歌を歌うよ

While there are many things that I like about Japan compared to my home country, probably one that has stood out for me is karaoke. Affordability and atmosphere are probably the two things that really stand out compared to back home.

Where I live in Australia, while there are a few places to go for Karaoke, there's always something wrong - it's either pricing or a very limited song list to songs that are nearly a decade old. For the worse of the two types, the price is ok, but I just do not enjoy it. The other place that my friends and I go for Karaoke is usually really pricey, not to mention that when you request for the Japanese system when booking, they don't bother to tell you until the day you turn up that the Japanese system has been broken for a few days - and this has happened when my friend made a booking for her birthday a few months back. 

However in Kyoto, it's just so much more fun - pricing is pretty decent. For about the equivalent of $15 for myself and friends, we get all we can drink for about a good 5-6 hours (aka 飲み放題/nomihoudai - literally 'bottomless cup'). The only catch was that at this particular place they don't serve alcohol, so it's BYO - but given that alcohol is ridiculously cheap and can easily be bough from convenience stores (there was one right next door to karaoke), that's really not a problem at all. Furthermore, the song selection is so much better than what you can get back home. While it was possible to play Japanese songs, it was never extensive as here (but then again, I am in Japan, so, duh). What was even more interesting, I could get more Weird Al songs than back in Australia, even if it's only just "Fat" and "Eat it" and I enjoy those songs. 

Some of you are probably asking - Can I sing? The answer is no, no I can't.

I'm good at songs that require screaming. Lots and lots of screaming. That's why I love some of JAM Project's and Hironobu Kageyama's songs (especially Gate of the Hell and Super Survivor respectively). Even more interesting is that they have some vocaloid songs available for selection. I found a couple of Luka Megurine songs when I went to karaoke for the first time, but alas - I cannot sing any of them that well, especially "ggrks" given that you need a guy (aka Gakupo) and a girl (aka Luka) to sing it - and I cannot switch between the two very well >.>.

That's my highlight of the week. Until next time, じゃね。