A Dancing Weekend

27th/ 28th April, 2007

We definitely got to dance this weekend – it was fantastic! We started off by going to Kobe on Friday night. We ended up at an Irish pub called Ryan’s which is Bill’s local. It turned out to be an 80’s night which was just my cup of tea. It was so good to have somewhere to dance to my style of music. We ate chicken parmigana’s which was a first in Japan and got to dance all night to 80’s. We caught the last train home after having a really good night.

On Saturday we headed to Osaka. It was Marie, Lauren an American girl called Lexi and myself. We met up with Megumi someone who Marie met on her New Zealand trip and she took us to this really cool Australian restaurant. We hung out in there for a while before we headed off to check into our hotel.

For tea we went to our first sushi train in Japan. Actually it was the first sushi train that I had ever experienced. Just as well I got to do it in Japan for the first time. It was awesome. I loved it. All the plates were only 130 yen ($1.30) – you couldn’t go wrong, I ended up having 7 plates and feeling very full. The good thing about this place was that you could choose what you wanted to eat. If you didn’t like the look of it then you didn’t choose it. I can’t wait to go back again.

After tea Lexi wanted to take us to a ‘host bar’ to show us what it was like. I was very hesitant at first because I wasn’t sure what it entailed but Lexi assured us that it was ok so we thought ‘why not’ and went. It was a very bizarre experience. We walked in to what looked like a secret room and were very sceptical about the place but when we got inside it actually looked pretty cool. We sat down at a table and then 3 guys (hosts) came up to talk to us. Thank goodness we were able to sit in a group. There was no way that I was going to be doing any one on one talking. Not that I could communicate anyway as the hosts spoke in Japanese with very limited English or no English at all. We got one hour with the hosts – well at least that’s all we were willing to pay for. It cost 2000 yen ($20) for one hour with all you could drink. We drank about 4 drinks each. It was difficult trying to communicate with the hosts and the funny thing was that because we were paying they had to stay and talk to us. Lexi’s Japanese skills are pretty good so she was able to have a conversation which was good. The funniest comment of the night was when one of the hosts told us that ‘we were very beautiful – just like statues’. When our hour was up we were escorted out of the place back to the street. It was embarrassing going back onto the street again. It was a funny experience but definitely for me a once off thing.

After the host bar we walked around for hours deciding which club to go into. It was fun and interesting just looking at all the people that were out and about. There were many hosts just on the streets trying to lure people into their clubs – now that we had been to one we could spot them. There were also many scouts trying to find people to work in their bars. It was very interesting to see this. We finally went into a club but only stayed for one drink because it wasn’t that great. Lexi then persuaded us to go to a club called ‘Jool’. This is a place where she often goes and loves. Well I am really glad that we decided to enter this club. Lauren and I didn’t really want to go in because we weren’t too keen on the music but thankfully we decided to give it a go. This club was the biggest club that I have been to so far in Japan. It could fit about 600 people in it. All the people were pretty much Japanese. There was the odd foreigner. We really stood out though. This club was filled with a particular type of Japanese style. All the guys had hair sticking out everywhere and were dressed really trendy. All the girls had really big hair mainly blonde and were wearing next to nothing and then there was us!! The music was trance – so not really my style but I still managed to dance and have a good time. I just loved watching everyone in the club. Lauren and I ended up getting home at 5am. Marie stayed with Lexi for a bit longer and came home at 6am. It was really fun.