As of Friday the 25th of April, I am no longer in school. After four months of studying my ass of, it is about time I start relaxing a bit and see some more of Japan than just my school. I’ve learned a lot the past few months, and am by now able to have a simple conversation in Japanese. Of course full fledged discussions about politics are still quite far away, but at least I can have “pub conversations”. Now I’ll start focusing more on learning the kanji and extending my vocabulary in my own time.

However, before all of that, it was of course time to paaarty. I invited all my classmates for dinner in Shibuya and fortunately most were able to make it.

After dinner we quickly went for nomihoudai karaoke, to get the night started. Boy, did we succeed with that…

Since some of us had to catch last trains home, and others weren’t able to walk anymore, we decided to go find ourselves another place to continue the festivities. We found a small izakaya/bar kind of place, where we quickly continued our binge drinking. After about half an hour we were joined by Michel and his colleagues.

We were drinking so merrily, that after a while the waiter had to inform us that unfortunately they were out of draft beer. No worries, we just switched to Sapporo beer bottles! Until after a while they also ran out of those… So I can finally proudly proclaim we managed to finish all the beer in a bar!

As the bar was out of beer, it was time to go clubbing. We decided to go to Pure, because Mimmi had informed us that they had nomihoudai clubbing there. I must be honest, I don’t remember much of the club, other than the club itself isn’t very special. But being with a fun group, and having all you can drink helped a lot. I found a lot of pictures of which I had no recollection whatsoever taking them though…

Thanks everybody, for a wonderful time at school and of course an excellent party!

As some of you might know, two weeks ago I didn’t pass my test to advance to the next level. I needed a 60% score to pass, but unfortunately got stuck at 59%. Today, however, school started again and I was allowed to take the test again. I studied quite a lot during my travel to Hokkaido, so this time I managed to pass the test (63%)! As of today I’m officially an “upper beginner” at Japanese.

*bows and waits for the applause to fade away*

My new class is very fun, with a much better male – female ratio than my previous class. In my previous class we had 2 girls and a lot of guys… In this class we are graced with the presence of (here goes): four Korean girls, one Taiwanese girl, one Swedish girl, an English girl and finally a Canadian girl. That being said, I also need to add that we are with just four guys (from Canada, Ukraine, Italy and finally me from Holland). I’m loving my new class already!

After my previous little cliffhanger, it is time for a full fledged update. But first a small explanation of what the video was all about. We were going out in Shinjuku, nothing special, just some food and drinks, when we decided to meet up with Chie, who was having dinner with a colleague near us. We were waiting for her, to come and pick us up, when suddenly we heard some commotion across the street. This turned out to be a very drunk “salary man” running around with his pants on his heels. I grabbed my camera, but while I got it, he pulled up his pants. Of course we couldn’t let him pass just like that. And hence we got his attention, and a cinematographic classic was born.

After this nice little distraction, we met up with Chie, and went to the Izakaya where her friend was waiting. We had drinks and food at the Izakaya , after which we of course went for karaoke. We were all quite drunk, so it was awesome and I finally got to sing “If I can dream” by Elvis!

The next day it was time for Igrushka’s final concert. With Artem going home, this unfortunately means the end of this nice little band. They will search for a new drummer, but will probably continue with a different name when they find one. The show was excellent, their best show so far, very sad though, that it was their last. Luckily this didn’t destroy our mood, since soon after their show ended, we were treated with the appearance of the next band.

About this next band, what do you think about the singer?

A: She’s a hot chick
B: She’s a lolita goth chick
C: She’s a visual kei dude

Let’s just say, it ain’t A, which I became painfully aware of, when (s)he started to sing… Visual kei is basically trash metal, where the band members dress up as extravagantly as possible. Everything is good, as long as it looks impressive. Another example of visual kei, a bit closer to home is the singer of Tokyo Hotel. Anyway, although their music was not good at all, the show they gave was very funny and entertaining, and gave us plenty of opportunity to throw around Yuji, Artem and myself!

After the visual kei show, we were treated to the sweet jamming tunes of gypsyconnection. These guys really know how to create smooth music. I ended up sitting in the middle of the dance floor, chilling to their groovy tunes. They even had a sing along tune, with the magical chorus: “kiko kiko, rin rin,” which comes down to, I’m cycling around, ringing my bell to pretty girls (go Japanese language).

After the shows, we went with Igrushka to an Izakaya to drink and eat all night long. It was very cool. We drank and ate a lot, like is usual in Japan. After a while Naofumi and Miki fell asleep, but Yuji and Nao held strong. Until we started playing drinking games (“One woman… got fucked… up the ass… whoohoo. Two women… two women… got fucked… got fucked… ah well you get it… whoohoo!), that quickly got Nao wasted as well, Yuji held strong though. Nao, Miki and Naofumi went to wait for first train in a manga cafe, while Artem, Kelly, Yuji and me stayed at the Izakaya.

Hold up, did I just say Kelly? Oh yes I did, Kelly used to be a colleague (or was it superior?) of Artem at the Gabba language institute. She an Australian girl who came to Japan to work as a study counselor thingy for Japanese people applying to learn English. We had a lot of fun, and she even renamed everyone of us (Hi, my name is Ben).

The next week was filled with school and aikijujutsu. Of course it was heavy eating and drinking with sensei afterwards, so the week was quite wrecking, but lots of fun! That Friday we had a special event at school. They had organized a speech contest. The higher classes had to write a small essay as part of their course, and the best writers/speakers of each class got to compete in this contest. Every contestant was introduced by his or her classmates in the most creative of ways. It was very funny to see, although we couldn’t understand a lot of it yet.

On Saturday I wanted to go to a drum n bass party in Womb, one of the hottest clubs in Shibuya. So I contacted the usual suspects and we met for drinks in Shibuya. We went to the cheap bar, where they serve pints for just 300 Yen (~2 Euro), and started with the binge drinking to get in the mood. Unfortunately people started bailing out at that point, Artem didn’t have any money, Joy went home early, and so on and so on. So I ended up with just Swaroop and some weird Korean dude.

While we were drinking, Swaroop suddenly got his glass filled by a dude who gave him some strong Japanese liquor. He kept on filling everybody’s glasses with it, but fortunately I had just ordered myself a beer, so I got spared. After a while, it turned out the guy had stolen the bottle he was using to fill our glasses. Of course the bar personnel found out and got really really mad (duh), at which point he just bolted and left the place.

Because of that incident though, we started talking to a group of girls standing near us. I started talking with a Brazilian girl, Marcia, and Swaroop managed to establish contact with a French girl, whose name I do not know. They were there with a Japanese girl, a Japanese guy and a French guy. All of them were very fun, and since it was quite late already, we decided to skip Womb and join them for another party.

The other party became Gaspanic. Gaspanic is comparable to Amsterdamned and such places in Amsterdam, although the music is mostly hip hop. It is a chain with Gaspanic places everywhere around Tokyo, and usually the drunk American marines hang out there, molesting Japanese girls. This time though, it was very fun, and there were now obnoxious Americans to be found.

Of course we drank a lot, and I ended up dancing quite a bit with Marcia. Damn those Brazilians can move! I am fairly confident about my dancing skills (taking into account I’m a white guy ), but damn, at several points I simply had no clue what to do with this twirling and grinding chick in front of me. Quite the experience!

We exchanged phone numbers and went for a lunch date last Saturday, but that’s a story for another day…

… or Everybody’s Japanese. My classes have started! My first two days of Japanese class have gone by so fast! Yesterday I walked into my new classroom, meeting the other students for the first time. So it was introductions all round, and telling everybody where I’m from, what’s my age, what are my hobbies, etcetera. Of course everything in Japanese, so that was quite a task for my first lesson. I started a week later than the others, so I also had to try and make sense of what the lesson was all about.

Fortunately we use the Minna no Nihongo textbook, which is completely in Japanese, no English whatsoever, so that wasn’t any help either. Based on my entry test, I was also allowed to skip the first book, so I started in the middle of some new material. However, everybody understood the challenge of starting mid course, so I got a lot of help, and I’m studying like crazy to (re)gain my missing knowledge. Because my major problem right now isn’t the grammar, but my lack of vocabulary. So glad I brought my previous textbook with me to Japan!

After my first day in school, I left the building a bit dazed and confused, since I had been pushed pretty hard. I therefore promptly walked the wrong way when I left the school building. Luckily a classmate had to go that direction as well, so he directed me to a station (unfortunately not the station I wanted to go to) and we took the train to Shinjuku together. There I transferred to my right train, and I was finally on my way home. So my way back took me about 45 minutes, while it would normally take 20 minutes max. But hey, what’re you gonna do, at least I got to know one of my classmates a little better .

Today went much smoother, classes started with Kanji practise. Kanji are the Chinese characters used for writing, where every symbol is a word. This is of course a bit of a hassle, but fortunately I already knew some of the basic ones (1-10, river, Japan, and some more), and I’ve been placed in a basic class, so this first lesson went like a breeze. After that we had more writing practice, only then focussed on grammar and sentences, so Kanji aren’t mandatory for that. This also went pretty well luckily. As we finished textbook lesson 28, we continued with lesson 29 and I could follow pretty much everything. Only missing a word here and there. Gee, studying actually helps!

I was also able to get my teacher and classmates to laugh with a stupid joke by the way. We were doing exercises and the word karaoke popped up in the textbook. So our teacher asked us if we know what it was, and of course everybody knew. However, everybody started joking a little like “ah no idea, what is it?” You know how it goes. So after a while I asked the teacher “Misete kudasai” or “could you please show it to us?” After which he replied laughing that he doesn’t do karaoke. And then he added, wisely, unless I drink a lot of sake. Which was pretty funny, because who hasn’t been down that road before?

After school I wanted to go to Akihabara, but first I arranged my monthly metro pass. I can now travel freely between my house and school, for about 36 euro / month, instead of 21 euro / week, so that works out great. After I got my pass, I went to Shinjuku, to transfer to Akihabara. However, I got out at the wrong side of the station. And once you are out of the ticket gates, you can’t just walk in to cross to the other side. So I had to take the long way round. But I never knew it would be such a long way! It took me about 30 to 45 minutes to get to the other side of the station. And I took the direct route, which even featured the conveyor belts often found at airports, which allow you to move a bit faster to your destination.

Though I did find some interesting parts of the station this way, which I would’ve never found otherwise. I suddenly ran into a small fountain like thingy, which featured a small mountain with water running from it towards a miniature lake. Very nice. And outside I ran into the winter decorations of one of the hotels around the station. I believe it was the Keio Plaza hotel, but I am not sure about that, gomen nassai.

I finally managed to get to the train going to Akihabara, in order to continue my search for a prepaid cellphone. And guess what, I found one! Unfortunately then I realized I forgot to bring my passport, so I couldn’t buy it… Argh, another day without a phone, but at least now I know where to get it. So if everything works out ok, I have one tomorrow. Wish me luck!