Long Weekend Out

The night after the tea ceremony, a couple of my friends and I went to the Korean week event. It wasn't very exciting so we left early and went grocery shopping at the closest grocery store which is at the bottom of the hill. The drinking age here is 20 but they most rely on honesty so I haven't heard of anyone getting carded for buying alcohol yet- also some Japanese people told me that all "gaijin," what they call foreigners, always look older. We bought some alcohol and groceries and then went back to AP House to watch a weird movie. The next day we all hung out and then went to Karaoke in town. The Karaoke in Japan is so different than in America. A lot of people do it here and you actually go and rent a room at a Karaoke bar. There are big and small rooms depending on how many people are in your group and they have huge projectors that play the song lyrics and funny videos that play in the background. There were a bunch of us so we got two rooms and sang for a couple of hours. They have a remote controlled touch screen where you pick all of the songs and then can also skip songs from it. It was a lot better than just doing karaoke in someone's basement in America.
After karaoke, a couple of us went to go play Pachinko for a little and then everyone was planning on going to a bar after that. We met up with some of the buddies on the way back from Pachinko and went to a bad with them. There were some of their friends hanging out at a small bar that was having its grand opening that night. We went in and sat down in the back where we ordered drinks. The bartender than came over and asked us if we wanted to do Karaoke- we asked how much and he told us it would be 1000 yen a person- which is a little more than $10. We told him no thanks since we had just finished doing it before and we also only paid $4 before. He came back with our drinks and told us we could now do it for free. So we did it for a couple of songs before he came back and told us that if we did anymore than he would have to charge us- so we stopped. We hung out in the bar for a while and there was a crazy man there from "NATO" who was having a heated conversation with one of the people we came with. He then proceeded to talk to our group at the table and started throwing out insults left and right. We then decided that it was time to leave so we went to pay for our drinks. My bill ended up being 1800 yen- almost $20! He told me that there was an "entrance fee" that we had to pay- but of course they didn't tell us about it until it was time to leave so it was really like and exit fee. I was so mad because my drink was only 600 yen and I didn't know I had to pay triple that to come to some random bar and sing a few karaoke songs. He ended up giving me a "discount" but then told our Japanese friends that the price for foreigners is different then Japanese people- so they wouldn't have to pay as much as us later.
We ended up paying and leaving but this made us so mad. We met up with the other people we came downtown with and went to an all night diner that sells American food. I wasn't very hungry so I got some corn soup- which was not very good. We then went to the bar called 68 where we watched the American World Cup game- so sad that they lost. By the time the game was over, we were able to watch the sunrise from the taxi ride home. It was a very exhausting weekend with not much fun involved but that is the only time of the trip that I wasn't very happy about, so it's fine. Moral of the story, in Japan- ask how much you have to pay before you get into the bar so you don't get surprised with a huge bill before you leave.