I was somewhere in the middle of the tawdry sea of neon and pesky sidewalk that people know as Roppongi when The Fear set in.
What had started as a routine Saturday-night excursion to a dance venue in central Tokyo's nightlife Mecca had gone way off course.
I was lost, disoriented on some back street, and it was my own damn fault. I hadn't bothered to print out a copy of the map that I now believe I'd read upside down anyway. And this was my first trip to The Big Pink in many, many years -- and my first-ever venture there midnight.