N.B. I’m backposting a bit, since today I’m still in Kyoto – this all happened last week.

I absolutely love the many different types of entertaining places to go to in Tokyo. There really is something for everyone. These are just the ones that we tried out.

Cat cafe

Of course, being cat lovers, Spiff and I were completely charmed by the cat cafe. In Tokyo, it’s difficult for people to keep cats as pets because of the small apartments and busy lifestyles. So they have cat cafes, where people can pet cats for a small hourly rate. I was surprised by all the different breeds – Cornish Rex, Scottish Fold and a few I didn’t recognise. There were some very young cats there as well.

We went to the “Cat Magic” cat cafe in Shinjuku. It had a closed room full of cats and a separate room for eating food (you could not take food in with the cats, only drinks). Inside the cat room there were cat toys and various baskets for cat naps and platforms for kitties to walk out of reach. Soft baby-nursery-style music was playing. It was a very relaxing environment. You could buy treats for the cats. We saw a lady purchase a treat and she was instantly mobbed by about seven kitties trying to eat it. I hope they’re getting fed enough!

At some point, the lady who worked in the cat cafe brought out a bowl of dry ice, poured water on it so it went all misty, and placed it on the floor. Some of the cats sat around the bowl, watching the swirling mist. I guess this is entertainment for cats!

Many of the cats were sleeping, but some of the younger cats were friendly and hopped onto our laps for petting. It was a really nice experience! I love that the Japanese love cats. There are too many cat-haters in Australia. I think it is because we have so many unfriendly stray moggies in Australia and many people have never met a nice friendly cat (like a Burmese!).

Maid Cafe

I had to do a bit of internet research on maid cafes because after we went to one I still wasn’t sure what to make of it. A maid cafe is a cafe where the young and pretty waitresses dress up like maids from a manga comic and call their patrons “master” or “mistress”. They act very cute and innocent, and do cute things like put faces on the food, and play fun games. I’ve read that it’s not necessarily meant to be a perverted thing, more like indulging a geek’s manga fantasy by having the characters come to life. But I have to say, it was still kind of creepy.

We went to the “At Home” cafe, which is a big chain and supposed to be pretty reputable. Upon entering, we were assigned a maid who took us to her table. None of us understood very good Japanese, so we couldn’t understand much of what she was saying. Our maid looked about 12 years old, but we’ve been told since that they’re generally around 20 but look much younger.

We ordered some drinks – in addition to being charged an entrance fee we were asked to order at least one thing from the menu each. I ordered an iced coffee, which in Japan is usually served as just black coffee with ice in it, and you add your own sugar syrup and milk. When the maid came back, she put my coffee at the table and indicated that she would pour the syrup in for me, and when I wanted her to stop, I should make a cute knocking gesture and say “moe, moe!” (moe is apparently a word for a manga character obsession). So yep, I did that. Then she let us choose our own coloured straw each.

Then she and another maid got up onto a little stage and involved all of the patrons in a game called “moe moe jankenpon”. We couldn’t tell what they were saying, but it seemed the game was like regular jankenpon (rock, paper, scissors), but with cute hand motions added to it. If you won one round against the maids, you stayed in. The winner got a special coin.

We expected the clientele to be all male geeks, but actually it was a mixed bag. There were quite a few women there, and sitting next to us were a strange couple of some kind – looked like a 14 year old girl and an 8 year old boy. They didn’t speak a word to each other the entire night.

Photographing the maids was not allowed, but you could purchase a photo for 500 yen (around AU$5.00). You could either get a photo with your favourite maid, or just get a single photo of your favourite maid – wallet sized! Hm that was a little creepy, who is keeping a picture of their waitress dressed as a maid in their wallet? We passed on both these options.

At the end we got a loyalty card which had spaces on back for stamps for subsequent visits. If you got 3 stamps, you would “rank up!”, proving once again that Japanese life mirrors video games.

It’s definitely an interesting place to go. If you want to visit a maid cafe, go to Akihabara and look out for the maids on the sidewalk spruiking their maid cafes.

Karaoke!

Okay so not technically a cafe, maybe it’s classed as a bar? Well, we’ve got a few karaoke bars in Australia but they’re nowhere near as good as these ones. Admittedly they are nowhere near as expensive either, so I guess you get what you pay for. Spiff, Divz3r0 and I went to one of the very tall karaoke buildings in Shinjuku, ordered some bitter chocku (an alcoholic drink with a big scoop of chocolate ice-cream in it – yum!) and prepared to rock out. We were shown to a small, neat karaoke room with flashing disco lights on the ceiling and two microphones.

It seems that the singing lessons I’ve been taking for the past few months are paying off – Spiff and Divz3r0′s jaws were on the floor once I launched into The Final Countdown, so mad props go to my teacher! We all sang a few favourites, including the location-appropriate Mr Roboto and Monty Python’s cheeky song Sit On My Face. I was really impressed by the wide selection of English songs.

As a side note, when karaoke-ing, I reckon the key to having fun is to follow a few simple guidelines:

1. Play songs that most people in the room (if not everyone) knows

2. Be prepared – bring your mp3 player playlist of favourite karaoke songs along if you can’t remember any off the top of your head

3. Try not to play more than one song from the same artist – it gets tedious

4. Start with high energy songs

Amazingly, Spiff and Divz3r0 both had fun, despite Spiff having long detested the art of karaoke, and Divz3r0 not expressing a particular interest in it either. I freaking love karaoke, so of course I had fun despite my raging headache. It’s a good night out, but it collectively cost us around AU$80 for an hour and a half. It’s the drinks that drive up the price, but not many people want to karaoke without drinking!