Roppongi and Nightlife in Japan

Roppongi

Several weeks ago, I had the opprotunity to taste the night life in Tokyo. A couple of our Japanese friends from Obirin decided to take us to one of the hottest spots for tourist night clubbing which is Roppongi. Since we live in Machida, it pretty much takes us awhile to get into the Tokyo City area which is where Roppongi is located. Since the trains stop at 12 am, once we are out in the club we pretty much are "forced" to stay out until the trains run back up again at 5am. So, a large group of international students hopped on the train from Fuchinobe to Machida. From Machida we hoped on the Odakyu express line straight to Shinjuku. The time it takes to cover the area from Machida to Shinjuku takes about half and hour to 45 minutes depending on what type of train that you take. It is not recommended that you take a local train which stops at every single stop on the way to Shinjuku. You have the choice of taking the semi-express or the express line. Apparently, the difference between the express and the semi-express line is the number of stops that the train makes. I believe the express train makes about 3-5 stops along the way to Shinjuku while the semi-express makes about 5-6 stops.

After we arrived in Shinjuku, we then proceeded to take the JR line to Roppongi. Down, down we went underground. I have never been so far underground before. I believe that we took four full escalators in order to reach that particular line. Once we arrived in Roppongi we had to reverse the process and go up four flights of escalators. I almost felt like I needed an oxygen mask or something I was going so damn high up.

Once we got to Roppongi, it was definitely obvious that we were in がいじん(foreigner) land. Everywhere we went there were がいじん walking around the streets of Roppongi rather drunkenly. According to my guidebook, Roppongi is known for all of its night clubs which I found out later from a friend that majority of them aren't that great. Roppongi Hills is also where mostly rich people and its rumored that even celebrities live there. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the right mind as I was a few drinks in for me to go find some celebrities in there houses. It becomes rather convenient and at times inconvenient that there are tons of コンビニ (convience stores) around. Every single one of the コンビニ I went to had awesome premade food and snacks and alcohol, so we pretty much made a pit stop at one every few blocks on our way to the club.

Club MUSE

The club that we visited that night is called Muse. They conveniently have ひゃくえん ($1.00) lockers that you can store your purse or other valuables in while you are in the club. The club itself was very big though upon first entering it did not seem that impressive. Most of the seating areas were carved out into the walls so that you could have some amount of privacy in the booths. The bar was pretty big and as far as I could remember there were three bars: one near the entrance, one near the dance floor, and one downstairs in the techno room. I spent an equal amount of time on both floors and I was surprised to learn that the bartenders actually drink on the job. Not too much, but occasionally I would see them taking a shot of something which wasn't exactly water. Since tipping is considered rude in Japan, we did not tip the bartenders. I wonder how bartenders are paid in Japan and whether or not they are well paid without tips as they are in the US with tips.

A group of us International Students

As expected, most of the people in the club were がいじん so the music was all US stuff. It was interesting to watch the native japanese people mingling with the がいじん. It was like an ultimate culture clash.

In Tokyo, unlike boston, clubs remain open until 5 am and yes they serve drinks past 2 am. So, after spending about five hours at the club, we trudgged home as the sun rose. We all gathered at the train stop and waited for the 7am train back to Shinjuku. We fell asleep on the way home, and no, we didn't miss our stop.

And this is what happens when you've partied way too much...you end up losing your shoes and passing out in the subway.