keri travels: Party all day and all night.

About a week ago my some of my friends and had a night out in Tokyo. It was a really fun experience unlike anything I've ever done before. So I wanted to share it with you guys.

Alex, Veronica, and I had decided awhile ago that we wanted to go out to dinner at this really interesting sounding bar/restaurant. We decided this was a perfect way to begin our Tokyo night. The restaurant we went to is called The Lock Up. It's a chain and has several locations throughout Japan's major cities. Tokyo has two locations. One in Shibuya and one in Ikebukuro. We went to the one in Shibuya since it's a really lively part of Tokyo (Ikebukuro is also a lively spot, but we're also more familiar with Shibuya). We had understood that the concept behind The Lock Up is kind of like a prison themed restaurant. Turned out it was much much more! The restaurant is located on the 2nd floor of the basement in one of the buildings in Shibuya. BUT while you are trying to get from the entrance to the actual restaurant you have to walk through a haunted passage. With wrong turns, spooks, dim lighting, and creepy noises. None of us were expecting this so we were freaking out while walking through it and ended up screaming from fright when we came across our hostess (a hot police officer). After getting over our initial shock our hostess handcuffed us and took us to our jail cell.
The drink menu was really cool! (I will post pictures below) The food itself was pretty much normal food, but the price was also normal so it was fine. After ordering our food the lights (or at least the few lights that were on to begin with) in the entire restaurant went out and death metal mixed in with chain saw music began playing on the speakers. Next thing I know, our jail cell is being attacked by crazy monsters. This happens about every hour and lasts for about 3 minutes. It is really fun and adds to the crazy dining experience.
Photos:

Veronica, Alex, and I about to enter the creepy passage way.

A few of the crazzy drinks they sell. That is a jelly eye ball in the bottom right drink.

Being in jail for so long turned us into mad scientist!

Before I write about my experience at the club in Shibuya I have to give you a little bit of background about clubbing in Japan. Ok, well the last train of the night usually leaves Tokyo around 12am and the next trains dont start up until 5a.m. So if you are planning on staying out in Tokyo, it means you are literally staying out all night. So here we go!
We decided to go to Club Atom, which turns out is a fairly famous club in Shibuya. We chose this one mostly because of the price. Entrance fee before 12a.m. is about $10 and if you're a girl this fee also includes 2 drink tickets. This is a really good price because most clubs are around $20 for girls with no drink tickets and $30 for guys (no drink tickets). The club has 3 floors. The main floor (located on the 5th floor of the building) is the middle floor with a bar, dj booth, dance area, and small area for lounging. This floor played a mix of hip-hop,pop,dance,and techno. The floor below looked kind of like an underground cave and played trance music. The top floor was a bar and lounge that played hip-hop and r&b music.
At first when we got there around 11:30p.m. and the club was pretty empty so we ordered some drinks, and sat around chatting and checking out the place. Something really cool that this club offered was a mini hair salon. It was located adjacent to the bar on a raised platform slightly sectioned off from the main club area. There were 3 hair stylist that were curling girls hair for them. I don't know how it worked but the girls had gotten a ticket from somewhere either for free or by paying that would allow them to get their hair done. This wasn't offered all night, it stopped a little after 12 so maybe it was somehow a part of the happy hour, I'm not sure. After 12:30 the club had started to fill up and we decided to get out on the dance floor. Dancing in a club in Japan is so different from at home. Everyone in the club faces the dj while dancing. And it seems like the favorite move is the fist pump. Might be because there isn't much room for anything else. Another strange thing was that there were a lot of Japanese business men at the club, you could tell they were Japanese business men because they were wearing their business attire. Really different.
The club had mostly Japanese, but there were a few Koreans and also some caucasians. The music was a really interesting mix because they would play popular American songs that you would expect in a club, popular techno music, popular Japanese pop and techno music, but they would also play really strange music for a club, such as Justin Beiber, Avril Lavigne, and the YMCA song. It was really strange but fun to rock out to anyway. Staying up had been a bit of a challenge, around 2:30 I had gotten really tired and just wanted to fall asleep. There are seats reserved for ladies throughout the club, but my friend Veronica found out the hard way that you are not allowed to nap in these seats (club workers will wake you up). After about 30 minutes of resting and chatting with Veronica and some friendly Japanese I was able to get back on the dance floor. Our friend Alex didn't seem to need as many breaks as we did, but that is probably because he wasn't wearing heels and he had some help from whiskey to keep him awake and going. After our 30minute rest Veronica and I were ready to keep partying it up. The club stayed packed until the time we left around 4:45~5:00am. We ended up going to McDonald's to get some water and some breakfast before heading home on the very first train at around 5:30.
I got home at 7 had a quick breakfast with my host family before my host brother and sister went to school and then I crashed. I literally crashed all day. I went to bed at 7am woke up at 4 to get a glass of water and then went back to sleep until right before dinner at 6:45p.m. It was really fun experiencing Tokyo's night life, but I don't plan on doing this again. I really did enjoy the club but I enjoy spending my afternoons exploring Tokyo more than spending my whole day sleeping.

Here are some photos of the club from their websites. Photos weren't allowed in the club.