Wow, I have to say that the way we (Aakash, Ajay and I) started this trip can only be described as Legendary! It was March 23, 2018, Aakash and I are at the Airport and at this point Ajay is already in the air beating us on our race to Japan. At this point Aakash and I are LIT (obviously), I was waiting on an upgrade to business class and Aakash was plugging away at work, however I don't think he accomplished much.
At this point, the three of us had already floated the idea of purposely missing our flight to Jakarta to spend 24 hours in Tokyo. As some of you know, that is exactly what happened, but it was in no way intentional, or was it? Aakash and I were sitting in the United club having some dranks among other hors d' oeuvres. While waiting for my upgrade, I saw that our flight was delayed 40 minutes, at this point Aakash and I got very EXCITE! We only had an hour long connection in Tokyo and this 40 minute delay started a chain reaction which led to a three hour delay.
At this point, I got confirmed into business and had to leave my boy sitting in the back of the plane by himself - in my defense, he can sleep anywhere so I didn't feel as bad. By now we had taken off for Tokyo and we were definitely not going to make it in time to catch our connection. After-all, it had worked out the way we wanted! At this point in all the excitement, we had forgotten that Ajay was already in the air and he had no idea we won't be arriving for the connecting flight. I logged onto the internet in the middle of the flight to send him Facebook messages letting him know what happened.
Long story short, we arrived in Japan and we found Ajay waiting for us. At this point he has had two Japanese Strongs (more on this later) and he dropped ~$1k to spend 24 hours in Tokyo. Time to rage, right? Obviously!
This is where things started to get crazy, or great!? Ajay and I were back in Japan in the summer of 2017 - while there my boy Michael Herman was stationed in Yokohama. We went to go grab dinner with him and it was there that Ajay and I learned about Chu-Hi's. A Chu-Hi is a local Japanese drink made with Sochu and a stimulant. A "STRONG" is a Chu-Hi that's been commercialized and mass produced made available on every street corner at the local 7-ELEVEN. Anyways, back to the story! The three of us had just arrived in Shibuya (not our first time) and me being the genius that I am, Ajay and I convinced Aakash to try a STRONG.
For a mere $1.50, it's almost dumb to not drink STRONG, it's the equivalent of a 4-Loko but much more over the top. So we grabbed these drinks and thanks to Japans fine open container policy, the three of us began to huddle up and drink in the middle of the street. This is where we ran in to some locals and had great conversations. Just a few words were exchanged here and there, Miami Heat, Lebron James, Chicago Bulls, Rajon Rondo - the list goes on. After this, we decided to go to a Club called "The Womb". If you've read my blogs prior, you'll know that I apparently frequent this club when I'm on this side of the world.
Let's fast forward a few hours, it's approximately 2-3AM. Aakash has brought us to Golden Gai (bar street) which used to be old brothels now converted into niche bars. It was here that the night really began according to some. We got beers, and then the bar tender gave us welcome shots of cuervo. Apparently I had left the bar to grab some cash to settle the tab, it was here that I was separated from my boys due to the fact that I couldn't remember what street/bar we were at.
I was LOST! You may think "oh no, he's lost in a different country, he'll prolly die!!" well, lets just say I wandered for 4-6 hours, saw the sun rise, got some coffee and sat on a curb Face-timing my fambam. Pretty tame right? Well, that's Japan.
Our flight was later that afternoon, we had to get back to the hotel to shower and get ready but Aakash was no where to be seen. After waiting about an hour or so, he comes back and he's back very EXCITE albeit 5 hours too late. After taking a quick navy shower, we were all back together trying to hash out what had happened. The only thing that we could all come to a conclusion on was that we don't think we paid our bar tab. After a 24 hour bender in Tokyo, it was time to make our way down to Jakarta. I have to say, from here we tried to keep it as tame as possible since we were definitely hurting, some more than others. Off to Indo we go!
To keep this short, Jakarta was fun for the 24 hours we were there, nothing like Tokyo but amazing in it's own way. As the capital city of Indonesia, we found it hard to find things to do/see. Even finding restaurants turned out to be a lot harder than expected. As for Kuala Lampur, I have to say, I liked KL much more than Jakarta. In 72 hours, we were able to explore one of the largest Hindu Temples (Batu Caves) see the Petronas Towers and we went to a botanical/hibiscus garden all while trying not to repeat Japan. Lots of street food was eaten everywhere and it was all delicious, especially the mango sticky rice!
Now here we are in Kochi, India. Yesterday was the day we got to see our well crafted Rickshaw. I have to say, the "Rembrandt's of India" sure know how to paint! Our rickshaw was a beaut! Hulk somehow grew a mustache that wasn't on the original design, Iron Man looked like his face was just beat in by the Hulk and Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone look like they were made for a comic book like the rest of the rickshaw. I can't say that I'm surprised, I actually was hoping they'd botch this up as it would be much funnier, and they have!
Once we registered, we received the key to our steed! We began to test drive it in circles before taking it out on the road, the three of us are quite sufficient in driving this contraption we'll call home for the next two weeks. After we were done testing out our rick, we had a brief engine talk (re-rigging your steed 101) to help us during the numerous break down's we'll have. Later in the evening we had a much more formal Q&A along with a presentation by The Adventurists and Cool Earth, it was here in the slideshow when things got funny, take a look!
And there it is folks, we have survived the journey up until now, today we have one extra day to test drive/pimp thy steed and tomorrow, April 1st/Easter/April Fools Day we begin on a 14 day adventure across India. The only thing that stands between us an glory: multiple break downs, getting into some shit, and anything else the roads of India can throw at us. LET'S GO!!!
Stay tuned for the next post as I'm sure shit will have hit the fan. Also, look out on Facebook/Instagram for updates and the Rickshaw run website where there will a live map to track progress!
