Halloween in Tokyo 2010

October 8, 2010

The popularity of Halloween seems to be snowballing each year in Japan. Although this phenomenon is largely thanks to opportunistic sellers of pumpkin-based novelty tat, I don’t mind- I’m fully in favour of any festival where you don’t have to buy any presents, it’s acceptable to dress up as a gorilla and get drunk, and women wear raunchy Wonderwoman costumes.

If you want to see some eye-poppingly inventive costumes, I highly recommend checking out the Halloween parade at Kawasaki’s Citadella area on Sunday the 31st. Some of the more incredible costumes could only have been made by professional prosthetic make-up artists. The parade itself is more like a deranged gay Mari-Gras than a family festival, and involves a horde of hedonistic costumed revellers staggering after floats blasting out psychedelic trance music, to the bemusement of passing Sunday shoppers.
Here are some pics from a previous year.

The festivities kick off at 14:30, but if you want to enter the costume competition, you have to register for 12:30. (Although, I wouldn’t bother registering unless you’ve got some help from the Jim Henson creature workshop).
After the parade everybody hits nearby Club Citta for a big after party, with drinking and dancing, from 16:30.

Also that Sunday night is Wild Mood Swings, a free Halloween DJ party in Shibuya, from 7-midnight in Club Echo (which is at the end of Center Gai, on the left). I thoroughly recommend this (since I’m one of the DJs!) Come along to Shibuya Echo and dance like the re-animated corpse of Michael Jackson.

Meanwhile, Metropolis magazine have their annual Halloween Glitterball costume party, Double Trouble, in Vanity Lounge and Bar on Thursday 29th.
On Saturday the 30th, pretty much every club in Tokyo has a Halloween event, including Ageha, Womb, and Air, among others.

Also worth popping into, are some bars and restaurants that are creepy and ghoulish all year round. Here’s a list below:
Vampire Cafe, a bloodsucker-themed eaterie in Ginza.
Alcatraz ER, a bizarre place, styled like haunted prison hospital, in Shibuya.
3 Bozu Paradise, Yokohama’s Frankenstein restaurant.
Halloween, in Yokohama, a small bar where it’s Halloween every day.

If you’re looking for some daytime Halloween hi-jinks, there are the usual festivities going on at Tokyo Disneyand. And if you fancy a particularly weird day out, you can visit Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome, a botanical garden on Tokyo’s Yume no Shima (Dream Island), where you can see and touch 50 giant pumpkins weighing up to 100kg, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into. Apparently, on opening day, they had a contest to see who could spit pumpkin seeds the furthest, and an event in which people were raced down a hill by rolling giant pumpkins (like Indiana Jones at the beginning of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”). Sounds like my kind of place!

1 Comment | Alcohol, Cool, drinking, Festivals, Fun, Japan, Kawasaki, Tokyo, Weird, Yokohama | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Roaf

ANA’s New In-Flight Draft-Beer Service

July 13, 2010

The airline ANA are doing their best to make flying less tedious- as of July 20th, draft beer will be available on some of their domestic flights!
As Japan Probe has discovered, apparently they are the first airline to ever offer beer out of kegs.
The toliet queues will be worse, but the in-flight romantic comedies and episodes of Mr Bean might actually become watchable!
The catch is- they only offer 20 glasses of beer on each flight. So what am I going to drink for the other half of the journey?!

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Tokyo Booze Bulletin

July 12, 2010

The latest act of one-upmanship between the Asahi and Kirin super-breweries comes from Asahi, who have decided to compete in the convenience stores with Kirin’s evil 8% chu-hai canned cocktails, by bringing out- you guessed it- 9% chu-hai. The 8% chu-hai already makes me retch as at is, so I dread to think what the new lethal concoction, names “Sparx”, tastes like. Industrial-strength paint stripper perhaps? University students are probably rejoicing, though.

Meanwhile, someone has made an fun educational video about the red lanterns that hang outside Japanese izakayas (traditional pubs). These “aka-chochin” lanterns always brighten up the streets and look groovy, even if their practical purpose- advertising what food/drink is inside- is lost on those unable to read them (either because they don’t understand kanji, or because they’ve been blinded by drinking 9% chu-hai.)

(Thanks to Japan Travel Examiner for that.)

Finally, The Fashionate Traveller has discovered a new bar, run by the hedonistic gothic-cosplay enthusiasts who run the demented Tokyo Decadence parties. Shinjuku’s new “Decadence Bar” is sure to be full of bizarrely dressed oddballs any day of the week, and is surprisingly cheap (free entry, no table charge, 500 yen per drink.)
I’m going to have to check this place out and report back on it, (although I might have to get some face paint, a wig and some piercings first.)

Here are some snaps and some info from the bar’s blog.

The bar is located in Tokyo, Shinjuku-ku, Kabukichou, more exactly at the Shinjuku “Christon Cafe” (Entrance on the 8th floor. The Bar is actually on the 9th floor)!!!
The atmosphere of the Bar is mysterious…and magical. You can enjoy delicious drinks & food, play some cool videogames, watch movies, dress up in costumes…Just a place to ENJOY and have FUN, for EVERYONE!

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Posted by Roaf

Rocknococoro

May 31, 2010

Rocknococoro is a fine place to rock yer coconuts. A fun little DJ bar in Shibuya, it’s frequented by the kind of enthusiastic teenybopper fanboys/girls who attend the Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic festivals (indeed, they even throw parties themed around those festivals). I’m usually the oldest person in there, but fortunately I’m entirely shameless, and the endearingly sweet and nerdy crowd are always friendly anyway, especially after they’ve knocked back a few drinks.
It’s narrow, but there’s room to dance in front of the DJ booth, and the large windows give a compelling view of the goings-on on the urban streets three floors below.
Ladies take note- it’s half price drinks for you on weeknights. (I’d try to get round this misandrist policy by wearing a dress and a wig, but at 6’5″ I’d make an unconvincing tranny. Oh well- at least this policy ensures that there are always more than a few nice women in the place.)

Rocknococoro
Park Bld.3F,10-1, Udagawa cho, Shibuya-Ku,Tokyo JP
Tel: 03-5459-5326
URL: Rocknocoro
Open from 7pm-5am daily.

3 Comments | Alcohol, Bar Reviews, Cheap, drinking, Fun, Japan, Music, Tokyo | Permalink
Posted by Roaf

Beat Cafe

May 31, 2010

Beat Cafe is one of the best-known bars in Shibuya, thanks to it’s handy location at the end of the busy Center-Gai shopping street. It’s one of my fave hang-outs in the area, especially on week-nights, thanks its laid-back vibe, with dimmed lights, comfy chairs, friendly regulars, and tons of rock and pop music from the last 50 years. Usually manning the bar is the amiable Kato man, who is happy to chat until the early hours.
They’re always showing 80s VH1 videos on the big TV, while blasting out different music on the stereo, creating such illusions as Duran Duran perforing heavy metal. Occasionally, stray musicians from visiting bands pass through, leaving their scrawls on the walls.
Recently the Beat Cafe guys have also opened Echo, a larger room for band and DJ events, on the second floor of the same building. It’s decadently decorated like a seedy den from a 70′s film like Clockwork Orange or Jubilee. There’s more room for dancing in Echo, and it’s usually worth checking out depending on the night (although it could be something like German reggae night or a Peruvian polka party.) You can flitter between the two bars, with Beat Cafe making an excellent chill-out room.

Beat Cafe
33-13-3, Udagawa-Cho, Shibuya
Tel: 090-9334-4342
URL: Beat Cafe
Open from 7pm-5am daily.

So, to get there, simply come out of the Hachiko exit of Shibuya station, cross the famous crossing (if you can squeeze past the several thousand trendy western photographers, angling their cameras so as not to get other trendy western photographers in their shots) walk down Center Gai (the shopping narrow street) and its near the end, on the left, on the third floor. Look for the sign that looks like an early 80′s two-tone album cover.

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Posted by Roaf

Post-Golden Week Discount Boozing Update

May 6, 2010

Golden Week has come to an end, and bleary-eyed, sunburned Japanese workers are trudging back to work (mercifully only for two days until the weekend.) If, like me, the Golden Week festivities have left you broke, you’re going to need somewhere cheap to drink until the next payday.

Mari of Watashi No Tokyo has helpfully posted a list of cut-price izakayas worth checking out. A new wave of bargain-basement boozers have been emerging since the recession. (One of the benefits of economic downturn! I was broke before the banks collapsed so I’ve been loving it!)
Billy at Tokyo Filter has also discovered a place in Shimokitazawa selling beers for 180 yen!
With alcohol this cheap you can get smashed for months on end and still have money left for the back-street liver transplant!

If you can only afford beer from the convenience store, Billy has also discovered a brand of beer called Zero Life, with which life’s losers can drown their sorrows in total honesty.

Or you could choose to obliterate your brain cells with the lethal low-fat 7% happoshu, “Strong Off” (See below).

Finally, if you fancy an exotic cocktail, as of May the 25th you could mix your drinks with Pepsi’s demented new Baobab-tree-flavoured pop.
I always look forward to Japanese Pepsi’s annual weird summer drink (cucumber-flavour having been a particular favourite in the past) and Baobab looks set to continue the eccentric tradition. God knows what it’s going to taste like, though!

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Posted by Roaf

Strong Off

March 25, 2010

I’ve just tried Asahi’s brand new “beer”, the oddly-named “Strong Off”, which sounds like a sexual act performed by an arm-wrestling champion. Strong Off doesn’t taste all that wonderful (like bitter, fizzy water) but is cheaply priced and has 7% alcohol content, so it’s sure to become the convenience-store beer of choice for homeless people, students, pachinko-addicts, and starving English teachers. It’s also supposedly got 60% less carbs than normal beer, so needy Atkins-diet obsessives can join in the fun too.

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Parties!

March 25, 2010

Thanks to everyone who came to the “Wild Mood Swings” shindig I put together, (not least all my ace mates who did a top-notch job of DJing!) And the usual apologies to anyone I trampled while dancing, puked on, or offended in an attempt to be affable!
The enigmatic, blue-haired Leanne of “The Fashionate Traveller came along and gave us a nice write-up. Cheers, Leanne! Come along again, sweetie!

Another party worth coming to is Farm party Vol.2, at Asagaya Gamuso on 4/17 from 7pm, organized by Craig of Tokyo Gig Guide and my good pals Abikyokan, and featuring lots of diverse and wicked live music courtesy of Abikyokan, Belgium Internet (UK), Akane Hosaka, LIVING ASTRO, and Eri Makino, with Craig Eee and yours truly spinning a few tunes.

Get all the details at Tokyo Gig Guide!.

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St Patrick’s Day in Matsue

March 24, 2010

What is supposedly Japan’s second largest annual St Patrick’s Day celebration (after the one in Omotesando, Tokyo) took place last week in Matsue.
Matsue, in Shimane prefecture, is rather remote, and quite an unusual location for an Irish festival. Many of the festivities are centered around an Irish pub that has the distinction of only being open one day every year!
It sounds like a potentially weird and entertaining event, and Andrew Hill was there to see it first hand:

I’ve constantly heard it billed as the second largest St. Paddy’s festival in Japan, next to Tokyo. In reality I think it’s probably the biggest outside of the greater Tokyo Metropolitan area. Fun times though, I was on TV screaming about the holiday. Matsue is obsessed with the Irish because (only in Japan) famed writer Lafcadio Hearn lived in the city for several months back in the late 19th century.

The Irish pub they open twice a year is neat, but nothing great. There’s a museum in Matsue inside what was once a large bank. Downstairs in the vaults, they hold special exhibits, and during the St. Paddy’s weekend, they convert the largest vault into a bar, and bring in kegs of guiness and round up an Irish music band, consisting of a few local expats and several Japanese. They sounded pretty good.

All in all, fun, but nothing special really. Next year the lead foreign musicians are leaving Japan, so the fate of the band is up in the air. Probably better staying in Tokyo to celebrate the holiday.

It looks like a cute little local festival families- not ideal for a mammoth all-night drinking bender, but good fun nonetheless! here are some of Andrew’s snaps:

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Posted by Roaf

Jackson Five Bar

March 15, 2010

The other day I stumbled upon a Jackson Five-themed bar in Nakano, Tokyo. Groovy!

Perhaps the bar was named to commemorate the famous quintet’s epic 1979 concert in nearby Nakano Sun Plaza.
Unfortunately, the proprietors don’t stick too rigidly to the concept, as you can see from the sign: “we play trance, reggae, and hip-hop”. I don’t remember hearing any trance anthems by the Jackson Five!
However, the drinks are all four hundred yen during happy hour (from 6-9pm) which is fantastically cheap, and they’ve got a dartboard, so who’s complaining.

Jackson Five Bar:
東京都中野区中野5-67-12 ＳＫビル　Ｂ１Ｆ
Tel:03-3387-0230
More info (in Japanese) with a map: Jackson Five Bar

By coincidence, this week I also discovered Japan’s very own domestic answer to the Jackson Five, called “Finger 5″, who were great. Fronted by a pint-sized, bespectacled boy (who looks like a girl), and accompanied by his younger sister (who looks like a boy), and backed up by their three gangling teenage brothers, Okinawa’s Finger 5 made catchy bubblegum pop in the early seventies and had several smash hit singles (and even made four movies!) until an unsuccessful bid to crack America, combined with the inevitable onset of puberty and broken voices, put an end to their short-lived stardom.
Disappointingly, they all went on to lead normal lives, and didn’t become eccentric recluses, with pet monkeys and merry-go-rounds in their back gardens.
Check ‘em out in action:

2 Comments | Alcohol, Bar Reviews, Cheap, Cool, Crazy, drinking, Fun, Japan, Music, Tokyo, Weird | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Roaf

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