So, there`s this restaurant we went to on Monday I think, it`s called Ninja and has a really cool concept (we in this case is Akiko, Ryan, Erik and myself). They serve authentic Japanese food and the restaurant is this dark little maze and your waiters are all dressed in Ninja Garb. They pull there menu out of no where and if you want them to come there is a `secret Ninja button` under the table. That`s the cool part, now here`s the catch, it`s a total tourist trap. The first sign, the menu is in perfect English, the second sign, nothing on it is less than $10. We ended up ordering a beer each, an eel roll with cream cheese for 1000 yen and their cheapest course meal which was 7000 yen (about $70 US). The roll was six pieces and the course dinner had about 10 componants that we split up between the 4 of us. No let me tell you, the food was good, but that meal wouldn`t have filled up one person, let alone 4.　Ｗｈｅｎ we asked the staff if they liked being a ninja, one said `oh yes, very much` whereas the other said `not really, sometimes`, I had a good laugh at that one. So our whole meal ended up costing about $120 US and we were probably hungrier than when we got there. My suggestion, it may sound like a cool place, but unless you are ready to pay a lot I would`t recommend it.

After the Ninja restaurant, we went and actually got something to eat, and bought some sake from the store for about $2. It`s pretty potent stuff and I was already doing pretty well by the time we got to the club. So we went to this place called the Womb, it`s a cool bar - big with lots of cool light effects and lots of people. It was a little pricey to get in, but a good time. We ended up going home on the trains at 6 in the morning (explained below), I was fairly drunk and tired and it`s a good thing Erik and Akiko were alert or else I might have fallen asleep at one of the train stations waiting for a train. I wasn`t quite as drunk as Erik thought I was, I do remember the whole night and didn`t get sick at all, so I figure not a bad evening.

Let me pause to tell you a little about the subway system and alcohol in Japan. Now the subways close around midnight and open again at around 5 for the morning commute to work. That means that if you want to go out, you need to either be home by 12 or out until morning. We of course chose the later, time flies pretty quickly at the clubs, but it`s a little disorienting to see light when you leave. Anyway, another cool thing about Japan is this concept called Nomi Hodai. Nomi is to drink and Hodai is as much as you want. Some of the clubs here are nomi hodai (run about $30 including cover), we didn`t go to one when we went clubbing, but we went to one on one of the first nights I was here and it cost about $7 (it was only a very limited hard bar, but you can`t complain). So if you are in Japan you may want to consider a Nomi Hodai.

Cheers,
Drew