The night before last we went to Roppongi (a 'slightly seedy, bar-packed' part of town) and sang karaoke in ridiculous costumes. Everyone got into it (the beer and sake helped) but none moreso than the japanese. It was wonderful to see how they threw themselves into having fun in karaoke. I wowed the crowd with a Sinatra song that I hadn't planned on singing, but have now apparently made legendary.

The nightlife here is crazy. We were out with the clients quite late (well, until sunrise) and I still managed to get to the workshop the next day in one piece and seemingly intelligent. I think this is going to be a great account to work on. We didn't go out the first night and got a lot of flack from them so we went barhopping after karaoke and got back to the hotel at 5am. So we know have a reputation of being the cool kids. Luckily, we were with the clients! The bars are usually quite small, but bright, colourful, with karaoke machines and video games that groups can play. It's all very sociable. And there's little
streetcrime here so people feel safe. It is a bit disconcerting, however, that the Japanese businessmen are so formal and polite during the day, and so carefree and drunk at night.

There are an estimated 400,000 vending machines in Tokyo. One for every 20 people. One can buy everything from a vending machine, including hot lunches, but be careful - they estimate that one in 10 would fall over in a 7.0 earthquake. The proliferation of gadgets, especially mobiles that do everything in amazing. People are starting to pay for goods and travel by swiping their mobiles making queues virtually disappear. Going shopping today, looking forward to the gadgetry.