Day 355: Harajuku — Shibuya — Karaoke
Before breakfast this morning I called my parents to say Merry Christmas (I’d called yesterday on our actual Christmas but didn’t get a chance to chat with my mom). They’d had a great morning with Connor, Hardage, Bob and the Luces.
We did school here in our room and set out for the day by noon. Already the kids were frustrating us. Wrestling and not listening — my two least favorite things they do, combined. It’s such a classic scene: Me saying, “Please stop doing that and get your shoes on so we can go,” and them totally ignoring me and laughing while giving each other headlocks and tumbling into a table and knocking everything onto the floor. I. Hate. That.
So that was basically our day. It’s strange to say as New Yorkers, but the city stints have been the hardest, I think. It goes well for a few days but anything longer than that and they really get cabin fever. They need the long playground stretches and/or pool time that we always forget to bake in because the grownups are too content to just walk around a city.
Then they melt down on the street, as James did today. Protested on the curb in Harajuku, refusing to walk another step until we explained the plan. Oh, and the plan had better be something he wanted to do.
That’s how we ended up at a touristy conveyor belt sushi place right in the mobbed heart of Harajuku.
Didn’t matter – the kids loved it and had a blast ordering items from the touch screen and watching them get delivered via “bullet train.” Teddy and I had a beer for our troubles.
After that the kids were revitalized and ready to keep walking. But first: Dessert. Had to get one of the photo-friendly, over the top crepes Harajuku nabe’s known for.
From there we meandered. First a mall for a bathroom break.
Then back toward the Shibuya section of town, aiming to see the famous Shibuya Scramble — the world’s largest intersection/crosswalk.
The kids were ok on the walk, actually.
This city! So big, so crazy. Feels like Times Square but just…more.
We found an arcade to appease the nerds and they had fun playing car racing games, Jurassic Park, air hockey and those damn claw machines. Around us, teenage Japan was having quite an afternoon in the arcade. Dozens of girls were lined up to do the photo booths and the boys were all playing this drum video game — you have to bang the drums according to the game instructions (a bouncing colored ball) and it gets faster and faster. Clearly these guys had spent a lot of time practicing…they were awesome.
Could have stayed and people-watched all day.
But we couldn’t because we had very, very big plans ahead of us.
After a quick snack and drink in our neighborhood, we arrived at Cote D’Azur Karaoke, where — at my request — our travel agents had helped book us a room from 6- 8 pm.
Time to teach my children the joys of karaoke!
I would rank my hobbies and favorite pastimes as: Photography, drawing, reading, flower arranging and…karaoke. I don’t know why. I just think it is so much fun.
For my birthday a few years ago I even bought myself an amp and two microphones to do singalongs on YouTube. I know.
So at least the kids were familiar with the concept from our Friday nights back in the day.
Worth noting: Teddy and I enjoy a marriage of peaceful compatibility. But I admit, karaoke sticks out like a single puzzle piece with no place to go. He just doesn’t share my enthusiasm. It’s pretty much the one thing we don’t see eye to eye on.
But, in a testament to our ability to make it work, he accommodates this annoying hobby and has even adopted/perfected a few go-to songs of his own out of necessity (Neil Diamond “Forever in Blue Jeans” and Pearl Jam “Better Man”). I have heard him sing these many times, and love him even more for his reluctant off-key willingness to just belt em out.
Cote D’Azur was better than I could have imagined. Spotless, eat-off-the-floor tiles, plastic covers on the mics between uses, a touch screen database that actually worked, perfect volume on the music and the mics, clean bathrooms, etc. New York, are you hearing this??
The kids were initially just jazzed about using mics. James kicked things off by yelling “Poo poo farty pants!” as loudly as possible. With the echo effect, it reverberated around our private room to his delight.
I showed them what was what with my first song: “9 to 5.”
Then we tried to think of songs they know by heart. There aren’t many, but Blue School came through with a few: “Country Road” by John Denver and some Beatles (“Here Comes the Sun” and “Yellow Submarine”).
It helps that James can read now.
He sang CCR’s “Lookin Out my Back Door,” which he’d played on a CD on repeat back at the Edenhouse in New Zealand. Actually a decent karaoke pick. Noted, dude.
We dabbled in Disney — some Moana (difficulty level: high) and “Let it Go” (fun) and also the new song from Frozen 2 “Into the Unknown”, which has been playing on promotional speakers throughout Tokyo’s commercial districts. Willa likes to do the mysterious siren call, and it sounded especially “good” on the echo-y mic.
Then I remembered that Willa actually did know a lot of the words to “Shut Up and Dance,” and she proceeded to sing it three times.
I tested out some new material — “Suspicious Minds,” “Englishman in New York,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” — but decided none were karaoke material. Super fun to listen to and to sing, but again, not karaoke material. In my book, a good karaoke song is complicated enough to slightly impress listeners with the singers’ lyrical knowledge — but also quick-paced, known to all and singalong-able.
By 8 pm James was rolling around exhausted on the banquette and the guys came to kick us out. It was a raging success of an evening.
Evening Teddy had to admit it was a hoot.
On the walk home, Willa recalled a line in “Shut Up and Dance” where the singer references a “Juliet.” She asked who that was. Teddy explained that Juliet was a well-known fictional character who was trapped in a tower and had to let her really long hair down to be saved.
D’oh. Teddy! That’s Rapunzel, dude! Had a good chuckle.
Oh! We also stopped by 7-11 for a D7 battery for the remote-controlled Fart Machine we got James for Christmas. Finally!!
We are a very sophisticated and refined family.
