Nights Out in Tokyo and Paul's 30th

PM: Hello everyone

Well we have been slack on the updates, so apologies. It also means that this post will cover a couple of weeks condensed into a single post, meaning it might be a little long.

So far I have been doing the work remotely thing for 2 weeks and so far so good.

Right well that is the update on work, now for the play. Since last update we had another guest to the Oi apartment, Lauren, one of Joss' mates from school who was on the start of her whirlwind world tour. She stayed with us for a few days and was lucky enough to join us on some crazy adventures. The first highlight would have to be the the small bar area around Shinjuku where we hung out in Brian's Bar (don't be fooled, Brian is Japanese), a small 8 - 10 seater bar where Brian plays his favourite rock tunes including Queen and Led Zeppelin. Very cool place. Here are a couple of photos.

Somewhere in Shinjuku, near a road. The other folks in the photo are Lauren, and Shane the blurry guy who is an Aussie who just moved to Tokyo that we met on the train.

Around the little bar area in Shinjuku, now where is that Brian...

Now, to the main part of this blog, as some of you may know a couple of Sundays ago (4th) was my 30th birthday, which happened to coincide with a the labour day long weekend in Australia (what better way to celebrate labour than to have a day off!). This was good news for me because it meant I got one too. The day started out with a brunch and some tasty champagne at our apartment, which lasted until well into the afternoon. Once we got ourselves organised we made our way to Shinjuku where we first had some dinner, and then did some wandering looking at the shops and deciding on our next move... one that really was inevitable - karaoke. Whilst in Rome after all.

Well there was just 3 of us, Joss, Lauren and myself, but we got a big corner room for 2 hours of karaoke with nomihodai which means drinks are included. This was my first karaoke experience and it was a load of fun, so much so that we decided to extend the session another 2 hours! And no I can't sing... at all.

So after 4 hours of singing old favourites we were at odds as to what to do with ourselves. It was 4 something am and we were not ready to call it quits, and we happened across a ten pin bowling alley that was still open! Of course we had to do it, and of course we were crap. One thing I found out is that it is very hard to find a bowling ball with finger holes big enough.

I think it is best now to just show some photos of the evening, in chronological order.

A civilised breakfast.
errrm, well it started civilised


Me looking for a birthday present after dinner... if i got one here I definitely lost it.

Karaoke, notice how the seats are actually meant for standing on. Apparently they are also meant for jumping and dancing. Who knew?

Bowling, actually we were the only ones there.

OK, well the last update we have was a quick tour of Ebisu last last Saturday. Joss and I took a look at the Yebisu beer museum where you can find out all about how beer is made, well that is if you can read Japanese.
Luckily for us you can taste the beer no matter what language you speak! Phew.
Whilst in Ebisu we also did some exploring and found a great little underground bar with a door that I swore was a cupboard.

Well that is all for now. Till next time.