So what have I been doing since I stopped school? Partying of course! First up: Playstation 3 at Michel’s (on his Beamy!), followed by Hiphop and Ramen in Shibuya.

Next up: Mimmi’s birthdayparty. Of course we started out with nomihoudai karaoke. Although the girls hogged the mic, so we didn’t get to sing much, it did set the tone for the rest of the evening (partaaaaay).

After the karaoke it was time for some more nomihoudai pleasure over at Pure. It does have a magical attraction, all you can drink clubs…

The next day, it was finally time to play some poker. Robin, Michel, Tosh, Chie and Mike (fellow resident) joined, so we had a nice 6 headed game. Needless to say, their Japanese genes kicked in, so Tosh and Chie cleaned us out the second tourney.

Last Friday, I met up with Robin to chill a bit. We weren’t gonna go out, since we were both very tired and had plans for Saturday. However, after a while we started investigating the neighborhood a bit, and stumbled upon a tiny bar somewhere near Robin’s house. The old Japanese people inside were very surprised to see two young gaijin standing in the door, and at first the owner lady shouted to us that if we didn’t speak Japanese, we couldn’t enter. Needless to say, we entered the place, showing off our “best” Japanese. We had to sing some karaoke on a classic Laser Disc karaoke set, and impressed everybody there by actually singing some old Japanese songs…

Saturday I set out to buy a new shirt. Robin joined me, as he wanted to look for some records for his DJ set that night. We walked around Harajuku and Shibuya all day. I found a nice polo, I even bought my first CD in years! An excellent minimal techno album by Akiko Kiyama. After shopping all day, we both went to our homes to prepare for the night, since Robin was supposed to do his DJ thing in a small club a couple of stations from Shibuya.

I got home, freshened up, ate some and left around 9 to meet up with Robin in Iidabashi. Got on the train, and just as the train left the station, I got a call from Robin. “Funny thing… my gig is next week!” So no DJing for Robin that night, which also meant, no plans for the evening anymore. We decided to meet up in Shinjuku and decide what the correct course of action would be that night.

We were joined by Frederico, an Italian dude who used to live at Robin’s guesthouse, and Aki, Frederico’s girlfriend. We first went for drinks in some small backstreets near the station. However, we choose some place, where we were only allowed to stay if we would keep on eating. Just drinking turned out to be impossible, and we were rudely requested to leave the place.

So now we had to find a new place. We walked around Shinjuku for about half an hour looking for an interesting place to go, when we actually stumbled into the “Golden Gai” area. I hadn’t heard of the place before, but when you enter the area, it immediately radiates Japan all over you. The small streets are filled with tiny bars (if you can fit 10 people inside, it’s big) and the whole area feels entirely different than the rest of the city.

We stumbled out of the place around 2, only to take a cab to Shibuya to keep up our party efforts. We decided to go for cheap and ended up in, you guessed it, pure! There, I met a nice Japanese girl, Midori, who was being closely monitored by her friends and little brother. However, I did manage to get her phone number, so I hope I’ll get to meet her again (will keep you posted on that one).

Tags: karaoke, party, shibuya, shinjuku

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