I'm a Cheap Date

Thetruly devout and world's foremost Nicologists have by now figured out that I went out for karaoke last night.  In Japan there are essentially 3 types of bars: Snack bars (like Snack Funny), Izakaya which are like ol'-timey Japanese tavern-pubs, and karaoke bars.  Now of course you can sing karaoke at a snack bar, but only if you want everyone else in the bar to hear you too (which is essentially all Americans know of karaoke).  However, when you go with your friends to  karaoke bar, you get a private room.  Also, most places in Japan don't offer free refills on drinks, but you can pay, by the hour, for the "Nomi-Hodai" which is the "bottomless beverage" and they have a separate menu for that.  So four of my co-workers, one co-worker's girlfriend, and I went out for karaoke.  Following, you will see a few pictures of that outing.  It was really fun, and we bonded, and in the end I managed to not appear in any of my own photos so I'm pretty content.

This is actually the first time I've posted pictures of people I know without getting their explicit permission beforehand.  Luckily, they don't use the internet much and I will not post their names.  Also, I'd like to admit something: yesterday at work I had the worst attack of hay-fever I've ever had in my life.  And by worst, I mean I've never had hay-fever before unless you count that awful sneezing and runny nose I got every spring and blamed on owning a cat, a dog, goats, chickens, or children for the past 10 years.  But really, it's never been THAT bad.  So everyone was concerned about whether or not I'd even make it to karaoke, and I promised I'd stop by the drugstore on the way home and get some allergy meds.

Did you know you're not supposed to have two Moscow Mules after using allergy medicine?  I mean, I know a lot of medicines say explicitly not to have alcohol or operate heavy karaoke machinery after use, but this was a nasal spray.  A NASAL SPRAY!  I always thought nasal sprays were placebos anyway.  But it turns out that while effective in stopping a horrifyingly runny nose, they will also knock you down at 10:30pm and put you to bed but not tuck you in and they might only take off one of your socks and leave your shirt halfway buttoned and a movie playing in the background.

So today I spent the day (as I do most Sundays) hanging out in the apartment watching movies, only leaving once to get groceries and begin stocking up on souvenirs for friends and family.  That's because I will be in Florida next week, and shipping within the US is MUCH cheaper than shipping to the US from Japan.  So I thought I might take advantage of cheap shipping.  But here's something at the store I decided not to give to anyone.  Here they still sell candy cigarettes.

I guess I decided not to give them to a friend or family member out of principle.  I mean, it says right on the box "Orion's Cocoa Cigarettes," but it does say it in Japanese, and the picture looks more like the classic "Missing Post or a Third Post?" optical illusion than anything else.  Plus, the box is tiny, and only contains six pieces.  And if you decide to buy them and your children don't read yet or don't read Japanese, you can tell them that you bought them a box of chalk that they're ALLOWED to eat!

Not only do these delicious treats LOOK like chalk, they taste like minty chalk and have little to no hint of cocoa flavor whatsoever!  Also, can you tell this picture is upside-down?  I didn't think it would matter, but now that I've posted it here it looks really weird to me, like the candy cigarettes are just hanging from the ceiling or something.  But maybe that's only because I saw how the original picture was being taken.

I would post more about the souvenirs, but that might end up being a spoiler for the unwitting people who may or may not know they're getting souvenirs.  Plus, I don't want the kiddies to know ahead of time that I got them lunchbox-size individual servings of squid jerky!  Whoops!  Spoiler alert!