{"id":2274,"date":"2019-05-02T08:08:59","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T13:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/?p=2274"},"modified":"2019-05-02T08:10:12","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T13:10:12","slug":"karaoke-dining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/?p=2274","title":{"rendered":"Karaoke &#038; Dining"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We went from the sake festival to a karaoke bar \u2013 karaoke is a big thing in Japan and there are facilities offering karaoke all over the city. We went to one not far from where Lekshmi lives with Karina \u2013 Lekshmi\u2019s friend who bought the Christian Louboutin shoes. What happens is that one ends up renting a private room which was assigned for our use for an hour. The price we paid \u2013 about $75 \u2013 includes the use of the room and an alcoholic drink for the five of us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_0515.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2275\" width=\"542\" height=\"407\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_0515.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_0515-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 542px) 100vw, 542px\" \/><figcaption><strong><em>Mini and I doing our karaoke bit!<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We select what songs we want to sing and then whoever wishes can join in the singing. Several of the songs that were selected were ones that I was not familiar with. Mini got into the act with Copocabana singing it with several of the others. Mini and I sang John Denver\u2019s \u201cSunshine on my Shoulders\u201d and I was the one who primarily sang Elvis Presley\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s Now or Never\u201d. Our selections of songs really dates us \u2013 especially my choice of the Elvis song. Such is the generation gap \u2026\u2026\u2026. because the others chose songs that were less ancient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following karaoke we went to dinner. The plan was to go to\nthis local place that serves gyoza but that did not work out because when we\ngot there, it had just closed. So we ended up eating tapas at a local haunt\nwhich was actually pretty good \u2013 even if it was somewhat expensive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" src=\"http:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_0435.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2276\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_0435.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_0435-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption><strong><em>Sampling Sushi<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The previous day Lekshmi took us to a well regarded sushi restaurant. We had to wait for about an hour to get a table \u2013 which tells you how popular the place is \u2013 and the restaurant only serves sushi including run of the mill stuff as well as the more exotic choices. I have not been one for sushi \u2013 my one experience was at a restaurant in LA and it was not good \u2013 enough to turn me off for years. But being in Japan, I felt that I absolutely had to give it a try and I am glad that I did because the sushi was really quite good. I tried pretty much everything \u2013 the others were far less enterprising. We had ordered a platter with a variety of different items just to get a sample of the different items being served. There was one item that I gave up on very quickly \u2013 I don\u2019t know what it was but it seemed like cartilage and was quite crunchy and tasteless!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"197\" src=\"http:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_0444.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2277\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_0444.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_0444-300x185.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption><strong><em>At the tea garden &#8230; note the rich vegetation!<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>We also went to a Japanese tea room in an unusual setting with lots of vegetation and flowers serving exotic types of tea. People wait for a long time for an opportunity to go through this experience. It is used as a setting for conversation while people imbibe tea. There are a couple of snacks that are served if one so wishes though the primary objective is just to drink tea and chat!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" src=\"http:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_1321.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2278\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_1321.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_1321-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption><strong><em>Lekshmi at the tea room<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Dinner with tapas ended our fairly busy day \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We went from the sake festival to a karaoke bar \u2013 karaoke is a big thing in Japan and there are facilities offering karaoke all over the city. We went to one not far from where Lekshmi lives with Karina \u2013 Lekshmi\u2019s friend who bought the Christian Louboutin shoes. What happens is that one ends [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2279,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274\/revisions\/2279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}