big al

Kev and I headed out to Ichikawa for the first time in ages to see of Al. After nearly seven years running Crazy Cactus he and Keiko are finally outta here. They bought a place in LA and are going back to Cali in a couple of weeks. Fun to be back; I used to hang out there every weekend back when Hiroko and I lived down the street. Saw Hugh and N.Z. Steve and bunches of other folks I didn't recognize. And I made Al promise he'd send Hiroko his recipe for Mexican Rice, the key ingredient in the Big Al black bean and chicken burrito.

Came back to Tokyo and stopped off at Lucky to grab some late dinner. They put up a new sign so that you can see that Lucky is a drinking and eating establishment from down the street. Looks corny and very cool. As usual the place was dead; no idea why it's empty on Saturday nights but packed on weekdays, though.