gimme the night

that's a famous song by George Benson, and it is probably one of the few ones we skipped (shame on us!) in the karaoke club.

Tokyo is a city that never sleeps, especially so on friday nights. millions of lights burn in the dark, and time flows at a pace that's unparalleled in any other city in the world. I met my friends at about 9pm on friday and we stayed out until 7am on saturday. that is ten hours of Earth's time, but in Tokyo's time it is just a flash.

I started the shortest night of my life in the usual way. Say, waiting for M. at the wrong place. the meeting point was the McDonald at Shinjuku station, 2nd floor, and there I was at 8... about one hour later, after two phone calls and two crunchy candy bars, I met M. at the other Shunjuku McDonald, only 500m away from mine (note: I asked the MacDo doorman if that was the only one around, and he said "yes, only one. there is other one but not Shinjuku, very very far"... of course).
We went for dinner at the Kozue, contemporary japanese restaurant at the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt (yes, exactly that one, you've got it...). a few other people were waiting for us, in fact rather waiting for me since I was the late one.
after the high-rise dinner, we decided to keep drinking and eating in this tiny little street behind Shinjuku station, where one izakaya is squeezed against another, in an endless and densely packed line, full of smoke, food smell, lights, people, voices...

after the izakaya run, part of the company left, leaving me alone with two girls, M. and C.
Well, a happy company we were! we started roaming along Yasukuni Dori, just around Kabukicho (the red-light district) that's were the real action starts at night. we tried a couple of different karaoke places and eventually we entered a white-blue one, decorated with fake statues of Venus everywhere. And there we sang, and drank, and ate, and sang over and over (I won't comment on wine quality, the japanese being totally obsessed with Beaujolais - that sums it up, but wine is definitely not the main reason to go to a karaoke place... though, sake was better) my picks were almost constantly in the 70s, Deep Purple, Fleetwod Mac, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Eagles, Chicago (yes! I found 25 or 6 to 4!). Anyway, in such situations even singing Madonna and Britney Spears and Cher can do it (however, on this I don't take any responsibility, it was all the two girls' choice!). and to complete the Bill Murray-ScarJo setting, we couldn't leave out "More than this" :)

what to do in Shinjuku at 2.30am, when your voice is low and you have poured yourself lots of drinks ? well, judging from the people in the streets, we were just at the beginning. and in fact we kept rolling and beating. there was the proposal of going to Golden Gai district, but someone in the small party suggested to go look for some gay clubs instead (guess who was ? Socrates, the corruptor of the youth... don't you know gay bars are always those where you have the biggest fun?!). So, we found the Arty Farty, a nice and crowded dance bar (I found out later that it's even referenced by the Lonely Planet, under the heading "Entertainment - Gay & Lesbian Tokyo", we got the top notch without even knowing! how good we are?). As far as I remember I had at least 4 white russians, and the two girls always topped the drinks, people danced and squeezed in from any corner, a few cross-dressers, or barely-dressed. To summarize: drinks and hands everywhere!

We had entered Tokyo's Time Machine. I don't remember the time accelerating that fast, but all of a sudden it was closing time. We found ourselves in the street again, the heart pumping a mix of alcohol and blood, and we somehow ended in an indian curry place, where we could have a kind of breakfast with a delicious nan bread and a tasty curry. And then we got out again and... it was morning, 6 in the morning...
Now, I have been out straight until morning many many times, but this one it's been the absolute faster: we found ourselves teleported in the next day in a snap. we kissed goodbye in the subway station, among a bunch of early risers (more likely, late sleepers like us).

it was 7.30 when I hit the bed. and, strangely, I had with me the handbag of one of the girls, with her computer inside etc. I don't quite remember when she gave it to me, but it was there, lying on my drawer chest. from the bed, it looked a bit like the monolith in 2001 A Space Odissey. scary presence, enigmatic reminder of our wondrous speedy night.