Friday night, Tokyo style

On Friday night, we met up with Marc, Marcs friend Mai, Billy and Billy's friend Eri for a fun night out, Tokyo style! We met up at the Hachiko statue outside of Shibuya station. I've been excited to see the Hachiko statue, because I love the story that goes along with it. Hachiko was a dog, and his owner was a professor, who took the trains to work. Each morning Hachiko would walk his owner to the train station, and each evening he would be waiting outside the gate for his owner to return. Sadly one day, the owner passed away while he was at work, so he never returned to Hachiko. Hachiko returned to the station the next day hoping for his owner to come home, and he did this every single day for the next seven years, until he himself passed away. After his death, the townspeople raised money to have the Hachiko statue built at the place he used to wait. The statue is now a landmark where people go to meet up with friends.

Our first stop was the Daibatsu Korokoro Isekaya. In Japan, homes are very small, so it's difficult to have guests over. Instead, people go to Isekayas, which are restaurants divided into many small rooms, where people can eat, drink and hang out. It's meant to be a leisurely meal, and the food is served almost Tapas style, where you order many small plates throughout the evening, instead of each person ordering just one entree. The food at Daibatsu Korokoro was some of the most adventurous that I've eaten in Tokyo. I ate raw horse meat! I was a little hesitant to try it, but everyone insisted that it was delicious, and I needed to at least taste it. And I have to admit, it was pretty good. We also ate marinated beef tongue, and a cheese tofu dish. The cheese tofu was delicious. It was soft and creamy and sweet - almost like a cheesecake!

Next we went to Karaoke. Karaoke is huge in Tokyo, and it was really fun! You rent out your own private karaoke room, so you don't have to wait around listening to strangers sing, and you don't have to worry about making an idiot of yourself in front of strangers - just in front of your friends! We had a great time, and the hour that we'd gotten the room for flew by.

We ended the night at a bar called NOS, where we met up with some of Marcs friends. The trains in Tokyo stop running from about Midnight till 5 am, so a bunch of people headed home at this point to make sure that they didn't miss last train. We opted to stay out a bit later, and just grab a taxi home. We were surprised to find that it was difficult for us to get a Taxi, when we wanted to go home. It seemed that every other car was a taxi, but none of them would stop for us. The japanese people on the other corner didn't seem to be having this problem. Hmmmmmm. Oh well. We eventually got one to stop, and we headed back to the hotel. All in all, it was a great night out. Thanks to Marc and Billy and all of their friends for showing us such a good time!!