lioness in japan

So my bestie came to visit all the way from New York and I think I was more excited than her to go clubbing. I love having a quieter, more orderly lifestyle now, as compared to my crazy hectic days in Singapore (which I may blog about one day), but sometimes I do crave breaking my good-girl habits.

The BFF didn’t have a good taste of Tokyo nightlife when she came six months ago. Her friend’s friend stood us up on Saturday night, so we ended up in some underground Aoyama bar where we danced with happy party peeps who probably didn’t number more than 15.

The BFF was approached by a British guy whose dance moves dated back to the Eighties. As we continued chatting, he suddenly apologized for spitting into my hair by accident (it was obvious he was on something recreational). There was also a Canadian dude who exclaimed we looked too young to be drinking alcohol and he was going to get us arrested. An interesting night, but we kind of wrote that off as an alternative experience.

Furthermore, the BFF has always wanted to check out Roppongi so this time we made a point to head over. A gal pal here bar-hops there every Friday so it was perfect timing.

By the time we got our asses down to Heartland, it was past midnight and the party was in full swing with everybody slurring away. We had a lot of catching up to do so we went straight to the bar to get ourselves a drink.

Sure, I knew I was in Tokyo’s biggest gaijin bar and expected some shenanigans, but in just half an hour, we were approached by a variety of weirdos with incredible enthusiasm. This sounds really harsh, I know, but they were so unsubtle in their moves, it was just laughable.

Weirdo #1: He chattered away in Japanese until he realized the BFF didn’t understand him, so he claimed he thought he knew her from somewhere. Haven’t we heard that line before? That was okay, but he keenly followed her and was barely 10cm behind. What was more comical was he was shorter than her and er, the BFF, is rather petite.

Weirdo #2: French dude who spoke machine-gun style Japanese. We found him amusing — he kissed our hands unabashedly. “We’re not Japanese so we don’t really speak Japanese,” I told him politely. “It’s okay! I can speak whatever language you speak! English? Chinese? Korean?”

Weirdo #3: “You look like models! Sugoyi, ne (amazing)! Where are you from? Singapore? I would love to go to Asia (Asjeee-aa)!” This Japanese dude got dissed by my Japanese pal who said, “They are like some English people who say they want to visit Europe (Yor-rup)!”

There were random guys who would grab our hands and kiss them at our next stop, Mado Lounge. Good grief! Honestly, I’ve been out clubbing but not within the pickup zone of Roppongi, so this was new to me. It was hilarious and even more so when the BFF pointed out, “Guys here treat women like objects. They just accost you! In New York, they behave like normal human beings who politely ask you, ‘How’s your night so far?’, ‘Can I get you a drink?’”

Yeah, perhaps in other countries, pick up lines are more suave and sound like actual conversation. Though, you can’t beat the number one pick up line in Singapore, “Hi, do you want to be friends?” which sounds even more cheeseball in Mando, “Ni hao meinu, yao bu yao zuo peng you?”