Nomihodai and karaoke: a perfect combination

Last week I had a pair of firsts in Japan: my first experience with nomihodai and my first visit to a karaoke place here.

We went out as part of a going away party for one of daid's friends at work. First, we went to a restaurant where the food was pre-ordered (which meant that I got to eat a lot of salad and French fries), but the drinks were nomihodai. So "nomi" (or more correctly: 飲み) is Japanese for "drink" and "hodai" (I don't know how this one is expressed by kanji) means "all you can for a fixed period of time" or something close enough to this. In Canada, there are places that will do something like tabehodai (all you can eat), but I'm not sure if it's strictly legal to do all you can drink, especially if there's a time limit.

At the restaurant, we had a two hour time limit on drinks and we'd arrived slightly late, but our arrival coincided with the first round of beer coming to the table, so this was fortunate for us. We looked at the drink menu and I decided that since all the drinks were the same price, I'd order a cocktail. However, I was too lazy to read all the kana so I found some kanji I recognized in one item 梅酒モ匕ト (umeshu mojito) and ordered it. I discovered that this drink was possibly the best thing to come out of a very connected world and ordered several more.

When our two hour time limit was up, someone got put in charge of deciding the location of the after party and we went off to a nearby karaoke bar. Now, karaoke in Japan is not the same as the most popular form of karaoke in North America. Instead of being in one large room and getting to hear strangers sing poorly to songs you don't know, you are in a smaller room with only your friends. There, surrounded by friends, you feel comfortable enough to sing ridiculous songs and generally make an ass of yourself.

I've been to one place like this in Canada, but it was not very good. It was at Pacific Mall in Markham and I seem to recall that there were very few English songs available, often with incorrect lyrics.

This place was much, much better. For starters, the venue supplied tambourines, maracas and blankets to those who wanted them. This means that when one does not have the microphone, one can still participate (or take a nap if you're only in the karaoke bar because you missed your last train). It also had a fairly impressive number of songs in English as well as some in German and French. There were possibly songs in other languages as well, but we didn't look for them.

Unfortunately, the waitress cleared some glasses
at some point.

There was also the little matter of the karaoke bar having nomihodai and the other matter that the price to stay from about 9 pm until midnight or so was the same price to stay there until 5 in the morning.

Needless to say, it was a lot of fun and many beverages were consumed.

Some people had to leave early citing reasons like "work" or having to call family for the lunar new year, but a few of us stayed until the bitter end. All of us were pretty tired, but none the worse for wear.

10/10, would totally do it again.

---

Gentle readers, 
I apologize for missing an update on Thursday. I'll try to avoid missing them in the future. To make up for it, if you have any questions feel free to pose them (in comments, on facebook, even twitter) and I'll answer them next Thursday. Unless nobody asks me anything, then I'll just carry on as though nothing happened.