Saturday Night Out On The Town

Yesterday after musical rehearsals had ended, we (Sasha, Julie, Chelsea and I) decided we wanted to go out for the evening. It had been a long time since we'd gone out dancing, and we knew of an event going on at One Love. So we got dressed up and had dinner and some drinks at Hirome.

At Hirome, we got quite a few stares, and a random group of strangers asked to take a picture with us. The alcohol had started to kick in by then, so it sounded like a great idea. We also ran into Tony, a graduate student from Spain. He joined the group for the rest of the evening.

After Hirome closed around 11:00, we made our way to One Love to see what the event looked like. We weren't really sure what kind of music it would be. When we got there, it turned out that it was a mix of hip hop/R&B and reggae. Though none of us are particularly into reggae, at that point they were playing R&B, so we went in. It turned out to be a very lucky night; they played a lot of good dance music, which doesn't happen often.

When we arrived, the club was nearly empty and we were the only ones on the dance floor. It was actually quite nice, though; we could dance without anyone bothering us. Later there were some weird old men who got a little obnoxious, but even they weren't that bad. Well, maybe they were. One of them kept trying to touch people, and I got fairly aggressive when he tried to touch Chelsea on the face. After I pushed him away, shouted "Sawaranaide!" ("Don't touch!") at him, and gave him a death glare and the finger, he pretty much left us alone.

As more people arrived, though, we met some much nicer guys. One man randomly bought us all drinks, but he didn't act like a creep afterward. I kind of worried that he'd think he had a right to get gropey or something, but he was just friendly. He danced with our group occasionally but mostly left us alone. Later in the evening, I ended up dancing with a really tall guy whose nickname was "Jumbo". A fairly apt name; I was wearing heels that made me 3 or 3 and 1/2 inches taller, and I still barely came up to his shoulder. It was a lot of fun; he had a good sense of rhythm, and he didn't seem nervous at all. A lot of the time Kochi guys don't know what to do when you try to dance with them, but dancing with Jumbo was like dancing with guys back home. I also enjoyed it because I could tell he was happy and having a good time; he sang along with a lot of the music as we were dancing. I didn't get his number in the end, but I'd be happy if I ran into him again sometime.

For most of the evening, Julie, Sasha, Chelsea and I were the only women in the club. It was kind of hilarious when some Japanese girls finally showed up, because they seemed to take quite a disliking to us. Maybe it was because they disapproved of our style of dancing, or maybe they were jealous that we were stealing all the attention. Although I can imagine that our dancing might've seemed unusually provocative compared to the barely moving bobbing thing that most Japanese girls do, I hardly think they had a right to judge us. After all, they showed up in mini-shorts with their garters hanging out. I think it's more likely they were disappointed that their ridiculous outfits couldn't garner the attention that our dancing did. In any case, we certainly didn't make any female friends at that club.

I forget what time exactly we came back home, but I think it might've been around 3:00 when we finally got to bed. Poor Julie had to get up early in the morning for rehearsals, but Sasha and I didn't have to show up until the afternoon, so the rest of us got to sleep in. Anyhow, aside from sore feet and some dehydration, I felt fairly good today. Julie and Sasha both had headaches but made the best of it. All in all, I felt like it was a very good night out. Since they were playing good music nearly all night, we hardly ever left the dance floor. With these events, you never know how they'll turn out. One night it might be great dance music, and another night you show up and all they're playing are kitschy theme songs from ridiculously old TV shows, and radio calisthenics music (I swear, that actually happened once). But this was a lot of fun. I'm hoping we'll go out dancing a bit more often as the weather gets better.