Watami

After lunch and my rigorous fashion study, Daniel eventually came home and after some relaxation time we got ready to go out to what we thought would be karaoke.

Now, I know this picture is kinda sorta really gross, but this is a picture I took of a cicada that was in the hallway from our apartment. It's the bug that sings so loudly and all the time and is the sound that you think of when you think of the way a Japanese summer sounds. Isn't it big?

We met up with Nicole and a few of her friends, including a new acquaintance of hers who is a magician, in front of the famous statue of a dog called Hachiko. I wanted to take a picture of it, but there were so many people just hanging all over it I didn't.

After we tried to go to one bar, the magician said that he knew a cheaper and better place called Watami that he has a discount at. So we followed him and up the elevator by a Softbank store we went.

It was...something else. So, Watami is a Japanese bar. In order to enter the Japanese bar, you have to take your shoes off and go barefoot or socked. Unfortunately there weren't enough lockers for our shoes, so we just stuck them in bags and went in to our room. When I saw the table and the sitting cushions by it, I thoguht we were supposed to sit seiza (on your knees), though since I was a foreigner I just intended to sit crossed legged anyway. But luckily there was a opening underneath for us to just stick our legs in.

The night ended up consisting of ordering drink after drink (I think I got myself four or five Tropical Sunrises) and appetizers that were shared amongst everyone in our party as well. I think Daniel and I lapped everyone once or twice as far as drinks go though. Unfortunately there really wasn't enough in a Tropical Sunrise to get drunk off of, even though I managed to drink all of them pretty quickly. All I ended up getting was a nice little buzz and I was completely sober by the time we were walking home.

Didn't take many pictures, but we did manage to take the picture above, which is Daniel making that face, me, and Nicole... The most amazing thing about this picture though is how the magician managed to disappear from it! He was there in the picture one second, and then the next he's just...not in the picture at all. @_@

Also, the bathrooms were also Japanese style...ish. There were bathroom sandals we had to wear in. But man, I'm still not really sure about proper Japanese bathroom etiquette...is it okay to sit on the toilet?? They look clean... I also can't figure out how the hell to use the soap dispenser.

It was kind of amazing when we were leaving, because Shibuya was just so bright that it seemed like daytime! Nicole and a few others were talking about karaoke, but we decided we were tired so Daniel and I headed home. When we switched trains at Aoyama-icchoume, we decided to stop and take a bathroom break...which frightened me. I saw two stalls open, and I checked the first which was a Western toilet but decided I'd rather be in the further one...until I realized that toilet was a Japanese toilet, meaning it was on the floor! I had no clue how to tackle that monster. So I used the Western one. Also, there was no soap dispenser in this bathroom to try to figure out and also nothing to dry your hands with, so I had to use my Totoro towel handkerchief. Either that or wipe them on my pants, which weren't the cleanest things at that point either.

The Japanese public restroom is a very scary thing to me.