Happy Tanjobi To Me!

Enough of radioactive earthquake talk. Let's go pre-quake, when all in Jappy was still happy. At the start of March, I was particularly happy, as (aside from having to confront the depressing fact that I am now TWENTY FOUR meaning that next year I will be half way through my twenties, meaning that old age is a stone's throw away) I had the chance to celebrate my birthday! I think it's fair to say that birthdays aren't as big a deal in Japan as they are in the UK, but, I thought, poo you Japan, I am gonna celebrate it and I am gonna bloody well celebrate it in style. The celebrations were not one, not two, not three, but FOUR FOLD. Go me.

Celebration 1 - Pre-birthday cinema. Two of my lovely Japanese lady friends took me to the cinema and for lunch on the weekend before my birthday, buying me a set of postcards by 18th-19th century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, paired with a sushi pen with the names of all of the sushi written on it (useful in so many ways...that's actuallly not supposed to be sarcastic) and a truly horrible egg sushi keyring, which I now have to use as I see them all the time. They already plagued my phone with the most effeminate, impractically shaped, loud ringy belly mobile phone strap I've ever seen in Japan, with a design surely aimed at Ann Widecombe or someone equally awful old-lady fashion-y, which refused to break for about 6 months and they have now done something just as tacky to my keys...will it ever end? We saw "Hereafter" with Matt Damon (incidentally now off screens in Japan due to the graphic tsunami seen - that scene was horribly realistic anyway, I didn't enjoy the film much to be honest). Then we went for lunch at an Italian restaurant, where I had the traditionally Italian sweet French crepe filled with dry salad...Nigella eat your heart out.

Celebration Number 2 - On the day celebrations. My boss text me as it turned midnight on my birthday and asked me what I was doing in the evening, so that she could bring me a present. I told me I would be in, and then she said that she would take me out instead. So, we went to an izakaya with her husband and another colleague of mine. I hadn't been there since my first month in Japan, so it was so nice to see how much I understood now compared to the last time! We ate an awful lot, drank some "local" beer, which turned out to be from miles and miles away and generally had a lovely old chinwag. They got me a mug with the Japanese flag on it and I also somehow wound up with the rest of a bottle of sweet potato shochu (a Japanese spirit) that we couldn't finish on the evening (still in the fridge a month later, I might add).

Celebration Number 3 - Party Time! My lovely ALT friends and I, who spend our whole lives sticking out like sore thumbs in our respective rural dwellings, came together in Tokyo, to stick out like two big fat sore hands. Present-wise, I got the biggest set of bright purple blankets off of my crazy friend, who somehow managed to smuggle them around without me noticing until she whipped out the biggest package I've ever seen...not quite sure how that happened, plus some manga, some funny sticker things that you can stick on your phone or material too that will make me look super-cool (as if I don't already) and a ticket to a football match. I got more than I got when I was at home in the UK!

In the way of celebrations, I managed (not without a large helping of fuss) to book a ridiculous bargain in the centre of Shibuya, one of the young fashionable night-out districts in Tokyo on a Saturday night. It was in the izakaya where everything on the menu is 270 yen, not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I love the place. It's a chain that always seems to be full. It has a computer menu which you use with a touch screen pen and also has an ENGLISH BUTTON! Woo! This particular branch is full of young people on Saturday night. It's the one near Tokyu Hands, if that helps anyone that knows Shibuya, but it probably doesn't because you are falling over those chains once every 3 steps there. Oh, it's the one by Outback Steak House. A pretty cool branch if you ask me. For 2,480 yen each (about 20 quid) we got 8 different types of food, including big nabes (huge Japanese broth type meals) and 2 hours all-you-can-drink. BARGAIN. We played silly animal and pointy drinking games, the rules I can't really recall and then some of us went out to Club Asia around the corner.

It was my first time there....main impression is that two people were sick on my leg in the space of about 10 seconds. I was literally mid-schock at the first sick episode and, before I'd had a chance to even tell my friend next to me what had happened, it was happening all over again. Apart from that, it was a club with a nice atmosphere, a lot of dancing, and, more than one room, allowing you to change when you got bored, or when you got sicked on. The night was called "Flash" and involved lots of Japanese people pretending to be cool and love electro and house music all night (including a lovely song in English that clearly only we understood, about needing the toilet) but then giving the biggest reaction of the night to the new cheesey K-Pop band Kara (see left). I ended the night with a kebab, a Japanese style breakfast, a sleep in a manga cafe and then a McDonald's and a Starbucks ham and cheese panini and painfully sweet sakura cherry blossom latte (I think I let out a groan at the sugary taste, when will I learn?). However, in my defence, it was my birthday and I did have two people's vomit on my favourite pair of jeans. Thank you friends for a wonderful evening in spite of various fusses and impracticalities!

Celebration Number 4 - More Food and Drink. Rather inconveniently scheduled on the evening after my big night out in Club Asia, i.e. on the same day that I'd been trapsing around Shibuya in sick jeans with a hangover, eating junk food, was a dinner and drinks with three Japanese friends in Tatebayashi. We went to my Taiwanese friend's Taiwanese restaurant. What I thought would be a simple and small affair, especially given that not a huge fuss is usually made in Japan for birthdays (just for things like choco chip pan and broken magnets), turned out to be truly one of my best evenings since being in Japan. My lovely lovely friends had invited more people (some that I knew, some that I didn't), making a total of 10 or so, I receieved gifts of handkerchief things (very common in Japan), a bath bomb from Lush which was shaped as a frog and turns into a prince when it goes in the water (yet to try it...sounds interesting to say the least) and, a VERY cool and for the first time since I've arrived in Japan, NOT tacky strap made of leather, and, indeed, made BY the friend that organised the party as he is a leather thing maker. I love it. Love love love. I am so cool now and I wear my phone so that it comes out of my pocket and everyone can see how cool I am. So lucky to be in Japan and not in the UK where doing that would lead my phone to get nicked as quick as the second sick episode followed the first. My Taiwanese friend gave us champagne and my friends had also had a cake made with my name on it. It was all just too nice for words, I actually didn't quite know how to react. I thought I was going to cry! But I didn't...that wouldn't have been too cool. I also got a two parcels sent to me, one from my friend at home with WINE GUMS and one from my parents with various chocolatey things and some money in my account from my family, which was spent on various clothes in Harajuku at Uniqlo and We Go a week before it was my birthday...so much for saving for travelling in South Korea in May :(. Everything I bought was on sale, and, what can I say, I'm weak. Embarrassingly, we had been studying birthdays in sixth grade at primary school, and in practice conversations I had been telling people my birthday at school. One of the teachers remembered and, on the day, had the kids sing happy birthday to me, and one of my kids from another school remembered from about three weeks before and that class sang to me the following day (the closest day that I was at that school). Lovely kids. Lovely friends. Lovely Japan. I may have had my ups and downs with living in Japan, but this was a week that truly made me sorry to know that I'm leaving in the summer.

Japanese Fashion!

I don't know much about fashion, but I know a great deal about people-watching! I have comprised a list of the top trends for both guys and girls on the streets of Japan at the moment, with some words of encouragement (or more often caution) for the wannabe copycat back home in Blighty (or anywhere else in the Western world).

The Japanese Man

The Strap

Surely the most important accessory in the life of every Japanese person, be it on bags, coats, mobile phones, or any other potential hang-space. The plethora of dangling bits and bobs leaves you wondering why phones are on silent in Japanese trains while you can hear the jingle-jangle of the bells ringing up and down the carriage. Phone straps are a fashion item that may appear at best effeminate, at worst childish and stupid to the average Westerner, but whatever your opinion they are clearly here to stay.
Advice for the westerner copycat: I confess to have caved to this fashion craze once or twice, but have limited myself to only adorning my mobile phone and only whilst in Japan. If you cannot resist the cuteness of the mobile strap, be sure you do a double check before hopping on a bus or train going anywhere remotely cool unless you want a beating for resembling a geeky teenage girl.

The Bright Check

A buttercup shade of yellow, a fuchsia shade of mauve, or a plain poofta shade of pink -- the more feminine the colour the better! I challenge you to find a Japanese man under 40 who is not adorning a check-pattern on him somewhere. Seriously… just try!

Advice for the western copycat: Give it a go! Checks are an inoffensive pattern and easy enough to find in local stores. If you are looking for an easy transition item that is not too vibrant, red check shirts seem to be the top pick (there is so much choice at Uniqlo you will think that you have walked into checkoslovakia (bad joke!)). Warning: black and white checks apparently do not rouse the same level of fashion cool. I picked up a black and white shirt in Uniqlo recently to my Japanese friend’s absolute DISGUST.

The Hanger:

Two T-shirts in one (for the price of 3), where one sits under the other and the outer layer sort of hangs somewhere around chest level.

Advice for the western copycat: I have given this style a go, and have had nothing but disappointing results, but do not let my bad experience get you down. By all means, get out there and seek out the perfect hanging top and let me know how it goes! And just a friendly warning: this top is especially to be avoided on hot summer days as there is enough hidden material to clothe an entire Sumo tournament!

The ¾ Length Trouser

Come rain, shine or snow, the ¾ length pant allows the Japanese man to flaunt a peek of his muscly chicken legs and send the girls in to a giggly frenzy. They are literally worn with no regard for temperature whatsoever.
Advice for the western copycat: The ¾ length pant is also in-fashion in Europe, so it is not too out there to snag a pair for yourself, after all, they have to be better than an above-the-knee short, don't you think? However, in the bleak midwinter, be careful when sporting this fashion trend! I have no idea how the Japanese guys manage to get away without catching a cold (something you want to avoid especially in Japan as a minor sniffle will doom to wearing thd dreaded paper mask 24 hours a day!)

The Crazy sock

Incorporate some crazy check or a bright stripe into your sock wardrobe. Perhaps pairing the crazy sock with the ¾ length cure the paper mask blues, but you will likely look like a fool.

Advice for the western copycat: Embrace the crazy sock! I have been known to sport a crazy sock or two and in my experience it gets me kudos at your visit school when your poofta-pink check is clashing with your turquoise slippers. If your target audience isn't 7-year-old Japanese children, I am sorry if this advice is misleading.

The Man-bag

All colours, shapes and varieties, often accompanied by the aforementioned strap, and even a cheeky bit of check for good measure - the man-bag is a staple of Japanese men's fashion. Again, it seems the more effeminate the better, so go big, or go home!
Advice for the western copycat: The man-bag is far too useful to resist! Be sure to ignore that episode of Friends…who wants to take fashion advice from Matthew Perry anyway? Embrace your feminine side and grab one for yourself!

The Baggy Turn-ups

Be they cords, jeans or chinos, baggies are in - especially when rocking the ever-so-fashionable turn up! If you are so lucky, the turn up may even reveal a check pattern to cleverly clash with the checks you are sporting on the top half!

Advice for the western copycat: The turn up proves to be slightly more masculine than the rest of the going Japanese fashion, so trying out this trend is possibly the easiest and safest bet in your attempts to dress more Japanese. The turn up may be a popular trend with old men the world over, but news of this has yet to reach Japan. Turn up your regular old trouser bottoms just once and have them sit by your shoe. Turn them up some more to transform them into the aforementioned ¾ length, or turn them down to go for the super loose look… it is like three pairs of trousers in one!

The Big Hair

Whether it is Bart-Simpson-Spiky or a Jon-Bon-Jovi-Tapered-Mullet, Japanese men's hair is loud and proud, sculptured precisely into gravity-defying shapes that just won’t budge.
Advice for the western copycat: It is a hard-fastened rule that anyone of Asian descent must copy this trend. In fact, it should be illegal not to do so. You may have to wake up an extra hour earlier to style it all in place, or simply ditch your morning routine of eating and washing in the name of good hair. For the rest of us, we may as well quit while we are ahead. Even if at best you manage to create some spiky sculptured creation before you leave the house, 10 minutes down the road and you will be sporting a floppy hairball. Not to mention what would happen if it is hot or windy or snowy or rainy (in other words in England you might have half a hope in hell for about two weeks in June!). This however does not stop my hairdresser from poking my hair for an awkward half-an-hour on each visit, with a look of disbelief every time it falls flat against my head once again like the shameless caucasian I am.

The Japanese Girl

The Strap

Same as the man-strap, of course, but not nearly as offensive on a woman. Perhaps it is because these dangly bits and bobs are as feminine as it gets to begin with. Any size, shape, design, and character goes, and the more you can cram on every hangable bit, the better!
Advice for the western copycat: Go for it! Unlike the man-strap, they could even be safe back in England (?) (or maybe I have been in Japan for too long). Having said that, pick and choose! Perhaps steer clear of the gigantic Big Mac or Chicken McSandwich straps, which have become popular in Japan after a free giveaway with Happy Meals, as they do not have quite the same cute-factor as Mickey Mouse or Stitch! Quality over quantity, ladies!

Leggings under Shorts

So I admit, the leggings-under-shorts look is a bit of a twist to what we are doing back home, and leggings have been the craze for a while in the UK, so why not take it a step further? After all, leggings under shorts are far better than the recent UK trend of wearing just leggings aren't they? It seems that most girls go for simple black leggings with a splash of colour in the shorts, but it is not a hard venture to find lace, stripped, checked, or zebra print leggings too!

Advice for the western copycat: Perhaps this fashion trend is worth a try. I know you are probably thinking, 'no way' but it is far better that what is to come…

The Net Curtain

By this I mean the flouncy things hanging off of any item of clothing or accessory that seem to drape a few metres behind the wearer, whacking the innocent passer-by in the face. Sometimes these bits are so flimsy and bitty that you are not sure if they really are a piece of flowy clothing or if the poor girl has just left a tissue in the wash.
Advice for the western copycat: I would advise that the net curtain is a risky look. If you find yourself brave enough to try it out, please be cautious not to catch yourself in train doors or escalators. The net curtain should be sold with an attached health and safety warning!

The Dungaree:No explanation required. So in fashion at the mo in Japan!
Advice for the western copycat: Don't!

The Floral Onesey

If you have walked the streets of Tokyo lately you were sure to see hoards of cute girls decked out head-to-toe in delicate small flowery patterned one-piece outfits. From time-to-time these garden-esque prints can look quite cute, but often they are absolute overkill, particularly when used in combination with one (or even both) of the two previous fashion items.

Advice for the western copycat: I would say that the strangely popular pink-and-browny-pattern (I am looking at you, H+M) is very risky, especially for the blondes out there, but that aside, a bit of feminine floral never went amiss, I suppose… emphasis on the little.

The Off-Ginger

As if a normal ginger is not bad enough this salmony shade of pinky-auburn is clearly the fad with the Japanese ladies.
Advice for the western copycat: I have the utmost respect for anyone who is not of Asian descent and still chances colouring their hair in Japan. To be honest, the off-ginger is an odd colour, but you may as well risk-it-for-a-biscuit whilst you stick out like a sore thumb anyway! For people living outside of Japan, I think it goes without saying that no-one actually wants to be a ginger, so the only people who should be attempting the "off-ginger" are actual gingers!!

The Baggy Trouser: (Turn up optional)If my people watching skills are proving correct, the very very large baggy trouser seems to be in fashion on the streets of Japan. Often times the baggy-trouser-shoe-combination can be a bit questionable, but at least it steers clear of the overly used 'cutesy' look. The baggy trouser is almost the opposite in a very masculine way - a contradiction if ever there was one.
Advice for the western copycat: Unless you can find a pair of baggy trousers that do not make you look like a fat-middle-aged-unemployed-KFC-loving-man, take all caution when attempting to rock this fashion trend. If you do give it a try, please post your photos to this website so that we can all criticise (I really mean laugh at) your fashion success!

The Clump:The ever-so-slightly inappropriately high heel that is 2½ sizes too big and consequently makes walking an impossible feat, while resulting in a very loud clump on the pavement.

Advice for the western copycat: These sorts of shoes are certainly not to be worn if you are in a rush for absolutely anything. However, they may be worth considering if you there is an event coming up at work that you are hoping to get out of due to injury. The big clumpy shoes are a very impractical item but I suggest treating youself some day to a pretty pair of clumps, just for fun. Perhaps you could even sport your usual flats and bring along a pair of clumps in a bag, and at the perfect moment change shoes and strike a pose until the pain becomes unbearable.

This is by no means the be-all-end-all of Japanese fashion but I hope I was able to give you a small insight into what is hot on the streets of Tokyo. Japanese fashion is a funny thing, but with a little effort, any foreigner can successfully pull of the legginged-hanger-top-underneath-the-floral-print-with-lace-slouchy-full-length-onesie-with-apple-red-size-32-clumps. Or, on second thought, maybe not...

Photos courtesy of Fashion in Japan, Japanese Streets, and Cool Trans.

Originally written for the GUNMANIA JET blog and edited by Jessie Zanutig.

Hanami and Footie

Sorry for the delay guys! I have been without internet for a couple of weeks or so. Time for an update on my last two weekends of fun, which have involved two things...one very Japanese...hanami, which is "flower viewing" and one very British...going to see the footie, but it was oh so very Japan-style.

The flowers that you "view" at a hanami party are called "sakura" or "cherry blossoms". They are Japan's national flower and their blooming is awaited with great anticipation (and much Japanese fuss) all year round. The joy and beauty of sakura and the hanami parties were sung at me on a more or less daily basis right from the onset of winter, as they would signify the start of spring and were just "so beautiful" etc. To start with, I was very excited, but, after a while (as I got to know more about Japan and it's fussing ways) I began to suspect that cherry blossoms were in fact just going to be exactly the same as the annoying pink blossoms that we get in the UK that are pretty for about 20 minutes until they got washed away by some drip drip drop little April huge fuck-off storms and become a horrible mush that sticks to your shoes. However, this time, Japan had a right to fuss. They were truly beautiful. The last of them are just fading now, which is such a shame, but there are so many trees that blossom all at the same time, which just floods the country in white, creating many a Kodak moment. A hanami party basically consists of sitting under the sakura trees somewhere and having a picnic and drinking yourself silly...so I was all up for a bit of that. I enjoyed myself very much, and it is nice to say that, after 4 months of feeling quite a lot like an icecube, that spring has FINALLY sprung! (except for the brief interlude of SNOW last Friday that I have still not forgiven Japan for yet.).

Last weekend, I did something very British...I went to watch a game of football (or soccer as I have disgustingly now started calling it, just to make myself understood by Japanese people). Me and some other English teachers went to see our local team play (and lose 3-1) in a home game in the second league here. The atmosphere was actually incredible. Forget your drunken racist wankers making slurs at every other fan/player/ref etc. (ok, so I'm a West Ham fan) and replace it with a very family atmosphere and thanking the players when they do well (or even when they don't), not criticising/abusing them. The guy in front of us kept shouting "Thank you goalkeeper" in English for some reason, even though our goalkeeper was truly awful. In the UK, I would be sure that that was sarcasm, but in Japan, I am equally sure that it wasn't. The chanting literally lasted from before the start until the very end, without barely a pause for breath (or even to actually watch the game), which suits me, cos 90 minutes is a long time right? Haha. The chants were ridiculously organised and joyous, with leaders announcing which one would be next and everyone joining in word-for-word. Me and my friends were maybe not so good at working out when to start and stop and how many claps to do etc, but it was great fun. I the Japanese crowd are wicked at the World Cup. In true Japanese stlye, I finished the day by buying a "strap" for my phone, which is a little string thing with the mascot on to hang on your mobile and jingle jangle wherever you go...no Japanese experience is complete without something cute and annoying like that.

Good Luck Always Comes in...SEVENS!!??

Basically guys, I am so happy at the moment. This is why these two new posts have taken so long, because, the problem with a blog I am finding is, that when I have a life to write about, I have no time to write about it. When I do have time to write, it is probably because I have not life and hence have nothing to say....hmmmm the trials, tribulations and issues of being a blogger. Anyway, the reason I am so happy are seven-fold (or more really but seven that I can be arsed to write about, so here it goes...)

1. I had a wicked weekend last weekend. It was long weekend (apolgies of the overuse of the word "weekend" there. I went to a famous town called Nikko, which isn't that far from me but I hadn't previously got round to going. It is beautiful with lots of temples and nature to be seen etc. Then I went to Tokyo for a proper party weekend. I made some new friends and got to know some other friend better. I got to practice loads of Japanese etc. It was very Japanese partying...I did karaoke, purikura (which are these wicked photo booths where everything is cartoony and colourful in the background and you can add patterns and writing afterwards...google it), went to two izakayas, which is like a Japanese pub restaurant, erm.... and just spent the whole time with Japanese people to be honest. Saturday night was a leaving do for a Japanese mate, who is actually going to live in London ironically. It was in a really cool modern bar, owned by Fiat the car people, for some reason. On Sunday, one of my new Japanese friends was DJing at this bar called Hell's Bar, which had crazy decor and stuff. It was a wicked atmosphere and great music...I had a great time. Previously to that we sort of started a mini-party in the convenience store down the road, to save money on drinks. It had a little table and we asked the guy if we could drink our drinks there, and wound up staying there for hours and popping back in during the night (hence a huge hangover). Anyway....can you even imagine being allowed to drink in a Spa or something for a few hours in the UK? It must be illegal, and people just aren't nice enough to let you do things like that....I heart Japan.

2. Everything is changing at work for the better. One of my main English teachers is changing next year (as of 1st April) and I've found out that the new one is YOUNG! WOOO! Maybe he will actually understand the importance of English and maybe he will have covered in his training what he/she is supposed to use me for, instead of just ignorning me/making me read from the textbook. I will talkk about my frustration with English education in Japan another time, but let's just say, that my relationship with my juniou high school teachers really couldn't get much worse...so a new, young one will be a refreshing change...he/she has only just graduated from uni so they should at least bring an open mind with them.

3. Another change at work is that I am getting a new supervisor. My supervisor is sort of my boss I suppose and just co-ordinates everything and sorts all things out like my schedules and my taxes and stuff. I really really like my current one, so it's not that I needed her to change. But she can speak no English, which can be a challenge, when talking about taxes etc. especially, and the new one can speak really good English. and I already know her! She's one of my mates from the town hall. And with all due respect to Yamada-san, my current one, who is incredibly Japanese, in a shy, indirect, don't want to cause any fuss type way, the new one is kind of open-minded and a bit ballsy for a Japanese woman, so will probably more pro-active than 10 Yamada-san's put together.

4. I am moving appartment! Mine is horrible, dirty and expensive. No details yet, but the new one should be newer, cleaner and cheaper, if a little smaller, but bothered. I am OVER THE FUCKING MOON, if you'll pardon my French.

5. There are things called enkais here, which are work parties basically, but they are kind of more important somehow...I can't really explain it. Anyway, I am not exaggerating when I say that I do not know one other JET who doesn't get invited to their schools enkais (I'm sure there are a few somewhere), and in fact, nearly every single one I have spoken to had their own welcome enkai in their honour when they arrived. I had....nothing. I have been invited to....zero. I hope this is not to do with me, but to do with previous JETs here being a bit shit or rejecting them and them giving up, and also that I am in so many schools, nobody really feels that I am important enough or something....I have no idea why but it's actually bothered me a lot because I would love to get to know my colleagues outside of work, with some social lubricant in the form of beer etc. Anyway, all this has changed...I was invited to the West primary school's (ironically my least favourite school haha) end of academic year enkai! Woo!! I will report back with how it went later.

6. Almost unbelievably...literally, Japan is random but this takes the biscuit, I was also invited to my juniour high school's end of academic year enkai at the last minute!! I am SO SO SO thrilled...it's about fucking time though.

7. I have ALSO been invited out by some people at the town hall, which many other JETs are regularly, especially the ones at lots of schools, but I never have been. My current supervisor apolgised that it had never happened before and we are going out together at the end of April. How all of these things have happened at once I have NO idea, but I am asking no questions. I am so so happy! Woo!

Clubbing in Tokyo and Staying in a Manga Cafe

This weekend was a mega party weekend, in which I went clubbing on both Friday and Saturday night, staying at a manga cafe in between...a manga cafe sandwich if you will. A manga cafe doesn't really do what it says on the tin at all...there is manga, and there is coffee, but it's sort of like an internet cafe, but each computer has its own booth with a closing door (yeah...high tech I know, a door that closes) that you can sleep in, there is a shower room and then you can help yourself to as much free manga and as many free drinks (HOTTO and COLDO if you don't mind) as you like for the time that you're there. I paid 1,500 yen, about a tenner, for 6 hours, which with the free internet, drinks, and shower, is almost cheaper to buy than not to buy by my reckoning. The drawback is that you have to sleep on a sort of padded floor, instead of on a bed, but I've been thinking that in the cheaper hostels here, you only get a futon, and I sleep on a futon in my flat, so what is a futon if it's not just a moving padded floor right? I know you might be thinking that in Europe you can find hostels for that money and have the luxury of sleeping in a bed, but believe me, in Japan, you can't. This was right in the heart of Shinjuku, one of the main areas in central Tokyo too, and where I'd been clubbing AND you don't have to book them in advance, you can just roll in. Basically, I bum manga cafes and I think my friends here are starting to think that I'm working for their marketing department, the amount I bang on about them!

One other disadvantage is that they smell of smoke and you feel like SUCH a dirty stop-out the next day when you are leaving, looking like a train has just hit you, trying to wring kinks out of parts of your body you never knew you had, and some (relatively) normal people are arriving to use it for it's actually for, which is to read manga. But then, they are getting up at the crack of dawn (or maybe more like midday :D) to come and read manga in a smelly manga cafe, so let's face it, nobody is in much of a position to judge if they are in a manga cafe.

Anyway, on to the actual nights out. I went out in Shinjuku on Friday and Roppongi on Saturday (we saw SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO wooo!) and I had a great time on both nights...I've made some new friends, both Japanese and foreign, so it was a bit of a success all round really. Clubbing in Japan is so strange. The etiquette of clubbing in Japan is just amazing...it's so polite, it's unreal. Nobody is bumping into you all the time, you have space to dance, the queue is orderly and quiet, the bouncers are nice, there's no litter/broken bottles/sick all over the place inside...it's wicked! But I will probably be desperate for a dirrrrty night out when I get back to London, cos maybe the fun in a Japanese night club is just a tad too controlled, but still, at least you're not scared to bump in to someone in case they punch you and you don't arrive home (or at the manga cafe) with sick on your shoe!