It seems the trend of impromptu fun is continuing. First off all, last night I went out on the town with the owner of a ramen shop where I sometimes stop to eat on the way home from work. The guy is friendly. First, we walked down the road to a karaoke bar that is a few stores down from the one I went in before. On walking in, I heard the first outright exclamation of ‘Gaijin!’ that I have heard since being in Japan (‘Gaijin’ means ‘foreigner!’ and some people think of it is a slightly derogative term). The owner and the customer seemed quite confused and surprised by my presence until my drinking partner walked in and they obviously knew him. We sat down at the bar and ordered some beers. Almost immediately, they pulled out the karaoke list. All the while, they were asking questions about me and they warmed to me after they had spoken to me for a while.
The bar seemed to be one of the typical karaoke bars I have been in. Quite small, with some booths, an old video machine in the corner and a woman working the bar who makes nice conversation and convinces you to buy her drinks which I find a bit patronizing and annoying. It seems very unkind to say no, but you have to be careful otherwise the bill doubles. Anyway, in most bars these women are young and (hopefully) pretty. In this bar, the woman was probably 60 and dressed like a teenager from the 80s. It was odd, but she was at least doing her job.
I gave the bar some bad renditions of The Beatles, The Cure and The Clash and then my friend told me that you actually pay by song. I hadn’t realised this before so I’m glad he told me. It was a concern as well as I didn’t have much money on me (pay day being today, not yesterday), but luckily I had enough at the end of our session there. My friend did some Japanese numbers and a Beatles track too. All in all, pretty good, but those places make drinking expensive in Japan.
Afterwards we took a walk round some back streets and soon came on the second venue of the night (Japanese people really seem to stick to this two-venue party plan). It was this small, messy bar above a restaurant. Obviously some function room though it was filled with instruments. There were some guys in there all improvising some jazz. They were a lot more friendly at first than the others, and they asked me if I could play anything. I can’t play well enough to jam like that, so I had drinks and listened to them play. It was all very good and I felt glad to be part of some developing music scene. They seem to be a band of some kind. One guy was playing the bass and the double bass, my friend played the drums, another on guitar, one guy on piano and one guy on sax. They all left and joined in the session when they felt like it. It was really good. And so much cheaper. I had about half the drinks there as I did in the other place, but for a quarter of the price.
The other thing that happened was that yesterday, at school, one of the teachers gave me two tickets to a Jazz concert that is on tonight. Pretty good really. Unfortunately, I don’t have someone to invite in a romantic manner as it would be a perfect excuse, but I have invited one of my friends so that it doesn’t go to waste. I’m still very tired and looking forward to a proper sleep tonight but I think with a decent dinner and a bit of alcohol I should be able to stay awake. These things tend to have an atmosphere all of their own though.
In other news, it’s pay day. So I am hoping to buy my holiday plane tickets. I only recently realised though that I am going to need to find an English speaking travel agent. I hope there is one around here!
