The karaoke place was on the 5th floor of a nearby building and it consisted of a very small lobby and a hotel-like hallway with small rooms coming off of it. You pay a small fee and rent a room with your friends for an hour or two. There are really only 2 employees in the whole place as far as I could tell. One works the door to collect money and manage the comings and goings of the temporary rock-stars; the other acts as a server, bringing drinks and food to the rooms. As a group we decided we would need to have a few drinks beforehand (for cultural authenticity of course) so we went to the "shocking pink" liquor store adjacent to the hotel. I was tempted by this 4 liter bottle of whiskey for the shockingly low price of $25 but realized that what my mother always told me applies in Japan as well: "if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is." Enough whiskey to kill a hippo, that was also cheap and good tasting? Probably not so. Anyway, a bottle of sake later and we were off to karaoke!
We weren't sure at first what to make of the place and we were having a hard time communicating with the man behind the counter so we decided to just get a room for one hour and see what happened. It was magical. The room was really small, but the acoustics were wonderful. They provide a phone book size catalogue to choose from and within seconds we were busting out the Nirvana, Journey, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and the rest. The beer kept coming, the songs were awesome, and the intensity of the freedom and fun of the whole experience were beyond description. We were rock stars on a whole new level! We had so much fun that we purchased another hour. At the end of that hour we had to go. I tried to negotiate for another half hour but they declined. I'm not sure if they have a two hour maximum, we were getting too crazy, or we were just too good for that place and they thought people should be paying us, but our time was up.
My goal of losing weight in Japan may have backfired. :)
After karaoke we made our way to our new favorite yakitori bar right near the train station and had some grilled chicken skin, and grilled pork.
This picture makes it look kind of gross but it's really good. Really.
We mingled with the locals and then it was time for bed. My head hit my pillow and I was out like a light. It was exactly midnight. The next thing I remember is that it is 6:45 in the morning, I feel like death, and I remember that I didn't put the "do not disturb" sign on the door. I put it up and went back to bed. This is Saturday morning and I had plenty of time to make my scheduled meet up of noon. Right? I woke up at 9. Nope, not moving. 10, nope not moving. 10:30, ok I should think about moving. Good lord it's bright out there. 11, maybe I'll move. Nope, terrible idea. 11:30 ok I need to send a message and tell people that we need to push it back. Fortunately for my pride, I was not the only one in pain from the spiritual journey of karaoke we had the night before and it was no problem. I did not feel much better later. I ended up scrapping the whole day. I left my room once to get ice cream. I have not felt so terrible in a very long time. Perhaps ever. I can only guess that it was a combination of the booze, not drinking enough water, and the salty pork and chicken skin at the end of the night. Whatever the cause, it will not happen again. My time here is too fleeting and I need to make sure I get everything out of it that I can. As my new friend Paul says, "it's ok to make a mistake. You learn and get better. You make the same mistake twice: that's stupid."
Sunday the sun was shining, the heat was blistering, and the humidity was epic. I hate all of those things and when they come together, I could just crawl into a slimy damp cave and be Gollum for a day but because of the previous day, we were heading out! Nerdville was our destination! Also known as Akihabara!
All 4 of us met up and tried to go to conveyor belt sushi again, but the line was out the door and doubled back on itself. We didn't feel like waiting so we went to the Chinese food restaurant next door. I didn't think to take a picture of lunch, but I wish I could have because the only thing I could identify were the fried dumplings. I had a giant bowl of something.... I can tell you it was spicy, creamy, noodly, porky, eggy, and delicious! Think hot and sour soup meets Thai curry. Fantastic! I've learned that the size of the line in Japan does not necessarily correlate with the tastiness of the food within. Restaurants with really big lines often have been recently featured on tv or endorsed by someone famous. But really the bottom line here is that so far I have not had anything that was less than scrumptious and I've tried some really weird things and some things I cannot identify.
After lunch we got on the train, which is actually making sense to me now, and made our way to Akihabara. Akihabara was interesting because you could see the transformation that has taken place here over the last few decades. As is true in most of Japan there is often the old mixed with, and side by side the new. On one hand you have densely packed alleys filled with the smallest stores you can imagine selling every electronic component under the sun (the old) and on the other you have the manga/anime/video games Mecca (the new.) I was here for the new and I found a little bit more than I was looking for.
Carrie and Tara branched off to do their own thing and Ira and I made for the Mandarake Complex which is one of the bigger and better anime/manga/toy shops in the area. It had 7 floors of beautiful art work and comic books. Some were old and collectible, others were new and hot off the presses. Others are probably illegal in most countries. I wandered through the main "boy" comics floor and tried to find something that looked familiar or cool. Somehow I found it: an art book of my favorite anime of all time: Nausicaä. It was only $12 too! Nothing else really grabbed me, I skipped the "girl" floor, and whoa no no no, not THAT floor, before I found myself in the collectible toy floor. Wall to wall and ceiling to ceiling were old and new collectible toys. I managed to get a few innocent pictures before I noticed the "no photos" signs everywhere. This place had everything and it was all in pristine condition. I wanted quite a few of them but I would have found it rather difficult to explain to Beth that I spent $350 on a plastic model of an Alien dismembering Predator.
Ira and I met up with Carrie and Tara and made for the very underwhelming "Technologia" where the guide book promised all manner of robots. My mind pictured robots doing my dishes, robots cleaning the floor, helicopter robots, tank robots, bipedal robots, laser robots, and world domination robots. What we found was a very small shop that sold robot parts. Even that was not as cool as it sounds. Picture random wire harnesses, next to individual servos. Really cool if you have a thousand hours of free time and the software and know how to make it all run. I don't have that so we moved on.
As is often the case with Japan, it is the surprises that make this trip. We stumbled into an upscale shopping mall under the train tracks.
Two stores captivated me. The first was a fine woodworking store meets modern technology. They sold beautiful hardwood custom iPhone cases, wooden key boards, houses that were USB hubs, and other things.
The other was a kaleidoscope shop. I know, I know. We all had kaleidoscopes when we were young. They were kind of cool and you pretended to like them until they got smushed or kicked into the void under the bed. These were all upwards of $100, handcrafted, and exquisite.
That's all for now. My adventure, the surprises, the food, and the good times roll on!!
For relaxing times make it Suntory time.
ReplyDelete- Mr. Bob Harris