Today's itinerary: 5 hours of Super Mario Smash Brothers and a 3 hour afternoon nap. Really challenging day. At 8 pm, after finishing off our bag of 30 tiramisu cookies, we decided it might be smart to get out of the apartment and go for a short stroll. What a dangerous decision. You never know where you might end up aimlessly strolling the streets of Japan. And sure enough, after 5 minutes we found ourselves peering curiously through the window of a Karaoke parlor.
For those who have never Karaoked in Asia, it's not like singing in the bars in America. You get your own special sound-proof dark room equipped with TV + karaoke machine and enough microphones for you and your friends to belt out Michael Jackson's "Beat It" in secluded cacaphony.
Neither of Deniz or I know anything about Japanese popular music, so it took a bit to get over our hesitation to enter the place. Lucky for us, they had a book full of American song options. And what a riot they are. None of them sound like the originals. Most are corny electric keyboard imitations.
But picking songs out of the book was a trip down memory lane. Deniz and I are not terribly good at pop music (I'm surprised that he knows any American songs at all, having grown up in Turkey). But somehow we managed to pull all sorts of songs like Alanis Morisette's "One Hand in My Pocket" and the Beach Boy's "California Girls" out of the dusty recesses of our brains. Each song brought back memories of long forgotten sometimes anguished, but often engaging youth.
We weren't sure we'd like karaoke, but we enjoyed ourselves so much we were still singing in John Lennon's "Imagine" in the streets afterwards. Well worth the $25 for one hour of entertainment. And to our singing credit, no one told us to "Beat It" on our walk back home.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Have you tried the recipe? Share your thoughts.