Gakusei Travels

カラオケに行きましょう

Yesterday, I tried Karaoke for the first time.

Sam has been wanting to plan to do this for a while now so that the exchange students can hang out. To be honest, it’s not that I didn’t want to go…ok maybe a little. I’m just not a singer and I fully intended to just watch. But karaoke is such a popular activity, so I might as well at least say I tried it once.

Five of us ended up going. Me, Sam, Aicha (France), Duong & Phuong (Vietnam). We went to a place called Manekineko Karaoke, which is a pretty popular Karaoke chain. There’s several throughout Tokyo, but the one we went to was in Gotanda, which is a little past Shinjuku and Shibuya. The reason why we went to that particular location was because it was the closest to Odaiba, where a firework show would be held later that night.

I ended up meeting the group at the Karaoke bar. I had club practice in the morning so it was just easier to meet there. The place at first glance seemed pretty cool. There were two floors of private rooms where you can sing, order food and drinks, and have fun. So what had happened though was Sam called last week to make a reservation. I guess whatever guy answered her call didn’t write it down, so the store had no record of her reservation. It ended up being fine. We just had to wait an extra ten minutes for a room to open up. But the weirdest thing happened while we were waiting.

This random dude just kept bothering us. While we were waiting, we were just messing around dancing when this older dude came over. We thought he was just saying hi or maybe he worked there but then he said he was “よっぱり” which meant drunk. The dude wasn’t aggressive or anything. He kept trying to shake our hands or give a fist bump, but his actions really made Aicha, Duong, and Phuong uncomfortable. We kinda gave him an initial hand shake with the hopes he’d leave us alone. Aicha was so real for whipping out hand sanitizer after we thought he left. No! The dude kept coming back and kept trying to give us handshakes. When we kind of tried to ignore him he’d say “sorry” then proceed to continue to be annoying. It got to the point that Sam told the worker that the dude was drunk and being a nuisance, and I inserted myself in between him and the other girls so he wouldn’t get too close. Eventually I guess his initial party was leaving and he left, but I really didn’t understand why the employees didn’t stop him.

We eventually got our room and went upstairs to get settled. We had the space for 2 hours. There room is a pretty neat lounge-type area with tables and comfy chairs. There were two microphones, and they had maracas and tambourines for you to borrow, I guess to dance along with whomever is singing. We started off strong with some Taylor Swift. I threw in a couple Disney songs, cause those are the only songs I know by heart lol. Of course though, with each song, they have the lyrics on the screen for you.

It was cool that they had other song options besides Japanese and English. We could sing Kpop, and Duong and Phuong sang a few Vietnamese songs. They’re actually really good singers, and some of those songs are now stuck in my head. Aicha is actually so funny. At one point, she just started singing one of the songs in French. She knew the lyrics only in French, but not Japanese or English. If it works, it works, I suppose. lol

We did attempt, and mostly fail, at singing some songs in Japanese lol. A few of us like anime, and while we know the openings, we do not actually know the lyrics, if that makes sense. So it was a lot of mumbling until we got to that random part of the chorus that we actually knew. Some of the songs we attempted to sing were Idol by Yoasobi, Silhouette by Kana Boom, and Mayonaka no Door by Miki Matsubara. Now, we were lowkey off key and off beat for most of the songs lol. But it was just so much fun, more than I thought, goofing around and singing with everyone. No one truly cares if you can sing like Beyonce or not.

After our time was up, we paid and left. I think over all, for the two hours, the food Sam and I ordered, and the unlimited drinks it was around 9000￥ or so. When we split the cost it was around $8 per person, which wasn’t bad. We then headed to Odaiba. There was apparently a fireworks show going on there, so we went to go see it.

In Odaiba, there is this really neat area called Driver City. It honestly reminded me of Miami for some reason. The place is in the inner part of Tokyo, by a pier that connects to the ocean. I honestly had never heard of this place before, but I really want to come back some other time and explore it more thoroughly. There is a huge shopping mall there called Aqua City with a movie theater on the lower level. Perhaps when the new Bad Boys movie releases, we can come back out here and then shop at the mall. Or, I can just go see Blue Lock again, because I loved that movie a little too much lol. Also, for some reason, this place has a Statue of Liberty? It is nowhere near as big as the one in New York City, but I’m like why? I just have so many questions.

We initially got a little lost trying to find Odaiba Beach where the fireworks show would be. We ended up going the opposite direction (people should not trust me with the GPS as much as they do), so we ended up arriving a little after the show started at 7 PM. The fireworks were just gorgeous to watch. Although the place was so crowded with the police doing their best to control traffic, we managed to find a couple good spots with a descent view. We never got close to the actual pier, but from our distance, we all took some pretty photos and videos. In Japanese, firework is 花火(hanabi). 花 (hana) means flower and 火 (bi) means fire. So they’re fire flowers, and they truly looked like flowers lighting up the night sky.

I’m actually super proud of the photo I managed to take with my phone of the firework exploding above the bridge. I have no idea how my trashy phone managed to snap such a cool shot. Any other time, it acts like it can’t see anything, but the photo just makes me so happy. I’ve seen fireworks before and these weren’t honestly that different from something I see on Fourth of July, but just the experience of seeing them in Japan with my friends is a memory I’ll cherish forever. I can also cross this off of my cliche anime checklist: watch fireworks by the beach lol. Listen, I’m the main character of my own story.

Sadly though, we had to leave before the show ended. We were a good hour and 40 minutes away from campus. If we wanted to make curfew, we had to move quickly. We barely made it back, making it at 10:32PM for the 11PM curfew. The curfew literally is the worst. Nonetheless, I had fun today, and I want to make as many more fun memories as possible before I return home.