26/3 - Wine, Women and Chiefly SONG

Monday we had no scheduled activity till the evening, which was just as well given the lateness and amount of the previous day's activities. The weather was nice and we made it into Kichijoji for lunch, after which we dropped in to visit Mari.

Along Sun Road we dropped into the Post Office to send some postcards. This led to quite some frustration for Maria which, rather humouressly came out as a bit of a tirade at Mari's place when Maria was explaining.

What had happened was that we had used 75% of the back of the postcards to write our messages, still leaving a quarter for the address. The post office worker said we had to pay more - the cost of a letter (110 yen) rather than the cost of a postcard - because we had written too much. Anyway, this was a cause for consternation, disbelief, and some anger; as well as a few jokes.

We whiled the afternoon away at Mari's on various activities and before long it was time to go to the Yakiniku restaurant for dinner. This was a special activity we'd scheduled about a week before with Mari, her immediate amily (husband and Ryu) and her mother and step-father (called "Mr"). A yakiniku restaurant is one in which customers cook their own food. A brazier (or 2 in our case - there were a total of 10 of us) of hot coals measuring some 40cm in diameter, with a mesh grill on top, is placed on the table. Customers order platters of meat (beef, pork, liver, etc.) and other dishes which they communally cook atop the grill. The food is delicious and its a great way to enjoy each other's company over conversation and a few beers or other beverages. Further the restaurant was one we had eaten at after carrying the Omikoshi 12 years ago, is run by one of Mari's friends, and has a great reputation. So...it was excellent...gochiso sama deshita Mr/Mari.

After a couple of hour's dining all of us bar Mari's husband (who started work the next morning at 5am) took ourselves off to a Karaoke Box for song. Going to a Karaoke Box is a great experience, even if you're a pathetic singer like I am.

Songs sung ranged from Japanese popular to classics such as Johny Cash and Elvis and rock such as U2's Vertigo. I had great fun singing Yu Yu Hakusho's (one of my all time favourite anime) theme song with Maria, as well as that for the old City Hunter TV anime. Perhaps the biggest "culture shock" moment of the night was hearing "My Grandfather's Clock" (put on for the kids) ... And learning/hearing the lyrics for all the verses for the first time. The most fun moment for me was seeing Mari perform "Cutie Honey" along with a number of the actions. It was extremely cute and fun. Ryu was also finally convinced to sing and appears to have a good voice (I believe to be a singer is one of his aspirations - no doubt particularly hard in Japan) - he sung a couple of old action ranger type themes as well as a modern popular song.

I should mention that Karaoke Boxes are particularly well setup in Japan, as well as being a competitive business. Within a minute of us exiting the restaurant we were approached by a Karaoke tout, many such (and probably for other shadier recreations) can be found around the major pedestrian intersections. This tout guided us to his business (3rd floor of some building a block or 2 away), but all the way we were pursued by a tout from a rival business, trying to convince us to change our choice. Inside the box you are given a couple of cordless microphones, almost a dozen telephone-book sized song lists which can be browsed and selections made from, and a couple of wireless touch screen boxes (a bit like small notebooks) which are used to enter selections, and which aslo provides a search service (by band or title). The room also contains a phone which can be used to order drinks (brought to the room), find out how much time remains, etc.

For me it was definitely a night of wine-women-and-song in the best sense - that warm feeling of friendship and fun. We ended up singing till 11:30, arriving home around midnight.