Karaoke

Among the many wonders of Japan that we are experiencing first-hand is the joy of the karaoke parlor. We met up with Trey and his family (Coen is almost-five and Hobson is seven) last week and ran around Tokyo, ending up with a one-hour stint in Big-Echo Karaoke in Shimbuya. 

Now ours is not really a singing family. Oh, we all like to sing, but other than Katie I'm not sure anyone can actually hit a note on demand. So it was a tall order to go out with another family to sing. But this is not like a bar-and-stage setup in the United States--in Japan you get a little tiny room, you order drinks via a tablet (and someone shows up a moment later with them), you pick your songs on a tablet, and you have three or four microphones to sing along with the song on the TV. Just with your group, no strangers.

What really helped is that Coen and Hobson didn't even attempt to sing along--they just yelled and screamed into the mics the entire time. At one point, a song ended, and Coen yelled "I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!" Another time, the song ended and Coen blasted, "TIME TO GO HOME!!!" It was fun, entertaining, and a little loud.

Benassini-Lyons rocking out to some One Direction song.

Trey and Cindy searching for a new song.

In the end, we struggled through The Gambler, Story of My Life, Livin' on a Prayer, and several other old favorites, and survived to tell the tale. What was interesting is that Becca and I expected the kids to love it and start demanding that we go all the time (there are Big Echos everywhere in the big cities), but we are now a week past the event and there hasn't been a peep out of them.