Tonight was a fun night. It started at Katrina’s apartment (where I was quite late due to the fact that I get off work at 9pm and everyone else had been partying for three hours already), then went to a little dive bar with karaoke, then ended at a gaikokujin bar near Okaido.
This may make very little sense to you, and that’s okay, because here are my takeaway lessons:
- Japanese bars have the coolest karaoke machines. The tiny place we went had a WiFi remote for their karaoke machine. The remote had a touchscreen that let you search by song name or artist name, and the microphones were also wireless.
- As much as I may like (or not like, depending on my mood) my apartment, Katrina’s is better. She has three (albeit smaller) rooms to my one larger one, with a full-size couch (it’s a pullout!) and a regular western-style bed.
- Japanese people really know how to cut loose. At Sala Sol (the gaikokujin bar near Okaido), I saw a number of Japanese businessmen that were totally plastered. It was a little surprising, because although I’d heard of the stereotype, I’d only seen Japanese people during the daytime with their professional faces on. I was introduced to a whole new part of town, with a multitude of watering holes and stumbling suits.
- I discovered that there really is a foreigner contingent in this town outside of the JET ALTs. In Sala Sol, I met a number of native English speakers who have nothing to do with JET (okay, two, but that’s independently surprising just the same).
Anyway, it was a fun night (morning!). It was my first real night out on the town since coming to Japan, and I was so very glad to have it (even if it did involve fixing Katrina’s computer). 🙂
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