Epic Karaoke
(This entry shamelessly cross posted from my livejournal, with special edits.)
The plan was this: Get the guys down the hall and a girl from another dorm. Go out to a place in Shibuya that we were tipped off had a great deal for all-night karaoke (11PM-5AM) with free soft drinks and slushees. (MELON slushees no less. God bless the Japanese and their melon flavored everything.) Stay out, sing stuff, take a train home around 5 AM and crash.
We deviated from the plan in two important respects.
1. We took a wrong turn out of Shibuya station and went to THE ONLY BURGER KING IN JAPAN, (we think) mostly by accident, ’cause we realized we’d taken a wrong turn and were hungry. Burger king crowns were acquired. This is important. One of the guys is already pretty convivial, but under the influence, he becomes utterly gregarious — sometimes crossing the line into obnoxious, but always in hilarious ways.
He wore his burger king crown with pride, attracting attention and making friends in the hallway of the karaoke place while we got our room. (Note that he speaks almost no Japanese at all.) But it did not end there. Under the influence, he began to shout “ORE WA KINGU DESU” repeatedly – which for those of you who do not speak japanese, but can probably guess, is a rather arrogant and self-inflating way of saying “I AM THE KING.” The only way you WOULD say it, I guess.
2. Shouting this in the hallway while he smoked got the attention of some guys wandering around who were actually singing in the room next to ours. I think it was two japanese guys, one french guy, and two french girls. The other girl, Missy, and I followed him out into the hallway and started speaking broken japlish with them. The one guy kept showing off pictures of his girlfriend who I have to admit was pretty adorable.
There was much wandering between rooms until about an hour before the night ended, at which point everyone… EVERYONE… migrated to our room. (Note, these rooms are TINY. Smaller than the dorm bedrooms. Smaller than some walk-in closets.) Once the two japanese guys finished diving onto people’s, we somehow all ended up standing on the benches around the edges of the room, arms around each other’s shoulders in a giant line-dance-thing, jumping and yelling and singing. I believe some phone numbers were exchanged, but I don’t have a phone.
I was able to communicate with the waitress when she told us we only had 10 minutes left, and we finished with Take On Me, which was the perfect end to a rather perfect night.
Picture time!
