Hoot, Hoot, Motherfu**er!

I had come to Tokyo on the advice of my friend, Hana, who mentioned that I should journey there because it would be cherry blossom season. Originally, I had planned to give Australia a second chance (I wasn't a huge fan of Sydney on Around The World Tour 1, but that's a story for another time) and begin this whole adventure in Melbourne before making my way to Southeast Asia. While I didn't necessarily care about the cherry blossoms, Japan seemed like at great idea (thanks, Hanni!) and so I re-arranged my entire itinerary to begin there. What I did not know when I booked my flight is that the cherry blossoms blossom at different times all over Japan and that I would be arriving for the weekend of Tokyo's blossoming season. So with that in mind, Yavar and I decided to check out Shinjuku National Garden and the ridiculous -- RIDICULOUS -- number of cherry blossom trees they have. I thought we would be there for an hour, but five hours and 17 walked kilometers later, I will still trying to capture The Perfect Shot. 

i literally have another hundred shots just like this one.

not pictured: throngs of people. THRONGS.

Now, a question I have never thought to ask myself is, "how many pictures of cherry blossoms is too much?". This is, in fact, a trick question because the answer is actually <any number> +1. There is always time for hanami even if the storage space on your phone disagrees and your friend is giving you a look that says, "dude, you are not going to get The Perfect Shot and be be propelled into Instagram stardom". Ultimately, I settled on inviting the embarrassed smiles of locals as I attempted to channel my kawaii. It could've been exasperated ire, too. Just another god-damn foreigner mocking the culture. But with Japanese people, you'd never know (there's that 7 faces and 3 hearts again). 

will senpai notice me?

Next on the list was Robot Restaurant, which came recommended by a bunch of people and was highly-ranked on TripAdvisor -- a combo I am a big fan of. Getting a reservation turned out to be kind of a pain in the ass because we could only get one for Saturday afternoon and we had already made other plans. We could do both, but it was going to be a tight squeeze. As luck would have it, though, we passed by the venue and managed to get a walk-in because of a no-show. Robot Restaurant is really a misnomer. I mean, yeah, there is food, but it's a complete after-thought. Robot Cabaret would probably be much more accurate, but I suppose loses the allure of alliteration (see what I did there?). While there, we decided to partake in a local beverage called Strong Zero, which is...well the only thing I really know is that it's a 9% alcoholic drink that tastes like juice. It's bad news, I can understand why it's unavailable in North America. Yavar and I had two each and, having skipped dinner, were gunned by the end of the show. The show itself is difficult to describe – imagine huge, elaborate, remote-controlled robots serving as platforms for hot Asian girls that are butchering English words and dancing around in anime-like costumes. It was the most Japanese thing ever. I doubt there’s anything else like it in the world and highly recommend going if you ever get the chance.

Afterwards, we linked up with some random Aussie dudes outside and headed to a bar where we downed some 1-litre beers and practiced saying, “anata wa kawaidesu”, on girls. It was all good fun until one of the Aussie dudes accidentally called one a dog. My favourite moment from that part of the night was an earlier interaction with our new Aussie mates. We were exchanging the usual bullshit: where are you from, why are you here, what do you do, blah blah blah. Well at, “how old are you”, things got awkward when Yavar and I noted that we were both in our early thirties. It was subtle, so subtle, but there was definitely a look that came across the faces of these two 21-year-old kids. Was it surprise I saw? Judgement? Maybe I was projecting my own insecurities about being 31 and having no clue what the fuck it is I’m doing, but then I reflect on what my internal reaction was to being 20 and partying with 30somethings and am pretty sure I knew exactly what they were thinking. Hmm, maybe I should shave 5 years off until June haha.

look at those adorable faces.

Before we left for Kyoto, I wanted to hit up an owl café in Harajuku. I had mixed feelings about it because… is it animal cruelty? These aren’t budgies, they’re top-of-food-chain predators. It seemed a bit wrong and the first location I looked at on TripAdvisor had awful reviews. Still, I kept searching and found one that had very positive feedback and so we headed over. I don’t really have that much to say about it. The owls were way bigger than I expected, I didn’t think I’d be able to hold one, and they seemed well cared for by the staff. It was cool and I’m glad I did it, but it was novel.

this is Bob. i'm not kidding, that's his name.

Still SO many Tokyo moments I could talk about, but I'm way behind and I think I could chat about Japan forever. Even though I would never want to live here, I feel this might be my new favourite place in the world. I will need to come back.

A Side Note From Hong Kong

There's still so much an to talk about -- my final, wonderful days in LA, the adventures I had in Tokyo and Kyoto and the awesome people I met along the way, all the moments I didn't get to touch on from my trip to San Francisco -- but I kind of feel like I need to get this off my chest while I'm in the moment.

I feel unsatisfied so far. I landed in Hong Kong this afternoon after taking a two hour Shinkansen bullet train from Kyoto last night, catching up with Yavar for an hour, re-packing my shit, and then taking another two hour train ride at 4:30am to the airport. I was fucking exhausted and that was even before all of that travel and sleep debt. After being in major cities for the past four weeks, feeling like I needed to make the most of every minute and moment, I'm done. I just want to be on the beach, to disconnect, to be without WiFi and alone with my kindle, my thoughts, and my notebook.

And that's really the whole point of this trip for me. Maybe I've just been making excuses along the way -- when I finish GDC, when I finish visiting friends in LA, when I finish touring Japan with Yavar -- but I'm trying to figure things out. Or at least put myself in positions where I'll have nothing to do but think about what's next in mylife and what I want from it. And right now, since I started Around The World Tour 2, I feel like I've been living in two places at once, which takes an emotional and mental toll that I only have myself to blame for. I have a tendency to do that -- it's the part of me that struggles with letting go. The FOMO gets me, man.

Maybe not every turn of this trip needs to be dripping with crucial purpose, but if I'm going to do this then it starts with letting go of whatever it is I'm holding onto. Everything is a choice. It's time to follow through!

It Had To Be Said

I love Tokyo, but I could never live here. When I visit cities like San Francisco, London, and Los Angeles, I envision what life I might create or stumble into. I daydream and pretend -- the coffee shops I would become a regular at; the special spots I would bring a girl I really like; the new strangers I would turn into old friends. I can't quite get to that mental spot when it comes to Tokyo. Don't get me wrong, I love this city and I plan on coming back, which I feel says a lot considering its distance from home and the other amazing places I have visited over the years. But while the reverence the people here have for tradition and values is really cool from an outsider's perspective, there's something about that makes it difficult for me to imagine myself living here. Everyone here is exceptionally nice and polite, which to me just comes off as being disingenuous. I learned of a saying earlier in the week, which is the 7 faces and 3 hearts of Japanese people. Basically, it speaks to how people here build walls around their feelings, emotions, desires, goals -- they're true selves. I don't think I could live among that attitude. I find something admirable and recognizable about just putting it all out there, to expose yourself in a way that makes you vulnerable. I find strength in that.

Still, I love Tokyo. After the hilarious nightmare of finding our Airbnb on the first night, Yavar and I grabbed some food and crashed out just after midnight. Maybe it was the jet lag or the excitement of being here in Japan, but I was up at 6:45am, ready to take on the city. Armed with a backpack of chargers, cables, power banks, and my laptop, we set out for the day around 8:00am. Shinjuku wasn't far from our Shibuya Airbnb, so we walked around aimlessly until we found a Starbucks. I know, I'm sorry, I do kind of feel guilty that our first stop was a fucking Starbucks, but it's familiar and it has WiFi, so it meant we could get caffeinated while we formed a plan of attack on our day. After about 45 minutes, we picked a direction to go in and left.

We hit up the Tokyo Government Building first as its two towers are known for their spectacular views and it seemed like a good way to get a sense of scale of the city. Unfortunately, there was too much smog to be able to see Mt. Fuji 130km away (80 miles for you Americans), but there was pretty much a 360-degree view of Tokyo that was incredible! Having just been in LA last week and seeing the city sprawl for the first time from Griffith Observatory, I was impressed by how vast Los Angeles actually was. Ha! Tokyo puts it to shame. By a lot. A lot, a lot. It was just city as far as the eye could see and not just sprawl but vertical growth as well. There were so many skyscrapers and they're all so interesting and unique from one another. Vancouver's homogeneous glass look could learn a thing or two here.

So Shinjuku is basically divided into two sections with very different feels from each other. The Tokyo Government Building we were in was located in the financial and business district of Shinjuku -- very clean, very expensive, lots of interesting architecture, but kind of boring otherwise. There just wasn't a lot of the bustling action we were looking for, so we eventually wandered to the other section of Shinjuku to go to the Samurai Museum. I had mixed feelings about it -- I am naturally skeptical of everything and the number of things that seemed like replicas, particularly the canvases and artwork, felt a bit off. We had a young lady give us a guided tour, but she seemed to only be able to stick to her script and wasn't really able to field most of the questions we had. Maybe it was a language thing, but I'm not so sure. The whole thing felt a bit amateur, so Samurai Museum is probably a generous term. Even so, we got to try on some "authentic" -- dubious, but whatever -- samurai gear, hold a katana, and watch a short demonstration by a modern samurai of the different stances. Worth the price of admission.

Yavar and I made plans to meet up with Robinson, a local gaijin that Yavar employed at EA and whom has been living and working in Tokyo for the last 6-7 months. I was thankful to have an English-speaking local to chat to about the culture, the people, and to get some hot tips on what to do and see while we were here. We headed to a local British-style pub where locals mix with expats and foreigners. As we talked about Japanese culture, Robinson cut us off at some point, "you have no idea how happy I am to be able to talk to you guys right now". I suppose it should have been obvious, but even English-speaking Japanese people don't have that deep understanding of the nuances of the language -- the ability to detect sarcasm, pick-up on puns, or relate to Western cultures and concepts. It really gave me some perspective, as I've been thinking about if/how I'm going to be able to deal with being a solo traveler for the majority of this trip. I'm a social butterfly. I need people -- friends, people I connect with on some intimate level. Sure, I know how to meet people and have fun, but my highs are high and my lows are low. Celebrating my 30th in Australia by myself near the end of Around The World Tour 1 was depressing as-fuck...and that was only 19 days long! How will I deal with being away on day 30... on day 60?! Robinson has been doing this for nearly 7 months under much more difficult conditions (remember, 7 faces and 3 hearts). Maybe it's different, maybe it's not, but, whichever it is, I gained a ton of respect for him that night.

The next day, I was on a mission for ramen. Despite living in Vancouver for nearly 9 years, ramen is a relatively new thing in my life (Sherrie, thanks again, I am eternally grateful) and was only introduced to me this past winter. Since then, I've tried all the top spots in Vancouver, so I was eager to find the best in Tokyo. Enter Ichiran Ramen, which received the honour of being both recommended by a friend and being voted #1 ramen in Shinjuku. After a reasonable line-up (sidenote: every ramen place in every city always has a line-up...that's how good ramen is), things got weird. For some reason, there is very little human interaction here in Tokyo. If there is an opportunity for a machine to replace a person, you damn well better believe it's already happening in Japan somewhere. Much of the food I've ordered as been via a machine and Ichiran was no different. Ichiran takes things to another level though -- you order and pay for your food via machine, take the tickets the machine spits out, fill out a piece of paper with checkboxes for how you want your ramen prepared, and take those to a cubby that you sit at. At this cubby, there is a small window, maybe a foot high and two wide, where you pass your tickets and paper to a pair of hands. These anonymous hands bring you your ramen, pass it through the cubby, and unfurl a tatami mat to cover the mat, so you may slurp in the utmost privacy. I think I kind of loved it. Anyway, the ramen was so good, but I also came to the conclusion that Vancouver has some really dope ramen that is comparable to here.

Which is a great segue into my next topic... I believe Vancouver has better sushi than Tokyo. There, I said it. It had to be said. This isn't a completely fair statement -- there's probably zero bad sushi spots here in Tokyo whereas there are definitely a few in Vancouver, so the average quality is . The nigiri here is also fantastic and I had some fatty tuna nigiri that blew my damn mind, but there is very little here in terms of creative sushi rolls. Maybe it's a Western thing, I don't know, but there's not a lot of special rolls going on here like tempura rolls with avocado and cream cheese. I did, however, get to experience Genki Sushi, which is the #1 sushi place in Shibuya. The sushi was great, but what really sets this place apart is the ordering system, which is, you guessed it, via a machine. When you sit at a table, you order on this iPad-like device and whatever you ordered magically appears via a conveyor. It was cool.

I have so much more Tokyo to talk about, but I'm bagged. Back later.

These Are The Experiences I Seek

Being so tall, I think I've developed this sort of sixth sense for when people are looking at me or talking about me. I can walk down the street and just sort of feel the glances, stares, and double-takes; as well as the whispers to friends that often accompany them. So when a Japanese man that I would eventually come to know as Takeda approached me on the streets of Harajuku in Tokyo, I wasn't that surprised -- my sixth sense had already put him on my radar.

I had been told before visiting Japan that something like this would happen and that the locals might try to solicit me for a selfie with them. So when Takeda began talking to me w in very broken English with his phone out, I simply assumed that this was what was happening. Through the confusion of a very significant language barrier, I agreed to a selfie he wasn't trying to get and, after five minutes of going back and forth and getting nowhere, we eventually said sayonara to each other.

Shit like this eats at me. I hate the mystery of it all. I needed to know what he wanted, what it was I might be missing out on. Armed with Google Translate on my phone, I returned to the street corner where he had found me. I got him to write Kanji characters into Google Translate and we proceeded to have a very stuttered conversation. He was a hair stylist -- okay. He wanted to know if I was a model -- that's adorable (at 31, this type of shit really makes my day). He wants to cut my hair and do a photoshoot -- ah, now we're getting somewhere. And because momma din't raise no fool, I ask him some questions of my own: when, where, why, and how much. Fortunately, everything seemed above board and, after showing me his salon that was around the corner, we made plans to meet back up later that night.

k, but seriously, wtf do i do with my hands?!

The experience itself was... awesome and challenging. Awesome because, holy shit, I am getting my hair cut in a swanky salon in Harajuku by a random Japanese guy that wants to take pictures of me for his portfolio. That is not a sentence I ever thought I'd say. But challenging because I actually hate having my picture taken. I mean, even posting pictures of myself on Instagram is a fairly recent thing for me -- I'm too skinny, I'm too tall, I'm too pale, I'm too gaunt -- I'm too fuckin' sensitive to judgment is what it is. I shouldn't give a shit, and I kind of don't, but I also kind of do. So this... this was tough. I don't want to oversell it, it wasn't the end of the world, but it was definitely a conscious effort to just go with it and have fun. It didn't come naturally. And I didn't know what to do with my hands.

Takeda was dope. He's good people. I brought Yavar and Robinson along for support and translation skills (Robinson is gaijin that has lived in Japan for 6-7 months) and Takeda actually went to the convenient store to get us all snacks and drinks. This is pretty typical Japanese behaviour, but the friendliness still amazes me. Not only that, dude got me some chop sticks! No joke, I was just thinking to myself the other day, I should really get some chopsticks while I'm in Tokyo. Boom, chopsticks.

Lost In Tokyo

Tokyo day 1 has not gone without its share of hiccups. To start, I didn’t have time to get a JR Pass, which essentially allows unlimited travel with few restrictions across Japan. You can only buy these internationally. I meant to pick one up yesterday at LAX, but I arrived quite a bit later than I intended due to LA traffic and was told I should go through security ASAP. This also meant I wasn’t able to pick-up a pocket WiFi, which is a small device that allows internet access wherever you are in Japan. So far I’m at 160% of my data cap for the month with 14 days to go. I’ve also been doing Roam Like Home for $5 a day in the US, but that jumps to $10 a day here in Japan. Money hasn’t been a big concern yet with the trip, but with all the money I hemorrhaged in LA trying to lock down an Airbnb, I should start being a bit more mindful of where it’s all going. Long story short, I gotta go dark on the data. I’m supposed to be disconnecting anyway, right?

My Singapore Air flight to Tokyo was pleasant, at least. I flew an Airbus, which I have flown on two occasions before with Etihad Airlines. I love this plane because the exit rows are so prime, allowing me to really stretch out and even stand-up straight in the aisle. I met a lovely couple sitting next to me who were heading to Bali for 8 days because she was 4 months pregnant and they figured this was probably going to be their last chance for a while. We chatted about the work I do and then talked at-length about LA. I mean… how could you not?

i'm sure the locals were impressed

Yavar was waiting for me at the airport, holding up a piece of paper with the word GODZILLA printed out on it haha. It was good to see him and I am glad he ended up waiting for me because getting around Tokyo is literally the most confusing shit I have ever experienced and it would’ve sucked doing it alone – better to suffer in the company of friends, yeah? From Narita airport, it seemed like there were a dozen different ways to get to our Airbnb near Hatsudai station in Shibuya. Again, this is where the JP Rail Pass would’ve really come in handy because figuring out how much Yen to pay and to whom and for what would’ve been one less thing to worry about. Something I’ll keep in mind for next time I come to Japan. So anyway, after about an hour dicking around Narita and trying to make sense of the world, it seemed like maybe we were on the right track. All in all, it took about 3-4 hours to get from airport to Airbnb.

ummmmmm...

So a few fire-from-the-hip notes on Japan so far. Vending machines are everywhere, even on the small side streets of Shibuya. E-money is big here, which is to say that the pre-paid cards you use to pay for transit can also be used to pay for other things, like items from the vending machines and fast food. It’s very clean and people are SUPER polite. I haven’t gotten the long gawks everyone told me I would get, but we’ll see what happens tonight at the bar.

That’s it for now!

I Left My Start In San Francisco

I started this blog with LA, but 'Cisco is actually where Around The World Tour 2 kicked off. I arrived on the Monday for Game Developers Conference, so the tour did not officially begin in earnest until the weekend hit. Still, this was my first time in the city and my first time attending GDC, so I tried to make the most of it, squeezing in some personal time between conference schedule. Fortunately, with only a few eSports panels to attend in the early afternoon, my first day was pretty light. I stayed at the swanky Westin St-Francis, across from historic Union Square. I don't have much to say about the hotel because I was barely there, but their lounge makes a great negroni. 

You know how Vancouver can feel tiny? San Francisco can feel like that. Must be something about those peninsula towns because I ran into a former colleague within minutes of leaving my hotel on the first day. I worked with Scott back in my days as a Lead Tester for VMC's Montreal offices and he has worked his way to a position of prominence for the same company. Anyway, we chatted on the street for a bit and he invited me to a GDC networking party that VMC was throwing later in the week. Sweet! I had been in town for less than an hour and already had my first evening event nailed down. It was a good sign of things to come. We exchanged business cards (I remembered to bring business cards!), parted ways, and I made my way to GDC.

derp face

GDC itself was kind of whatever. There were parts that I really enjoyed, but there were also a lot of talks and workshops that seemed entry-level to me. I've been in the biz for almost 10 years and I guess I've learned a lot more than I even realize. Working with so many talented, ambitious people at arguably the largest, most successful gaming studio can do that to you -- a big fish in a gigantic pond. Everything is relative. The experience gave me a lot of confidence in the sense that, hey, I totally know what I'm doing! I also learned a few neat things, particularly in working with remote teams, an area I only have a lot of experience with on the client side. This was a great workshop for me because we use an external developer out of Argentina and faced, to no fault of their own, a ton of production difficulties with them on UFC2. The challenge with these learnings is deploying them in a massive company like EA. Even on the team level, change can be difficult and when something doesn't work, the reaction is to switch completely to something else rather than try and refine what we already have in place and get it to work.

So, anyway, I could go on about GDC, but this blog is supposed to be about ME, ME, ME. Let's move on. After wrapping up my eSports panels, I didn't have anything else going on, so I picked a direction and walked. As I neared the Ferry Building near the end of Market street, I ran into colleague number two, TJ, who I used to work with at EA. I'm telling you, there's something about these peninsula towns! We chatted momentarily, and I continued on towards the dock, eventually coming to Pier 14, which has views of Bay Bridge. The funny thing is, I didn't realize it was the Bay Bridge. My first thought when I saw it was, "I thought Golden Gate was red?!". Not my brightest moment, but I knew I had to be wrong and that I just didn't know what I was looking at. After a quick check of my map, I learned it was the Bay Bridge. It was starting to get a bit chilly with the late afternoon sun, so I walked back to my hotel.

Back at the hotel, I made a reservation for Morton's steakhouse and linked up with RBD, Geoff, and Jeremy. It wasn't my first choice, but you take what you can get with last minute reservations. Still, it was a great dinner and the conversation quite often turned towards work. I don't really socialize with guys outside of our production team, so being able to get their perspectives as the booze loosens us up can be very valuable. You exist in this bubble and it's easy to get stuck in a certain way of thinking. I guess this is a good analog for life as well, which I suppose is why they say travel broadens the mind. I definitely feel like that dinner was one of the best parts of the GDC week as I learned a lot about these three dudes that I wouldn't have known otherwise. Perhaps the second-best part was that we did it all over again the next night at Ruth's Chris.

2 nights, 2 steakhouses, 4 guys, 4 tomahawk ribeyes

One thing I love about SF is the pure scale of it. Sure, it's a peninsula town just like Vancouver and I suppose technically it's much smaller, but it's so dense that it feels massive and vibrant in a way that would be very difficult for Vancouver to duplicate. There is no shortage of bistros, cafes, restaurants, lounges, and bars to choose from. For example, where Vancouver has, like, four or five dive bars to choose from, there seems like a never-ending supply of them in San Francisco. This probably explains why I end up at the Biltmore back home every damn weekend -- it's not like there's many options.

I'm rambling on, I'm sorry. I'll try and wrap this up.

pretty sure i spent a summer in a similar conditions

Alright, I also visited Alcatraz, which was actually a lot cooler than I thought it would be. If you did not know, Alcatraz is actually operated by the National Park Service and, let me tell you, they are proud of this particular slammer. Easily one of my favourite parts was also its most innocuous -- as you get off the ferry and arrive at the island, you are greeted by a Park Ranger that is almost gleeful for your visit and eager to tell you all about its notorious history. It's just a funny contrast, fresh-faced teenagers enthusiastically explaining how people have very definitely been brutally murdered just 200 feet away. 

real talk... this guy gets a gun at some point

As I said earlier, I was invited to the VMC networking party where I only knew Scott and another former co-worker, Keith. Keith and I caught up and he managed to score me an invite to the Nvidia GDC party later that night where Young MC and Sir Mix-A-Lot were going to be playing. Things to a hilarious turn when we arrived at the club as I wasn't standing at the bar for more than a minute before two young ladies approached me with the usual kick-off, "omg how tall are you?". Introductions were made (Samantha and Vanessa, if you were wondering) and we were off to christian the dance floor for all the introverts in attendance (remember, this is a gaming industry party). Every now and then I would catch a glimpse of Keith and his three co-workers staring at me, jaws on floor. I can't imagine what they thought at that point, but I danced with Samantha and Vanessa for most of the evening before deciding I had had enough and was ready for bed.

On my way to my hotel, I realized I hadn't eaten dinner and was getting hangry, so I asked my Uber to bring me to the nearest diner. I had to wait 45 minutes for food, but I met two guys from LA and we started to chat about American politics, something I know literally next to nothing about. These two guys, Tory and I-don't-remember-his-name, had been friends for years and basically argued with each other for an hour about who had the tougher upbringing -- one was born here to illegally-landed Hispanic parents that eventually transitioned to some semblance affluence through a started business while Tory was born to African-American parents and raised in the inner city. I could be getting some of those details wrong, but that's what I remember. I didn't have much to say and, looking back, I couldn't possibly tell you why they waited for me to wrap up my 3am meal or why they stuck with me as we roamed aimlessly around some sketchy areas of SoMo, looking for our hotels. I had fun, though, and really just acted as a mediator every now to bring the conversation back into focus. Since they were from LA, I exchanged numbers with Tory and we agreed to try and link up when I was in LA the following week. Sick, I was making friends!

As the week was beginning to close out, the GDC party circuit was ramping up. On the Thursday, I scored invites to Ubisoft, Blizzard, and Microsoft parties. The first two were nothing of note and I unfortunately never made it to the third. RBD had been busy throughout the week making friends of his own and was invited for a drink to bar in upper SoMo. Wingman duties were needed and I was tapped for the role. We made an agreement that I would only stick around for a drink and, at some point, I would give the signal for him to inquire as to if I was going to the Microsoft party. At that point, my duty done, I would make a polite exit and he would take it from there. But even the best-laid plans and all that. It turned out that I got a long quite fabulously with the wingwoman across from me, Jessica. She and I chatted all night about travel, work, the highs and lows of being tall (she is 6'0") and generally pretty much forgot about the reason we were both there in the first place. Numbers exchanged, we made plans to get together later in the week so that she could play tour guide.

Okay, SHIT. This post is really dragging on! I promise to do these more regularly. Time for a lightning round.

like... rly rly beeg

I cannot begin to convey how imposing the Golden Gate Bridge is. It's weird because even when I was biking towards it, I wasn't all that impressed. Okay, yeah, it's a bridge. A big bridge. We have a big bridge, though, right? No we fucking do not. Lions Gate is a joke compared to this thing. I've never been on a bridge and said to myself, "okay, yeah, I can see how jumping off this would kill you". No matter what bridge, ever, I am always skeptical of the insurvivability of a jump from the top. With Golden Gate, though? The drop is probably big enough that you'd die of a heart attack long before you hit the frigid water below. It is terrifying to cross and every time I took my phone out for a selfie, I was sure the wind would claim it. I managed to make it across in about 15 minutes and biked up to the beautiful Marin Headlands, which gives views of the entire SF peninsula, Golden Gate, and the bay leading out to the Pacific. Probably one of the most beautiful, humbling places I've ever stood in.

Oh, Jessica took me to In-N-Out. I don't see what the big deal is.

Please, Baby, No More Parties in LA.

LA was actually the very first trip I booked for Around The World Tour 2. I was that excited about it. I've been here twice before on work trips and it's always been a whirlwind tornado of fun packed into big, crazy work events -- such as E3 2014 and that crazy press conference for UFC178 -- and usually just one night of personal time. And one night of personal time is probably the key here. Within the first 24 hours of being in LA, I was already asking myself some deep questions... just what the hell am I doing drinking in LA?

I guess it all started with my Uber driver from LAX. When you get a driver in a city like San Francisco, you're getting a new model Prius or Camry. It is in pristine condition and probably has that new car smell. The GPS will be expertly installed and positioned to provide the driver with a safe way of accessing it. The driver is likely a recovering taxi employee or might just be moonlighting. They will shy away from initiating conversation, but are happy to oblige chatty passengers. It's all very... professional. Not so in LA. In LA, you get picked up an early 2000s Civic by a dude wearing a wife beater and clogs. When you go to put your shit in the trunk, he'll probably say something like, "oh, don't worry about my stuff, just ignore it", while you try and tetris your 70L backpack between empty water bottles, a phone book from 2008, and the other forgotten crap people usually keep in their trunks when they don't want to deal with it in the moment. This is just some guy and his shitty Honda.

I'm not complaining, honest. Despite his illogical views on distracted driving (and his distracted driving), the guy was nice enough and got me where I needed to be. My point is that LA is just a lot more grimy than I realized. I mean, I've always known that I have this warped sense of what life here could be like. Staying at the Westin and spending company money can do that to you. But the reality check hit me full force shortly after I landed on Monday.

and a decent airbnb

Again, it all started with my Uber driver, "are you sure this is it?". Oh, ffs, those are not words you ever want to here while getting dropped off in LA. Basically, this area of Echo Park that my airbnb was in was only in Echo Park by technicality. Kind of like how you can make one wrong turn in Gastown and end up in non-gentrified parts of East Hastings. I was to be staying in the guesthouse of an old Victorian that I am sure was considered beautiful at some point in history, but negligence and a complete bankruptcy of fucks to give by the tenants/owners have turned it into an East Van crackshack.

I know what you're thinking, "Jazz, you can kind of be a diva sometimes", and I am the first to admit it, it's true. But I feel like it's usually by choice rather than a natural, default setting. I won't pretend like I grew up in the ghetto (I didn't) or that I'm hard as-fuck (I'm not), but it's also not like I've never slept in some questionable places I'd prefer my mother not know about (hi, Mom!). Maybe it was the familiarity of my surroundings in those situations or having friends present in the same boat as me, but I've always felt safe or that I could handle myself. This felt different. This felt like a bad choice I wasn't comfortable with. So I left.

I'll skip over the ensuing drama with my airbnb host, but I cancelled the reservation, got most of my money back and I've filed a refund request for the remainder, so we'll see what happens. In the wake of that drama, though, I met up with Sam for some food and drinks. After a few hours of day drinking, we ended back at her place with some of her friends for some pre-drinks before we headed out to I-don't-even-know. Or, wait... is that post-drinks drinks? I don't know, but there was whiskey involved, which is deeeeeeeeefinitely where a night usually takes a left turn. At some point we ended up at a trendy spot with a pool table where I was apparently more interested in providing color commentary on the billiards than I was interacting with Sam's friends (Anissa, I'm the worst, I'm sorry!). What can I say? I'm really into geometry.

still some good decisions being made here

I spent Tuesday morning and the better part of the afternoon hunting for a new airbnb after being at an afterhours until 5 in the morning, so that should give you some idea of how I was feeling. Despite being partially homeless and having far too much fun for my own good -- on a MONDAY, no less -- I'm staying positive and laughing at myself. That's all you can do in a situation like this, just roll with it and keep going because what alternative is there? Still, though: please, baby, no more parties in LA.