Tokyo Karaoke

I arrived at Tokyo Airport fairly dazed after an entirely sleepless flight from Dublin. My first adventure, it would seem, was going to come straight away–the location of Jeremy's house. I dug out the instructions he'd given me and started at the top, step by step was the only way to deal with these, the instructions follow...

right here we go. take notes!
once you get into the arrival hall, you need to take your shoes off. then
make your way to the trains which are down the escalator. Go to the "Keisei
line' desk. There are 2 desks. if keisei is not written up there, just ask.
Then once you have found the right desk, tell the lady you want to go to
"Ochiai-Minami Nagasaki" on the "Toei-Oedo" line. might pay to write those
down and show her.
She will show you on the map what you have to do. but the best way, is to go
to "Keisei-yawata/Moto-Yawata" station ( 52 minutes, 840yen).(the reason it
has 2 names is that its actually 2 stations which you walk between to change
train lines. its about a 5 minute walk. follow the signs, you are looking
for the "Seibu-shinjuku" line. its marked by a green circle. There you buy a
ticket for "ochiai-minami nagasaki" which is on the Toei-oedo line (marked
by a pink circle, and a pink line on the subway map). This ticket will cost
you 410 yen (all the way to ochiai-minami nagasaki). You travel for 29
minutes along the toei-shinjuku line to "Shinjuku" station. Change to the
toei-oedo line, pink circle, and travel for 12 minutes along that line
(about 6 stops) to ochiai-minami nagasaki station. Of course you must always
be checking you are going the right direction. if you ask anyone (just say
the station name you want) they will most likely know.
Exit the station at exit A2 (not A1) only 2 exits.....
im going to bed. ill continue again later...
PART II
...so go up the stairs and out of A2 exit at street level...at street level.
turn right and walk about 150 meters. along the way you will pass a large
bike shed, then a school, a zebra crossing, then an old dog, then a panel
beaters, then a mobile phone shop (which dosent look much like a mobile
phone shop), then stop! there is a small street on your right which goes up
a little rise. go up there.(my apartment is about 30meters up there). so
first on your left is a kind of huge house with a little stairway and your
right a large building. then next on your left is a small car park area with
a 3 story apartment block with balconies facing on to it. that is my
apartment block. i am going to hang a tiel coloured bag on the corner of my
washing line, so you know you are in the right spot. you will be able to see
it from the little street you are walking up. the entrance is on the other
side. my apartment is 202. which is not written up. but first grab the key
from my letterbox which is in one of the boxes under the stairs. you'll see
my name on the front of the box. go up the stairs and continue going
straight and my apartment is the first you come to. then its all yours.

Fortunatly for me, though unfortunate for the entertainment value of the narritive, the instruction manual that Jeremy provided me with supprisingly turned out to be a breeze, blowing me straight to his teal bag and door without a problem. In saying this, the intricate nature of his instruction did scare me into my most sharp and alert state. Jez had even the foresight to load his fridge with nice cold Asahi Super Dry to plug that relieved and exhausted gasp when i finally made it to his lounge. Within moments that sleep that had been so ellusive on the plane landed on me like a hibernating bear falling from the ceiling, knocked me out and kept me pinned untill jez arrived home in the evening and rolled him off.

We cracked another Asahi and began the catch up. Then we had a whisky and continued the catch up. With more catch up still necessary we moved onto the sho chu. And by the time we were onto his half metre high bottle of saki the alcohol was catching up with us, so when he took a call from his Japanese friend about 11pm we heded the call and prepared to hit the town with the locals. With alco-logic we decided that filling a wee naggin with whisky would make it possible, even fun, to dub each other on his bike. There was definatly potential for entertainment in this but when I saw his bike with no carrier, a non-load bearing basket on the front and a sloping female frame, I began to doubt the fun. His plan: to have one person on the seat the other standing on the pedals, pretty much the most uncomfortable (seated) and exhausting (driving) dubbing experince I've ever had! A far cry from the lazy-boy action I'd cruised along the streets of Amsterdam with–the difference between an armchair and, say, crucifiction.

Drunkenly weaving our way along a main Tokyo road, with the due drinks breaks, It wasn't long before a ringng sound alerted us to the panting cycle policeman behind us. We dismounted and he and Jeremy delved into some Japanese dialogue. It was an interesting time for me as I could only watch and wonder whether we were going on our way or going to jail. The policeman taking Jeremy's name and radioing it through was the only indication I had of an outcome. Forunatly the policeman left and Jeremy began to explain that we were illegaly riding on the road, illegaly dubbing, d.i.c and no helmets to boot. And that for this we would have to walk it for a few meters before getting back in the saddle. Its commonly known as "the power of the gygen" (foreigner)–you get away with anything here. We had a drinks break to celebrate,

We arrived to the sort of bar I'd always dreamed of having, a kind of hobby bar. One of the girls from the group we were going to meet came down to find us (we were easy to spot I'm sure). She led us to the building and up the elevator to the bar. It was a single room about 7m2 on the 5th floor, there was a poka table and a couple of couches, and of course the mandatory karaoke machine. Our reception was truely an increadible experience. I really did feel like Ricky Martin turning up to a teenie bopper party. There was an amazing preformance of squeels and screams and pant wetting excitement. It was essential to get a personal introduction with everyone there so they could all demonstrate their overwhelmed excitement first hand. From then on it was easy getting on with zero language, the excitement was infectious and I was comfortably able to sit there grinnig all night.

Jeremy taked to Mama, the waitress, and organised us all you can drink for 3000yen–the equivilent of 6 drinks were i to negotiate the Tokyo nightlife on my own accord. We were on the sho chu and ice tea. I caught Jeremy's eye and asked if we were going to get any alcohol in the next one, he assured me there was and after 2 teas his assertion was proven correct. The Japanese noted the affect and produced a book sizeable enough to be "Jeremy's complete directions to get to every part of Tokyo" It was of course... karaoke time! And the magic tea that we'd been drinking suggested it was a splendid idea. Jez and I hoed in with the enthusiasm of a Japanese welcome party, yet even in our drunken state, it was quite obvious to us both how abismal we were. Which brings me to my conspiray theory... The words were definatly out of time, and I'm sure that this is a conscious flaw in the english songs to allow the Japanese to dine out on gygen embarrassment... It could also be that we were just terrible singers. Either way, by the time we were on our 3rd song the encouragement had all but vanished and the atmosphere would rise and fall as the microphone went from asian to gygen. Eventually the song programming machine was subtly confiscated from us all together and we'd blended into a purely Japanese playlist.
The journey back required far less effort, or maybe I just can't remember the effort. Infact I can't remember much of the journey back at all, only that somewhere along the way the police pulled us over.