Come on Barbie, let`s go party

Another week gone by, a little closer to pay day. I get paid on Monday, it's now Saturday night and I have the equivalent of seven quid to last me until then. Why is this country so expensive? (Please, let's not talk about buying food, beer, eating out or buying pretty shoes.) I've been trying not to spend too much money, but last Saturday I went out dancing at JMax with Lucy, Thy, Mike, Chika, Kyle, Francis, Maiko and Kyoko. I was working on Sunday so I figured not having any money would mean I couldn't drink much, so I would just about be able to function at work the next day. At least on Sunday we don't have any classes of kids. This was the first time I'd been to a club in Japan and it was pretty funny. Women and men pay different prices to get in: women pay 2000 yen (ten pounds) and men have to pay 3000 yen (fifteen pounds). This includes 5 drinks for guys and 3 drinks for girls, because obviously we're just drinking Babysham and small glasses of white wine until we fall over after the second one. Ordinarily I might have said, "hey!" but I was skint and wanted to stay sober so it suited me fine. The club was playing Japanese Happy House at top volume. Scantily-clad dancing girls stood around the edge of sunken dancefloor and performed their Macarena-style moves. On the dancefloor, everyone copied them. That was pretty weird in itself. Even stranger, most of the people dancing were men. Men don't dance! And they definitely don't make loveheart gestures and flail like an airhostess on speed. Getting onto the dancefloor was a feat in itself, and most of the time we were doing the Elbow the Irritating Guy Behind You dance. I was wearing very high shoes. After 2 hours of dancing my feet hurt. You'd think I would`ve learnt by now after nights out in uni that ended with me slowly hobbling along King Street at 3 am saying "ow, ow". It was pouring rain by the time we left. In the taxi on the way home I took off my shoes, then I sloshed through a big, cold puddle in my bare feet and it felt great.

Wednesday was a great cultural exchange day, and I will tell you all about it some other day. Right now it`s half eleven and I have to get up early tomorrow morning. Goodnight all.