i tried clubbing
in osaka’s america-mura, then in tokyo’s roppongi and shibuya, all a
couple of years ago. it was a mixed bag. the osaka club (joule) was
hosting a special dance performance called “dance nation,” the night i
wandered in, so the place was packed with awesome dancers of all kinds -
and me the only gaijin, thereby accorded celebrity status. the music
was excellent and eclectic, funk/techno/hiphop/house/soul/etc. the
dancing was better. beautiful girls wanted to talk to me, and tough
guys wanted to buy me drinks. quite surreal, given my completely
opposite experiences at home in oz. door charge was Y3000, but included
Y1500 of drink tickets, ie. 2 drinks.

shibuya … is a rabbit
warren of streets, so print a map if you’re looking for somewhere
specific. i managed to eventually find club atom, apparently one of the
few places to play dubstep in tokyo. it was half empty, to be honest,
and half of those people were gaijin, but not a bad sort – and it meant
more room to dance to the (generally) good music. ended up hanging for a
while after closing with a mixed bunch of gaijin and nihonjin,
breakfasting at yoshinoya before eventually, reluctantly, getting a
train out at 7.30am, or so. ahh, good times. door charge Y3000, with, i
think, a single drink ticket. expensive drinks, too, but easy enough
to get drunk cheaply elsewhere, beforehand, if that’s your thing.

there
was a much crappier shibuya club before that, but i’m afraid i forget
its name to warn against it. all crass commercial music and unpleasant
people trying to pick each other up.

speaking of which, there’s
gas panic in roppongi. i tried the one on the main street, but i think
there are several around. it was, indeed, crassly commercial and full
of people trying to pick each other up … but for some reason i really
enjoyed myself there. the combination of a couple of genki drinks and
several chu-hi strongs before i even got there may have helped, but it
could just be that it’s actually kind of fun. “like a peak-hour subway
carriage with booze, lights and music,” was how i thought of it. not
many foreigners, either, which is unusual for roppongi, apparently. no
door charge the night i went, and quite cheap drinks, too.

_worst_
of all, by far, was a seedy dive in roppongi called greenland. again
with the crass music, and the people were really unpleasant – think
middle-aged businessmen with hookers mixed among packs of drunk tourists
and packs of drunk japanese after them. but most annoying was the
staff habit of clearing your half-full drinks away the moment your back
was turned – i lost three this way before i confronted the
english-speaking manager, who suddenly feigned dumbness. i’ll never
darken their crappy little doorway again. the only reason i was there
was because a japanese friend wanted to go.

one of the _best_
things about japanese clubs was the wonderful coin lockers in every club
i described above. they’re not just in train stations. Y100-200 to
stow all your stuff safely and easily, without having to worry about
dishonest cloakroom staff – heaven! every nightclub around the world
should have these.

and remember to go easy on the energy drinks.
twice the punch of red bull in a bottle half the size. they taste like
medicine for a reason.

But aside from that it was tonnes of fun, and I met loads of interesting people :)