JapanNewbie

Roppongi

Posted on 01. Feb, 2003 @ 8:14 pm by harvey in Culture Views: 96

This Friday night I went ‘clubbing’ in Roppongi 六本木 for the first time.

Roppongi is famous in Tokyo for having a high concentration of foreigners. It is to the point that as a foreigner living in Tokyo if you mention that you are going out on the town, people will just assume you mean Roppongi. Roppongi also has a reputation of being shady, dirty, and a little bit dangerous.

My friends and I intended to go to Velfarre when we went to Roppongi. According to my guide book, Velfarre is the largest disco in Tokyo, ah, make that the largest disco in Asia. That’s pretty impressive. Apparently there is room for some 2,000 guests, and has automated moving dance floors. It costs about 3,000 yen to get in, and on the front of the place there was a sign specifying the rights that Velfarre has in regards to entry.

I should have taken a picture, but one of the restrictions was that Velfarre has the right to refuse entry, if you look ‘gang -like’.

Looking gang-like is awesome.

Another point was that you could be refused entry if the staff did not feel that you would fit in with the rest of the guests, or something to that effect. I forgot the exact wording.

We ended up not going to Velfarre, not because of the funny rules, but just because we weren’t planning on staying out -all- night, and 3000 yen is pretty expensive!

We turned to my guide book to find a cheaper place, and a nearby club called ‘Soul Kiss’ turned out to have free entry! Rock on! It turns out the club name has since been changed to ‘Big’ or something. We headed over, were leaded down some shady escalator into a room with phat beats, lots of drinks, and like, 2 guests inside. The place was empty! We left in a hurry. The bartender offered us free drinks on the way out to try to get us to stay. I felt sorry for them. For a second.

Finally, we ended up at a place called 911 I believe, that also had free entry, but was packed. There was Animal Planet on the TV, and everything from Chemical Brothers to that old ‘Pretty Fly for a White Guy’ song being played. Seriously, there must have been 200 people in the place, with about 70% foreigners. Big guys too. Maybe Roppongi is popular among people in the military?

You know what I mean. You go to a club in the middle of the freakin-winter, and there are huge, ripped, muscular guys in t-shirts standing around drinking and trying to pick up chicks. This ‘picking-up-of-chicks’ is the ‘nampa’ that I previously mentioned. I’ll write more about that later.

Anyway. This little journal entry has gotten way out of hand. Next time I’ll try to focus on what I want to say before I start dribbling all over the keyboard.

Roppongi has a lot of foreigners. Roppongi clubs are plentiful. Roppongi ain’t all that bad.

-Harvey