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).

… So how about a video?

… 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!

… 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!