Birthday Fun

For my birthday the girls met me for dinner at the place of my choosing. I was feeling a bit homesick, (at least food-wise) so we went to "The Hobgoblin" English style pub.


The waitress spoke perfect un-accented English and all of the patrons besides my friends were westerners/foreigners. The music they played was English and American. I didn't go to Japan to do things that feel like I'm back home, but it's nice to get a break from the culture shock.

I ordered a Mexican chicken wrap. It was delicious, and it struck me as a bit funny considering that it was a Japanese take on an English pub serving an Americanized version of Mexican food.



After Dinner we went to プリクラ or Purikura. It's a mash-up word that comes from 'print' and 'club' and it's basically an insane Japanese version of a photo-booth.

It's most popular with girls it seems. Actually I think guys aren't even allowed to go to purikura unless they are in the company of women. At least where we went that was the rule.
So you go into this big photo-booth with these super bright lights. you put your money in and then the screen shows you a bunch or sample poses that you are supposed to emulate.
Then after the photos are taken, you go to a separate area where you decorate the pictures with all manner of cutesy graphics and text. The weird thing is when you have your picture taken in one of these things, through some sort of automated facial recognition, the machine makes just your eyes look bigger. After it's all done you get a small printed sticker sheet of your pictures and also you can get them sent to your fancy J-Phone.




After that it was time for Karaoke. In Japan you don't do Karaoke in front of a crowd of strangers at a bar, you get your own private room. You pay by time spent in there and while you are there you can order all-you-can-drink drinks on the phone, and it's part of the package I believe. It sounds like a good deal but they take so long to bring your drink that I don't think you actually get your money's worth.

A huge library of both Japanese and English songs, but the music that goes along with the songs isn't the real music, it's a computery sounding midi track. Probably why they can have so many songs. I was so full from dinner that my drinks had no effect on me, and made me painfully aware of how bad my singing ability is. Plus the girls had never heard any of the songs I chose so there was no duets to mask my voice. It was still a fun experience anyway.

The little wireless song chooser thingy.

I didn't know what they were singing but they sounded nice.