Yatto, karaoke and Asian Engineers.

Sorry, no post for yesterday because I stayed over Nobu, the boyfriend of my friend Yuki's house.

But first, I had to go for another round of Japanese bureaucracy, known as opening a bank account. Somehow, although my passport and my alien registration both have my name written in English, Keio University decides to put my Chinese name on my student card. So the bank people wanted me to get an inkan, which is a stamp with your name that is used by Japanese people for official things, instead of a signature, which is not really used often. You can buy an inkan almost everywhere, and they're pretty cheap for most of the common names. So, really, there's no sense of security using a readily available stamp as proof of identity. But finally, I persuaded the bank to let me use my signature. I'm banking with Sumitomo Misui Bank, one of the bigger banks in Japan, and I got to choose what type of ATM card I wanted. Of course, I chose the fingerprint scanning one, where instead of a PIN you use your fingerprint. How awesome is that? Especially for me, because I tend to forget my PIN, but I'll never forget my finger!

Anyway, after that, we took a trip to nearby Ginza, which is the upscale, brand name, super expensive part of Tokyo.

We first went to Itoya, which is 9 floors of stationery, which is my kind of heaven. So I bought a few pens and a diary and things like that. It's totally crazy, because we saw a pen that cost 26500 dollars (Australian).

So, after satisfying me, we went to the Apple Store to gawk at the new iPods.

Apple Store, Ginza

Phil and me in Ginza (notice how I finally figured out how to rotate pics)

We also went to the Sony Building to marvel at the super duper high res TVs, and we played this game where we had to kick soccer balls into the different goals assembled there using different shots, like 'goal kick' and 'inside kick' and 'chip kick'. I am proud to say, I got all 3 in 3 tries, which is more than I can say for all the guys! We got a folder and stickers for our troubles, too.

Then it was time to go out with Yuki, and her boyfriend Nobu and some of his friends, Sasaki-kun and Yamashita-san and girlfriend, Erika. So, we met around 8:30, and went to sushi.

Yuki and Nobu

After that, we hit Cote D'Azur, a karaoke place, for some serious singing. And my first nomihoudai, all you can drink!

Sasaki kun, Nobu and Yuki

The boys were really amusing when drunk. They danced to Seishun Amigo, as well as Daite Senorita. And pretty well too, they got all the moves down. I just kept drinking and drinking... until Nobu started to throw up, and we all left around 4:30 am.

Got back to Nobu's tiny, tiny room and literally crashed onto the sofa, and fell asleep in about 1 second. Haha. Freaked out Yuki, too. After bumming around for a while, I went back to my dorm at 3 pm, and went out again, this time to see a band called Asian Engineers in Shibuya, which has kind of the same music as Orange Range. It was super fun, with all the upbeat songs and swaying around. Although, I was feeling slightly under the weather from the excesses of last night.

Live venue, Shibuya Duo.

Also performing was this all girl group called Perfume, who did para para dancing type chereography. But the freaky thing was all the guys who could do every single movement and sang along to the songs. They were more amusing to watch than the group itself.

Okay, now to bed early for my academic interview tomorrow.