… At the gaybar, gaybar!

But, before that, I had to check out Igrushka perform at a tiny venue with a big name, Manhole. Situated near Ikebukuro station, starting bands can perform here. But whoever came up with the name for it, certainly didn’t know a lot about the English language. That aside, Igrushka had a very nice show again, although the other bands that performed this night had very nice sets as well. Very skilled musicians, and fun stage moves. Although they were a bit too studied for a “true rock experience,” but hey, this is Japan.

After the show, me and Artem hurried to Shinjuku as fast as we could, because over there it was time for a good old evening of, you guessed it, karaoke baby! This time we were with a small group, so we had a small karaoke room as well. We didn’t have as much room to move, but the atmosphere inside was nice and cozy. And we had some wicked projections going on on the walls.

We had an awesome karaoke night, with Sam singing beautiful Japanese songs (fluently), and Artem singing Billy Jean in an hilarious way. We even sang staying alive, by the Beegees and Michel and Chie sang the tonari no Totoro (my neighbor Totoro) theme song. But after karaoke, we found ourselves in quite the predicament. We were in Shinjuku, had missed last train to go to another party area, and had no clue on where to go.

Well, that’s not quite true, Sam had a deep knowledge of the clubs in this area, but these were all gay clubs. So after a long time of standing around doing nothing, we decided to go ahead and follow Sam into a gay club. I had never been to a gay bar before, so I must admit I was quite curious about what we would find in there. We went to a club that was packed with men (obviously) and ordered our drinks.

The first thing I noticed was that the men working there were all very nice and “fabulous” (wink, wink). The second thing I noticed was that it was just a club like any other, only the women / men ratio was severely against us. Of course we encountered the typical “fags” who dance with their hand bent, and their ass out , but that was only to be expected. Fortunately our view was brightened up a little by two gorgeous girls making out all the time, right in front of us.

All in all, we had quite some fun in there, but after a while we decided it was time for a change of scenery and went off to get some beers at the Hub. At the Hub we drank some beer towers and ate some food, after which we decided to go look for a place to play some pool, until the trains would start running again. We were walking around, looking for a suitable place, when all of a sudden, Hellooooo Kitty! So pool was off, time to take pictures .

The next day I spent working, but in the evening I was going out to meet up with Swaroop and Joy in Shinjuku. We were supposed to meet at 10.30 at the Hachiko statue. But they showed up around 11, finding me waiting for them for a long while, frozen to the bone. They brought Joy’s friend Nyree along as well, and we were also joined by Artem. Swaroop had also invited a Japanese friend, who turned out to be a very cool, hip Shibuya dude and he brought a friend as well. So then we could finally go off and try to find someplace warm and get ourselves a drink!

We went to a small bar, where they had cheap drinks (300 Yen for a beer) and a lot of foreigners. We met some American guys there, who ended up chugging beer down our throats. Of course I kept our Dutch pride safe, and chugged the beer without a flinch, pff Americans . We stayed in that place quite a while, so when we left, we were all pretty wasted. Time to go to the next place!

We went to a club, which had an indie rock night that night, which turned out to be a very nice change from the electronic music I have been hearing in all the clubs lately. Bernd, you would be so proud, I actually liked the music a lot. We ended up creating a tiny moshpit with a couple of dudes, which left me with my face bleeding (slightly) and Swaroop all black and blue. It was great .

Then, while I was talking to Joy, she told me that Nyree had dared her to kiss me and if I wanted to do that. Who could say no to that . so we ended up kissing on top of the stairs, for the whole club to see. Saves explaining things later on, I guess. We went home together, but before we got there, we of course took the wrong train. After about 15 minutes of riding it (the train!), we got off only to find we had just made it to Shinjuku, and somehow bumped into Swaroop and Nyree there. We took Nyree with us, and left for Noborito, where Joy lives.

We had a very nice Sunday the day after, which unfortunately was brutally disrupted by the fact that I really had to work again. But all in all, yet again a very nice weekend in Tokyo!

My friend from Japanese class in Amsterdam, Balazs, had sent me the contact details of Saki-san, a Japanese girl who currently lives in Tokyo. I contacted her, and last Saturday we went on a date. However, since we would meet at 2 in the afternoon, I of course still had time to go clubbing on Friday. Artem met up with us during dinner, after which we went to Harajuku, where I tried to buy the shoes I really wanted at the time.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have the shoes I wanted in my size, so instead we just went for some crap. With crap, I of course mean the icecream wrapped in crêpes they sell everywhere in Harajuku. It is a very popular snack, where you can choose a, usually sweet, filling, which they roll in a warm pancake. Although I went for ice cream, it is also possible to get a cheesecake filling, or even ceacar salade. Although I don’t think I’ll ever try it with anything other than ice cream.

Outside the crapshop, we were fooling around a bit, of course impersonating Arnold, the governator, badly (get down!), when two Japanese women walked by. The look on the face of one of them was awesome. We were fooling around, totally ignoring everybody around us, making way too much noise for Japanese standards (read: the average noise people make in our metros). The look the woman gave us was one of: “what are they doing, oh they are gaijin, pfff,” as she strolled by disdainfully.

We went to our guest house, to start the alcohol consumption required to guarantee a good night of partying. Back in the guest house we were basically bullshitting the whole time. Making fun of everything and everyone we could, as much as possible. Around 12 we left our house to catch the last metro to Shibuya, where we were planning to go to Club Asia.

When we got to Club Asia, the party seemed to suck a bit, so we went to another club across the street. It promised hip hop, rmb and dancehall, and boy did we get it. Inside we found a small, but tall club. It had a small area where we entered, then down the stairs we found an even smaller area where people could chill a little. Downstairs was the biggest area, where there was room to dance. Being the amazing hip hoppers that we are, we kinda stood out of the crowd, which consisted mostly of blinged out Japanese and Black people.

We had loads of fun and were even surprised by a performance by a Japanese rap group. This was awesome, because just before the group started, the floor was packed with guys trying to get girls, effectively blocking everybody from doing any dancing or whatever. But as the group started to do their performance, all the guys suddenly left, and we found ourselves standing in the middle of a crowd of chicks, with hardly any guys around!

So we partied like crazy, but unfortunately none of us managed to “score.” Although Artem was doing pretty good with a girl we met their, who eventually took us to go and eat something afterwards. The place we went to eat was filled with drunken Japanese people, all enjoying their selves very much. The food kind of sucked though, and it was very expensive, but we had fun nonetheless. After dinner we took the metro home, where I quickly fell asleep. Time for the blind date!

At two o’ clock the next day I arrived at the starbucks where we were supposed to meet. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t make it in time, because I left my house kinda late that morning. Luckily, when I arrived at Shinjuku station I received a message from Saki-san that she took a wrong train and would arrive a bit later. So I quickly ate lunch at the starbucks, and when I finished she arrived.

Saki-san is a very sweet girl, who grew up in Kobe and is currently living with a friend just outside of Tokyo. Which meant that she didn’t have a clue on where to go either. She called a friend, and we decided to go to Shinjuku park. This is an awesome park, located about 10 minutes by foot from Shinjuku station. Inside they have a Japanese style garden, an English style garden and a French style garden. We walked around the Japanese part of the garden for over an hour, seeing some amazing sceneries, koi fish and an awesome Chinese building.

After the park, we went for some coffee near the station, were after a while we were joined by Seiko-san, after which we went for dinner and drinks. We went to an Izakaya, a Japanese restaurant where you simply order a lot of small dishes, which you share with everybody. Meanwhile you are basically drinking as much as you can take. It was very fun, and the food was great. I drank a traditional Japanese drink, which was quite strong, but very tasty!

After dinner, we met up at Shibuya station with another friend of Saki-san, Maki-san (do you still follow?) and a friend from my guest house, Swaroop. After a lot of walking around, trying to decide where to go next, until Swaroop led us to the hub. The hub is an English styled pub which was very fun. It was interesting to see though, that you couldn’t just sit down wherever you wanted, you had to be seated by the waiters, or keep on standing around.

After the hub, we missed the last train for Roppongi, so we didn’t go clubbing. Instead we went for something to eat and drink some more. We hung out with the girls until about 3.30 in the morning, when we decided to call it a night. We went outside and walked straight into a blizzard (well almost, it was snowing), and took a cab home. The next day I woke up quite late, to find a nice white view outside my window, and the sounds of children playing in the snow.

Even though my hangover from Saturday was severe, I just couldn’t resist partying on Sunday. Why? Because my house mate and fellow party boy Michel talked with one of his Japanese friends, and she and a friend were waiting for us at a coffee shop (the coffee kind) near Shibuya station. So I dragged myself together, got ready and off we went to meet the girls. We found the coffee shop easy enough, and now we were off to the club. Funny thing was, the girls normally didn’t party in Shibuya, so we had to decide where to go. Guess what, atom it was again!

Boy was I glad we went there again. The music was still god awful, but the women were even prettier than the night before! My jaw almost dropped a couple of times. But of course our company wasn’t too bad either. Going out with Japanese women turned out to be an interesting experience. Dutch women tend to stay around you when you go to a club in a small group. However, Japanese women have no trouble at all with disappearing without saying a word. Only to find them half an hour later, smoking a cigarette somewhere.

Fortunately, this goes the other way around as well. It is absolutely no problem if you leave them alone for a while, chasing other girls. They will patiently await your return, although of course they would talk to other boys when they get the chance . Pretty interesting look on things and on the whole, partying with Japanese girls rocks.

Although, of course, they really can’t dance, so you have to adjust your strategy to incorporate that fact. Since the usual dance moves don’t really work if the other person has the rhythm of a wooden stick. The trick is basically as follows, don’t do any flashy moves to the girls, just stick with clapping your hands (alone, or together with the girls), jump around like an idiot and surprisingly, tickle them in a toying fashion. Once we started doing that, they really got into it. Do realize, however, that you’ll be dodging tickles for the rest of the evening. But it provided a nice playful way to “steal” hugs and such.

We left atom around 5 in the morning to try and find something to eat. To the ramen shop! We had some great ramen for only about 3 euro a person, after which we slowly made our way to the station. At the station we said our tearful sayonara and on to a well deserved sleep it was. Michel and me arrived back home around half past 6 in the morning, where I immediately crashed and burned. Or, as the more civilized call it, went to sleep.

So I’ve been going out in Shibuya for the last couple of days. Shibuya is a very busy part of Tokyo. The famous crossing you see in all the pictures and movies, where people cross the street diagonally, is situated there. It is quite an impressive sight, once the light turns green, about 3000 people walk to the other side simultaneously. I’ll try to get a good picture of this as soon as possible.

Outside Shibuya station there’s also the statue of a dog. But not just any dog, this is Hachiko, Japan’s most faithful dog. The story behind the statue is that Hachiko and his owner were very close. Each day Hachiko would accompany his owner to Shibuya station, and wait all day for him to return. However, one day the owner got sick and unfortunately died before he could return home. Poor Hachiko kept on waiting for his owner for about 10 years, until ultimately he passed away as well on March 9 1935. Of course such a display of love and dedication left a mark with the Japanese people, and to this day people come to visit the dogs statue and pay their respect. It is also a very convenient meeting point to find your friends by the way .

I went to Shibuya with one of my fellow residents Paolo. A nice guy from Naples, Italy. We met his friend Nino, who is from Sicily, and went into town. Unfortunately none of us had any idea where to go, so we first we ended up at a crappy restaurant. After that we went for drinks and ended up at a severely funny, but also very tiny bar. Some drunk Japanese people were singing karaoke, or at least tried to, and that was about it.

So we had a drink, but when we got ready to leave suddenly the people became a little more interested in us. One guy started chatting with us, trying to get us to sing for just 200 Yen per song. When that didn’t work, they send in the one woman present at the bar. Unfortunately for her, she was pretty unattractive, although she had some very nice bigguns. Anyway, we asked for the check and got a nasty surprise. Apparently we had to pay 1000 Yen (about 6 Euro) to just sit down at the place. So we had to pay 1600 Yen each for just one beer. Ah well, you live and learn. Although my Italian friends were clearly unhappy about that, so there was a lot of fuck this and fuck that going on for the rest of the evening.

Saturday it went a bit better. We went to Shibuya again, but this time a new resident, Michel from Stockholm, Sweden, came along. He invited his Canadian friend, whose name I keep forgetting, and we went to a pub. After the pub we went to a real club, Atom. I must say, clubbing in Tokyo is very very funny. Basically Japanese people have no idea how to dance, so they just copy whatever we do and think that’s the way to go or something.

So we spent most of the evening making up silly dance moves, like pretending to pass each other basketballs, or “lifting weights”, stuff like that. Dirk would love it, because they actually copy it too. We pretty quickly gathered quite a crowd around us of Japanese people trying to copy our moves. The sillier the better it seemed. Unfortunately no cameras were allowed inside, so unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the club.

The club itself was pretty nice. It had 3 floors with different music on each floor. One hip-hop and rmb floor, one “rave” floor, but it sounded more like an apres ski hut to me and finally a psychadelic floor. What, a psychadelic floor!? Myesh, with some nice tunes as well. It was empty at first, however, so we spent quite a long time making fools of ourselves at the rave floor. Which was brilliant, as long as you ignored the god awful music . We got home around 4 I think, and now I’m here trying to get rid of my hangover, because the current plan is to go out again tonight, because it’s a national holiday tomorrow, so everybody parties.