Kitsch and Karaoke

On the weekend before kids training started, Nat and I went to get our inkans (name stamps: the Japanese version of a signature). While we were waiting for them to be made we wandered around the store. It was a department store called Tokyu Hands and it was a department store within another department store called Takashimaya. So it was kind of like a Target (except more stuff and better quality) within a David Jones (except even posher).

That was such an enthralling shopping experience. We were in the stationery section. You know what a stationery fiend I am. So I was in seventh heaven. There were so many random little things that were so kitsch: Animal shaped paperclips, animal shaped rubber bands, jumbo glue sticks, jumbo white out tape, gorgeous paper both for origami and huge sheets of it, calligraphy stuff, a wall of kooky pens and pencils, another wall of postcards and cards. I probably should have bought my postcards there but they were all too pretty to send. They would have been ruined. I would have felt like I was sullying them by simply writing on them.

While we were looking around and chatting this little old lady basically jumped on us and just started to speak to us in English. She'd done her Masters in Cambridge Uni in England and she was always wanting to practice her English. Since she didn't often get the chance to practice she liked to stalk people at the International Center and just start speaking to them. Hmmm…interesting. So we chatted to her for a while. She asked me if I was Taiwanese. She's not the only one to think Taiwan when they see me and I'm wondering why… She told us all about herself and her plans to go back to England, then very abruptly said, 'Okay thank you for talking to me. Goodbye.' Interesting.

We continued on to the kitsch section of Tokyu Hands. There was an entire level of random crap. It was chock-full of useless but aesthetically pleasing objects. There were lovely inkan holders with inbuilt stamp pads, crazy expensive Japanese fans, purring robot cat alarm clocks (freaky), toilet paper with English lessons printed on each sheet for the keen English learners who spend a of time in the bathroom, tissue paper that's printed to look like 10000 yen notes ($100) so it looks like you're so rich you can afford to wipe your sweat with money.

There were ant farms made from coloured jelly like substances, fish in tiny glass jars, and the piece de resistance: Facebank (nothing to do with facebook): it's a piggy bank shaped like a face and you feed it your coins and it swallows them (creepy).

On our last night in Nagoya we hit the city again. Went out for dinner. Ugh… One thing I can't get used to is that people are still allowed to smoke indoors here. Nagoya city has some public non-smoking areas but in restaurants and bars etc they're still allowed to smoke. It's so bizarre to be asked if I want a smoking/non-smoking area.


Then we hit a karaoke bar (yes, it was my idea but everyone else was just as enthusiastic about it). And please don't cringe. It was so fun! We got our own little lounge room thing complete with tv, microphones, couches, and random musical instruments. It took us about 10 minutes to figure out the karaoke machine. It was very hi-tech and in Japanese. Then we were off and running.


We started with an oldie but a goldie: Hey Jude by the Beatles. Then we really got into the swing of things with Creep by Radiohead, Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi, Girls just wanna have fun by Cyndi Lauper, Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, Lady Marmalade by Everyone, She f**ing hates me by Puddle of Mud, Cry me a river by Justin Timberlake. Muhahahha. It was so funny. Everyone cacked themselves at my rendition of JT. And of course our personal paparazzo got great shots of the night. Great times.