driver if he takes credit cards, obviously not understanding a fucking word we've said, he shakes his head yes.. The cab goes literally about 30 feet before we show him a credit card, just to make sure. He slams on his brakes, starts speaking loudly in a language we don't understand so we say fuck it and get out and start walking.

I should say that before we left Calgary, a few of our coworkers started a pool on how long it would take us to get arrested. The consensus was 30 hours. Spot on gentlemen. Spot fucking on.

15 minutes of drunken stupor goes by before we start seeing flashing lights behind us. Police. Fuck. They have to be after us as we just went Kat Williams on the strip in Hiroshima. In this moment of worry and panic, Hanamasa has a BRILLIANT idea, "Lets switch hoodies so they don't know it was us" he says. Yea, two huge, loud and obnoxious white drunk kids are going to evade the Japanese police by trading sweaters...with each other. Drunken logic prevails, we swap.

As I'm walking away from the police lights I'm grabbed by 3 little dudes who look like they just left their job as an elevator attendant, or flight attendant, or every evil Japanese character in any movie. Little navy blue hat, tight navy blue button down jacket, little navy blue pants, nice dress shoes. You know what I'm talking about. Anyways, being much bigger, much more drunk and in a foreign country my fight or flight response kicks in. I start throwing these dudes off of me like I'm a sexy new inmate running through a prison shower.

In front of me is another every-asian-movie-actor-ever little dude who's bowing and pointing to the back seat of a police car. I get it now. I'm being arrested not attacked. It runs through my head that I'm going to get deported less than 2 days into my trip because we Godzilla'd the main street of Hiroshima. Fair enough. These folks have seen enough trauma for a hundred lifetimes. We deserve it. Turns out Hanamasa got chucked into another police car behind me. Just like that cheesy, sappy saying goes - A good friend will bail you out of jail but a best friend will be sitting right next to you asking what the fuck happened? Confirmed.

There's a lot of 'grey' as to what happened next but I came around in the middle of conversation I'm having with a police officer. He's on me, asking me questions in full unbroken Japanese. I'm replying in English as if we fully understand each other. Idiots we are. The trouble is, somehow he's got my passport and pointing to a document written in Japanese and as drunk as I am, I can't turn the paper around enough to have the symbols make sense. At this point I'm too drunk to care. I snatch my passport out of his hands and get out of the car. As I exit, a TV camera is shoved in my face with bright lights and the whole bit. Little dudes running around with headsets on and talking to each other, moving around to get the best angles. Hanamasa and I are on the Japanese version of COPS. Fuck my life.

I hear Hanamasa yell into the camera "WE'RE THE BIGGEST THINGS TO HIT JAPAN SINCE THE A-BOMB" . In a city where that shit actually happened it's pretty offside to belt out but at the time it just felt right. Legendary. Crude as it was, Legen-fucking-dary.

The Japanese are awesome people. Ridiculously respectful and kind. As this whole being on TV nightmare istaking place, the cab driver from before shows up to explain to the cops that he called the police because we ditched the cab without paying. Or so we think. The cabby walks over and bows to Hanamasa, hands him like 4 dollars in change and leaves. We're now free and clear to go. What the fuck is this place?

Before letting us go the fuzz made me sign some papers that were written in Japanese. There wasn't a table or hard surface to sign on so I used the next best thing. I grabbed a cop by his jacket and hauled him over so I could sign the paper on his back. In Canada, I'd be tazed to death before being charged with assaulting an officer. In Japan? The other officers started laughing hysterically at their buddy who was being manhandled by the chubby white kid. Japan is so awesomely backwards and fucked up.

I still don't know what those were for. A release for the TV crews? Maybe. A note promising I'd get the fuck outta Japan tomorrow? Or maybe we were actually famous and it was just an autograph. Who knows. Who cares. Just get me the fuck home. I guess we were nice enough that the cops even drove us back to the hostel and had a lineup of officers waiting there for us, shaking our hands and bowing. Pretty fucking impressive. That night, we were huge in Japan.

All of this added up to be one of the most rowdy 36 hour periods of my life involving some of the best people in my life. Some times you've just gotta risk being a fucking idiot to get a good story out of it.

Some of the trip photos are in the gallery below.

According to Wikipedia, Lethbridge currently has a population of 83,517 people, of which, I'd estimate about 10-12% are students. Of the remaining 88-90%, I'd hazard to guess that 60% are of working age (18-65) and the rest are here waiting to die (65+). People move here to be educated or to die. Honestly.

Within this gentile, windy and quiet city lies a phenomenon that is as brutal as it is impressive. Loudly promoting it's existence between the meandering streets filled with old folks homes and assisted living facilities. Gaining traction inside the rows upon rows of illegally suited student housing communities is something more sinister and evil. This vile villainy is known here as being Lethbridge Drunk. It's different than what you're thinking. It's not just being drunk here in Lethbridge. No. No sir. This is something that deserves it's own title. When you meet someone in a different city or country who's either partied in Lethbridge or knows someone who has partied here, an instant mutual bond and respect, a camaraderie, if you will, is formed.

People move to here to either become educated or retire. Fact. If you live here, your liver has decided to either get an education or full on fucking retire. I don't have one anymore, a liver that is. If I were to die today I'm pretty sure the doctors would find a bottle of Jamesons where my liver should have been. I'm sure you can say that for about 85% of the student population here.

I'm going to tell you a story to help explain the difference between getting shitty drunk wastey pants here versus anywhere else, for example, Calgary. This is how I found out the difference between Lethbridge Drunk and Calgary Drunk, Speaking as someone who's well versed in both, I feel comfortable with being an authority on the subject.

As three of us drove up to Calgary to meet a buddy for a pre-bachelor-party-planning-party (Clue #1) we had a conversation about how ridiculously drunk we all seem to get when in Lethbridge or while in the presence of other Lethbridgians. Yes, that's right, the state of impairment doesn't stop at the city limits as long as you have someone else who's done time in LethVegas. In this conversation we couldn't understand or figure out why it was so ridiculous in Lethbridge compared to other places. The atmosphere is the same, the booze is the same, the music, the whatever is generally the same wherever you go, yet 2 hours south of Calgary is like the twilight zone.

Anyways, after our buddy ditches the three of us and the bachelor-party-planning-party to do wedding invitations with his wife (you will never live that down), we three decide to enjoy some libations at my cousins house then head to a small pub down south. A cube of Pilsner and 26 ounces of Fireball later, the party is getting underway as we walk into the pub. The next few hours are a complete blur of Shot-Skis, fireball, beers and developing a handshake with the bartender that qualified us for immediate and price-reduced service.

In one of my few moments of clarity that night I see it all unfold. I gain a clear understanding of what Lethbridge Drunk really is.

Just before 1am I find myself standing at the bar waiting for a drink behind a four-deep wall of humanity that's blocking my access to liquor. As I look to the bartender, who I've never met before, he extends his hand over the mob of gyrating flesh in an attempt to give me our secret high-five, and pass me a pint of ale. I cant help but notice those around me looking with disapproval and disbelief like I must be a long lost friend of the liquor dispenser. I am not, I tell myself. Just as I turn to walk away I glance over at the dance floor and it becomes even more obvious that we are either way out of our element, or so fucking outrageously IN our element that it's like party school, and we're teaching it. There, on the D floor, 150 people are dancing like they're G'd up from the feet up gangsters, or slutty chicks rubbing their front bums all over needy dudes, or guys dancing like they've been taught by Hitch himself, or girls trying to provocatively seduce their prospective mates by subtle movements that draw attention to their no-no square. In the middle of all the serious business of trying to look cool as fuck because everyone cares about what the other people in the bar think, I see my two BEAUTIES proving them all wrong. As I pan across the dancers, there, in the middle, are my two buddies, neatly stacked on top of each other. Literally. Piggy-fucking-back riding each other around the dance-floor, challenging other groups to chicken fights. Eventually a couple of people, who evidently are also from Lethbridge, oblige my friends and all chaos ensues. People stop dancing, they start tapping their friends on the shoulders to watch the show. Girls are getting dragged off the floor by their boyfriends as the poultry carnage rages on oblivious. Nobody does a thing. It just goes on and on and on until finally the two groups tucker out and head back to the bar. Afterwards, people slowly start to head back to the dance-floor denying what just happened. I saw it. It made me proud.

It made me proud to have lived and partied in a place where people honestly don't give a fuck. They don't care what you think of them, what they think of you, how or what they do. They just like to have fun. Something that is all to uncommon in the pretentious world of big cities. Although I've probably shaved a good 15 years off of my life by living here for the last three, I think I'm better for it. I've learned what it's like to not actually care at all about what people think of you. I've learned that no matter how stupid you've been the night before, one or all of your friends were right there with you. I've learned that you don't really have to wake up and apologize for being wasted because your friends automatically forgive you.

For these reasons, which you can take away from drinking and put into most everyday life situations, I'm glad I made the decision to move here. It's a special place for special people and if you haven't lived it, I honestly feel sorry for you and think that this is something you should come experience, just once.