Karaoke....

Today I had the opportunity to go to karaoke with a bunch of people.  This is not like American karaoke, despite the name of the karaoke place being "United States of Karaoke."  I am getting a little ahead of myself though ^^

Miyuki-san picked me up at the nearby train station at around twelve-thirty this afternoon.  From there we drove to the karaoke place, talking the whole way.  I am a little proud because she spoke some Japanese but I was able to keep track of the conversation, even if I did not directly understand the words she was speaking.  Small things like that make me very happy ^^  She mentioned that she had told Beth-san that she would try to sing an English song, but that she had not been able to practice very much and so she did not think she would.  I asked her "what songs?" and she listed off three performers, one of them being Spice Girls.

We arrived at the karaoke place and waited for the others to show up.  There were five of us girls and three boys that were due to come.  When all the girls had shown up, we went ahead and went back to our assigned room.  Yep, that be right: here they have separate rooms for you and your friends/companions so that you only have to make a fool out of yourself in front of each other.

 I took this as we were leaving, but I wanted to show the hallway with all the different rooms.  There is even an upstairs with more rooms.  We were in room ten.

 The song selector

 I was trying to capture the set up of the rooms

 According to Sean, my taking this picture was "the most Japanese thing [he has] ever seen"

I just wanted to show people the karaoke menu ^^

Beth-san quickly showed me how to search and select a song and then started us off by singing the first song.  Somewhere during her turn, two of the guys showed up (the third one never did).  I ended up choosing "Wanted Dead or Alive" for my first song and because I was so nervous, my voice was shaky and weak.  For my second song I sang "Only Hope" by Mandy Moore/Switchfoot and I could hear the tremors in my own voice.  By the time I sang "Someone Like You" by Adele, I had gotten over my self-consciousness and received a lot of praise, even though the tempo of the song was off.  Though one of the guys had chosen "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, we all joined in to sing it.

For the most part, everyone (except me) stuck with Japanese songs, though they did vary to English at times.  I just enjoyed the beat of the music and the overall positive energy of the room.  I ended up singing "Science Fiction, Double Feature" which only Beth-san seemed to get.  Following that I sang "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" with Beth, Sean, and Don--our little quartet ^^  I also did renditions of "California Gurlz" by Katy Perry, "Genie in a Bottle" by Christina Aguilera (that one did not turn out very good...), and chose "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls to sing with Miyuki-san =)  It ended up being a lot of fun, even though there were a lot of lyrics in the Wannabe song that I do not remember being there.  We all had a really good laugh ^^  The last song I sang, in which everyone joined in on, was "We are the Champions" by Queen.

 The girls, minus Miyuki ^^

 All of us:  Me, Beth, Miyuki's cousin, Miyuki's co-worker, Miyuki, Don, and Sean.

There is another song in there that Miyuki-san had wanted to hear but did not want to sing, so Sean and I sang it for her, but the name is escaping my memory at the moment.  All in all, it was a lot of fun.  After we were finished, we went out to eat at Coco's.  Beth and I split a quesadilla, which was very interesting and not spicy at all.  One of the girls had also ordered some fries, which she could not finish and so offered to the rest of us.  With dinner, I had a strawberry latte--very tasty ^^  The restaurant allows you to purchase beverages for three hundred yen with endless refills, so I also drank a green Fanta drink--it was pretty good.

We ended up spending four hours at United States of Karaoke and then about three at Coco's.  Tomorrow I am meeting Beth so we can wander around the AEON mall together and so I can pick up a few things.