Fireworks (花火), Karaoke (カラオケ) & Sleeping on the subway (電車で寝る)

斬り捨て御免 It's a long one. And it's also been a while since I've written a post. (wikipedia tells me that 斬り捨て御免 -kirisute gomen- is used in modern Japanese to mean "sorry in advance for this one")

So, as I write this I've just gotten in from a night out. I'm still quite awake, and while it's all fresh in my mind I figured another blog post would be in order (as I have been neglecting you). Apologies in advance if I'm more rambly than usual - I'm at that stage of sleep deprivation where I'm sort of high.

Yesterday, though I've not slept so I'm still thinking of it as today, there was a gigantic firework display in Futako-Tamagawa. I'll bash a link to the website at the bottom of this bit, so's you can have a gander - though it's in Japanese, so good luck!
In any case, when in Britain we hear "big firework display," something not unlike the 5th November firework displays in Hyde park come to mind - and rightly so, because they're pretty special. However, when I looked at the website for this event, I discovered that we were in for an hour of pretty lights and loud noises. This was promising.
Equally promising was the level of organisation and planning that went into this: even before the train stopped in Futako-Tamagawa, I was treated to a view of the area in which the display was to occur. A small bit of a river with stretches of land either side of it (naturally, otherwise it would be the sea - and even that has land at either side), already covered in people ready to watch the show. I was equally impressed to discover that in the station itself, there were plenty of marshals around to shepherd us all towards the right exits and do so without blocking the way for people who (ludricrously) were heading away from 二子玉川. Heading towards the event once out of the station was like being part of some sort of rally - roads had been cordoned off and people in uniforms were waving red, flashing batons about to direct us onwards.
When I finally managed to get into the area itself (though not yet having found the people I was meeting there) I was hard pressed to locate anywhere that I'd be able to park myself should I want to give up, sit down and just enjoy the show. Indeed, when the display started, I was standing for 15 minutes before I spotted everyone sitting not 30 feet away from my position of vantage.
But I digress - the fireworks... My. God.
They were out of this world - not a single whistling rocket, and only about eight of those ones that go up, pop and crackle a load. These were all gigantic, deafening and sky-lightingly magnificent. And the fact that they were reflecting in 3 nearby tower buildings, and echoing off those buildings in such a way to make it sound like Tokyo was being bombed was quite cool too! I'll try to steal some video from someone and demonstrate just how epic they were. For the sake of trying, here are a couple of figures:
Duration: 1 hour
Turnout: 380,000 people (based on 2008's figures)
Number of launches: Over 6000
Needless to say - last year's display for bonfire night in Hyde park has been massively dwarfed.

Here's the website for anybody that's interested: http://www.nikotama-kun.jp/fuukei_hanabi.htm

Following the giant display of 花火 (fireworks lit. "flowers of fire") we hit up Shibuya for food and karaoke. Strange experience! For one thing, karaoke bars in Japan stay open all night. For another, despite the fact that it was such an enclosed room, there were ashtrays available. For yet another, when you ordered drinks, food or were going to be interrupted in your dramatic renditions of Eye of the Tiger, Losing My Religion and Crazy Little Thing Called Love - the staff member who knocked on the door and then opened it would instantly get down on one knee and hold the tray up for you... Bizarre ね?
But whilst I'm on the subject (not quite, but I did mention the ashtrays) - the smoking ban that appears to be prevalent almost everywhere these days is apparently non-existent in Japan. You can smoke in bars, restaurants and small, enclosed boxes that one might sing along to one's favourite songs in. And yet, smoking in the streets isn't allowed. There are certain areas where you may, but there are honest-to-God signs on the ground telling you not to smoke on most of the pavements in Japan. When I get a camera (lost my old one, don't ask) and can be bothered waiting the age that it will take to actually upload photos along this internet connection that is paid as a separate fee to rent, yet remains infuriatingly slow, I'll show you a picture. In any case, this is a completely backward country, no doubt about it. Further evidence in favour of this hypothesis is that 20 Marlboro will cost you about 415￥. That's about £3.50.
In any event, we were in the karaoke booth from 11 until 5 in the morning (oh how time flies when you're having fun!) and had paid the fixed price of 1980￥ for the privilege. £16 with change. Kickass, especially when you bring your own alcohol and don't have to pay the bar's extortionate prices!

(Just realised that that last couple of paragraphs makes me look at little money-obsessed. Let me emphasise that I'm now happy in the knowledge that I can convert in my head between yen and pounds quite easily, and am just showing off!)

Finally we were headed home. And as I'm sure you'll have skipped to the part involving subway-sleeping to see if I did indeed get the phone number of an attractive Japanese female, I'll save you the time now and say I didn't - so go back to the top and read it from the start like the rest of the boys and girls, you naughty bugger. I was used as a pillow, though only by Kristy - whose phone number I already have.
I'm still having issues coming to terms with how many people are on the Japanese subway at such ridiculous hours of the morning. All right, the trains aren't full to the brim, but it just seems mental that at 5.30am you could have so many people in one car that there are no seats left. And admittedly, this morning, it wasn't quite that bad - but it was yesterday at the same hour! (Oh the social lives of students, eh?)
But I digress: I witness something most adorable on the train back to 葛西, where I'm staying. There was a couple sitting across from us on the train who looked to be about mid-forties. And a few minutes into their journey (which I add was being conducted hand-in-hand) they had both fallen asleep. Naww, isn't that lovely? But the thing that I found most adorable/amusing was that more or less every time we got into the next station, one of them would wake up, look around for the name of the station, and then go back to sleep. This is fairly commonplace, as so many people sleep on the train and it's so easy to overshoot. However, just as the doors beeped and opened, the other one of the couple (they didn't quite alternate, but I didn't want to outright say it was specifically the man or the woman every time) would do the same: jerk awake, look around, and slump back down.
 I thought it was most amusing! I even tried to take a photo - not of them doing the meerkat thing, because I'd probably have been seen and shouted at by some tired, Japanese people for being a pervy 外人痴漢(bash that into google translate and make sure it's set to Japanese-English) - but here are a list of reasons why I didn't succeed in getting a suitable photo:
- the camera on my phone is most definitely not good
- the rocking of the train made it unnecessarily difficult to get a smooth shot
- the shutter noise on my phone cannot be turned off even on silent
- when I did take a photo, the shutter noise made them look as if they were going to wake up
Therefore, I only took one photo, and it was a disappointment.

And now, I am going to
1) Make some tea because I found milk and I've not had a proper cup of tea in a long time
2) Watch Doctor Who, because quite frankly it's killing me not knowing what's happened
3) Sleep because I'm going out later today, and could do with being awake and friendly for it

Signing off.





Oh, there was a pretty Japanese girl also sleeping on the train. But by the rules stated in my last post, I couldn't ask for her phone number (or wake her up) because she was not asleep on me. Drat.




I'll try to keep the length down in future too. Something this long stops getting entertaining after a while. Especially since it's basically just me typing my thoughts and all the minor tangents involved therein.
So the challenge for the next post is to keep the length down. And maybe to write it a bit sooner this time.

Though that could be fun - if you can think of any "challenge" for me to attempt, either in the post or in Japan - please leave a comment and I'll consider it :)






See what I mean about tangential thoughts?