Host club fun

Well it's now been over a month, and still no damn internet!! But finally, I'm moving places very soon, as the previous occupier has now finally moved out! Hurray! It's so big and nice, too. All the walls that are not connected to another apartment (which is about half) each have a window, so it's nice and bright. The views are quite nice too, not just someone elses balcony. I'll also be sharing the internet with a neighbour it seems, so it'll even be half the price, which will be good.

These past weeks have gone by so fast, as has a lot more of my money. I suppose it's my own fault, going out drinking and the like so often. But there are so many fun places to go, it's Tokyo after all, I don't want to spend most of my time at home! But unfortunately my HSBC card now does not work, probably because I failed to mention that I was going to Japan. Oops. So now I'm trying to get that sorted, which is actually harder than I thought, but hopefully will turn out all right in the end.

My university life is quite fun, because even though I get homework regularly it takes very little time to do, and all the kanji I'm learning I've already done, so it's only revision really. But it's useful as I'd forgotten how to write most of them! Finishing at 12 every day is also really good, although having classes from 9am every day of the week, with 90 minute lessons is a bit of a drag. But not unbearable.

I've now experienced the Japanese "culture" experience that is a host club twice since I got here. For those of you who don't know, a host is a young Japanese guy who is paid to entertain the ladies who go to the club to get chatted up. It seems that a requirement to being a host is to have very big, dyed hairstyles and wear tight shiny pants. Whatever floats your boat, ladies! While personally these kind of men are too flashy for me, it's actually quite a fun experience. However, if you go back to the club after the first time the price becomes ridiculously expensive. The first time ranges from between ￥1000 to ￥3000 yen for about 2 hours, including quite a few drinks, but if you go again can cost as much as ￥20,000!! Fear not, however, as there are so many host clubs in Tokyo (Shinjuku is the place to go! Kabukicho particularly) that you could probably go pretty often and still go to a different place each time.

For you men out there, there is also the female equivalent, unsurprisingly known as hostess clubs. Again, very flashy girls with big, dyed hairstyles. However being something you can't experience in western culture (that I'm aware of), it's definitely worth if for the experience.

I also want to go to a maid cafe at some point, although being surrounded by otaku (japanese geeks) might be very creepy, I'll just have to brave through it! Hopefully they'll let us take photos, if not there are many maids in the streets of Akihabara I could probably get a photo with.

That's it for now, as once more I'm in an internet cafe. Hopefully for the last time in a while, I really want to be able to use the internet in my own apartment ;_;

Bye!