#tokyoarcade

I try not to fall off the roof. It’s not a huge drop to the plastic overhead below, but who’s to say what direction I’d roll off from there…

So I give the metal ladder my best vice grip.

You have to be a little wreckless if you’re going to spend the whole night in Tokyo. No sleep and just a bit of soju burning at the lips.

Rewind back a few (several) hours. I’m becoming bestie with my newfound friend Jessica, from Shanghai. I'm like, hey, that’s my sister’s name! We bond over her having no boyfriend and me having one (which she hates. So unfair, la!) She did her nails herself and shows me the pink pinkie lacquer, studded with a real plastic diamond. I notice tiny braids on the side of her head - oh extensions!!

We’ve been invited to a party. Us and all the gayjin - oops haha gaijin (I just used google) - in Tokyo. It’s not midnight yet so we traipse around in the new rain. Next door an arcade beckons to us with its pastely-pink monsters locked in their plastic boxes.

Jessica wants, she really WANTS to get me a mini teddy bear from one of the machines. They’re all ugly but she tries to grab me a Snoopy, to no avail: the pinchers just settle in between two fuzzy wuzzies and of course, clench nothing.

With our prize of admittance to this dJ night (that paper tumblerful of soju) we affront the stairs ahead: a vertical wall with steps made for platforms or you know, stilts.

Treacherous ascent: a lil’ bit of swaying, a lil’ bit of swerving, but no spilling till we reach the top.