Karaoke. At last.

Monday

Can you believe a full month went by without a visit to a Japanese karaoke salon? I figured that they'd have me in there the first week.

There was a small party after work on Monday night for a few new people and someone who was leaving. I wasn't feeling up for another night of awkward small talk, but I put on some lipstick and followed the gang.

I kept asking people where they party was, and no one knew. We were all just following the one guy who had the directions. The lack of curiosity cracked me up. I finally asked the guy we were following where we were going and he said, "Oh, about a 10-minutes walk." Thanks, that clears it up. Well, it ended up being a great little restaurant in Ginza that had a roof deck. I didn't have my camera with me (the one time!) so no photos of the cool deck, but later I remembered my cameraphone. Hence the crappy pictures. Once the party ended (at exactly 10PM), a bunch of us decided to go to a karaoke salon.

Unlike in the US, Japan has companies that offer private rooms with waitress service 24 hours a day. There were about 12 of us crammed into the room. I had been inexplicably befriended by a woman at the company who had literally not said a word to me in my first month in Japan. As you can see in the photo, she's clinging to me like I'm a long-lost sorority sister. It was a little Heathers for my taste, but what can you do?

One of the weird and wonderful contradictions about the Japanese is that they usually seem shy and reserved, but you get a few beers into them and it's Japanese Idol. What was really fun was that everyone was really into it, even the shyest guy at the office was shaking his booty. Everybody sang and cheered each other on.

Luckily, they had a lot of songs in English. Billy Joel (see above) wanted me to sing a Madonna song. Loathe to be remembered as the gaijin who sang "Like a Virgin" to a room filled mostly with Japanese men, I chose "Crazy for You" instead.

At some point, the snacks arrived. Edamame (steamed soybeans) and carrot sticks. I howled.

The English songs they knew where mostly pop classics from the 70s and 80s. They know every word to every Carpenters song ever written. Some of their selections were hilariously random: Boz Scaggs, anyone? My pal, pictured below, was my duet partner. He was a spot-on Lionel Ritchie to my Miss Ross during "Endless Love."
The karaoke salons are kind of like Vegas. You have no idea what time it is. And I had forgotten to wear my watch.
This is one of the guys from the Planning department doing his "I'm King of the World!" bit during Miki-san's rendition of "My Heart Will Go On."
We sang and carried on until after 3AM. One of the girls fell asleep in the ladies' room. The trains stop running around midnight, so we all piled into taxis. Just in time, I remembered that I don't speak Japanese and had one of my co-workers tell the driver where to take me. It was only about a 5-minute ride (price check $8 USD, not bad), but some of the others had 30-minutes rides home (price check $50!).

I finally fell asleep around 4AM just after I remembered that I was giving a presentation to the company about the current state of the US pharmaceutical industry. I am way too old for this.

Website of the day: The nerds at alltooflat.com have way too much time on their hands. Burning questions? Ask the Fish.