Arabian Nights...

In Japan parties seem to always be at places called Izakayas, somewhere between a bar and a restaurant, where you can go and spend the night in a small room with tables on the floor and your 25 closest friends. These places also have a wonderful thing called `Nomihodai`... All you can drink alcohol for 1.5 hours. The time limit pretty much turns the evening into the drinking Olympics, everyone trying to get the most bang out of their buck.

On Sunday night we went to a party at an Izakaya called `Arabian Rock`, I thought that it would be a normal establishment with a strange name, but this place turned out to be WAY more interesting. Right from the start the Japanese take on the Middle East seemed to be taken straight out of the Disney movie Aladdin. You had to rub a lamp outside the place in order to open the door, the decor was what Trading Spaces might call `Arabian chic` and everybody was dressed in `traditional` clothes. There was a guy doing magic tricks and people dressed in Aladdin costumes, complete with big plastic heads, like in Disneyland. It never fails to amaze me how much people love kitschy crap, it was like another world.

After some first class Japanese/Middle Eastern Food and many a drink it was decided that we would go for Karaoke, a first for me... This was an experience I was waiting to have as it is SO popular here for businessmen, high school girls and housewives alike to hit the Karaoke place for some hardcore singing. It was everything I had hoped... Each group of people gets a cramped room equipped with a large TV screen, 3 microphones and unlimited drinks. Sing on McDuff! You can pick from a huge list of English songs and then the words conveniently appear on the TV screen with cheesy Japanese music videos. Good times were had by al l and the girls in the room even got to treat everyone to a rousing version of Papa Don`t Preach by Madonna. I even managed to give an introduction to our performance in the form of a speech that may or may not have contained the words `feminist ` and `fury`... Oy. Pictures to follow