I  am standing in the panoramic observation deck on the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and the view is amazing. I am here with two of the people I was drinking with last night. Daryl, a guy from Tennessee, Ollie, a guy from England, and Edwina, an Australian who we met this morning in the hostel. At the ground level of the building, for no apparent reason, there is a tourist information office selling onions. We leave the Government Building and wander Shinjuku in search of food.

We stop at a random bakery in a train station. I buy two of something that I am told is fish, and some green tea in a bottle for a total of ¥399. The green tea comes with a complimentary tea bag. We walk to Shinjuku Central Park and sit on a bench in front of Shinjuku Niagara Falls. I eat my fish bread, it is very disappointing and I regret purchasing two. After we eat, we wander the park and eventually find a stone gazebo with a bench and table. Ollie randomly has a deck of playing cards, so the four of us sit for a few hours playing cards. It is the first time I forget that I am in Japan.

We eventually leave the park, leave Shinjuku, and head back. We stop off at the biggest convenience store I have ever seen, with five floors selling just about everything. I finally find a bottle of 12-year-old Hibiki for ¥4361; they also sell the much rarer 21-year-old Hibiki, for the so low price of ¥17,047; which is about 50% cheaper than back home.

After a brief rest, Edwina, Daryl and I head out for some food. Inside a restaurant we order five or six dishes between us and share everything. We eat deep fried fish paste, deep fried tofu, deep fried squid, deep fried mackerel, deep fried crab, and some delicious vegetable I’ve never heard of before; the vegetable is deep fried, of course. We are also served a complimentary Japanese omelette. The food is really good. It comes to a total of ¥4600 between the three of us.

After the meal we head back to the hostel and regroup with the others. I chat with Daisuke, the Japanese guy that works here. He is making a joke about the check-in time being 3 p.m. at the hostel. He says, “3 o’clock chicken time!” Then starts to make chicken noises. He repeats this joke probably one hundred times, before it starts to get old. He also teaches me a new word, ‘nomihodai’, meaning all-you-can-drink.

Eventually it is time to head out and we take the short five minute walk to the karaoke building. Somehow Daryl has managed to round up a total of 17 people. We are given a private nomihodai room with a wonderful view of the neon Tokyo skyline. In our room there is a phone that calls reception, which is used for ordering beer. We order fifteen beers at a time.

We finally figure out how to change the instructions to English, and the karaoke begins. Randomly, Pop is Dead is one of the 22 Radiohead songs available. My rendition of Fake Plastic Trees scores ‘92% accurate rating!’

Pictures are taken and pitchers of beer are delivered to our room every five minutes. We sing, we laugh, we drink. Eventually we are all very drunk. I vaguely remember us all singing Hey Jude, but I don’t remember much else. After what was probably four hours of solid karaoke, I return to the hostel and sleep off an incredible evening.