The "what we did on my birthday" post

The main even for my birthday was something we'd had planned to do since I got back from japan and typed '"karaoke box" + Newcastle' into Google. Eight of us gathered at Newcastle station for the short walk to the so-called Korean BBQ restaurant that boasted free karaoke rooms. After arriving at the street we found no such place - odd. After 5 minutes of wandering around aimlessly, we rang them and they told us to wait by Richer Sounds and someone would "come and get us". Our resident drama queen, Matt, immediately started phrophesising doom but, true to their word we were met and walked back to the restaurant - now no longer a Korean place (even though all the review cam out in May), but instead サガワ (Sagawa), an upmarket Japanese resturant. Suddenly we felt less stupid for failing to find a restaurant on a 20m long road.


We were led up to our private room where our table (for some reason shped like a boat) was waiting. Whilst the rest of the party noticed the floor height chairs and lack of leg room, my attention was drawn to the 42" RPTV in the corner of the room, already knocking out cheesy renditions of classic songs. The next thing we noticed was the lcd screen attached to the karaoke machine was displaying a screen saver featuring various pictures of bikini idols. If you don't know what they are, have a search of Google and become enlightened.


The drinks menu purported the availability of 2 litre cans of Asahi - surely a printing error, but no - we eventually got through 6 of these beasts (in addition to sake). We decided to get a selection of sushi for everyone to try which proved successful although Brett claimed he couls still taste the fish eggs the following day. The mains arrived and were duly finished with much slurping of ramen. Attention was now turned to the entertainment equipment in the corner. After being shown how to not put the player into Cantonese, we got started. Rather than being a hard drive-based machine, this was a DVD player with (I presume) CD+G support. There were songs in Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and English so the selection of songs we knew was a bit limited. The usual positive feedback loop of upping the microphone volume followed by the music volume followed. Catherine started us off and immediately put us to shame with a worryingly in-tune version of My way. As more beer was consumed, people became much more willing to "sing" and this kept going for another 2 hours. By the end, I suddenly realised that you could hear our room from the other end of the restuarant and in the toilets...

The classics kept coming, and soon the duets and group efforts began.




Eventually, Matt and Hugh had to be dragged awayand the not insubstantial £250 was settled (~ £80 was beer). Everyone agreed it had been a good night. We got the stupidly early last train (10.45pm) back and then decided to go to Chase. Somehow, despite going to the bar for a 4-pint pitcher, Blondie manage to reappear with 6 pints which we set about until about 1.

It was a great night and I think a few people were a bit dubious about the whole karaoke part were converted. What wasn't part of the plan was going out with the chemists the following night until 1 and then drinking till 4.30am the night after at the Trevs 40th anniversary. Whoops. Sunday didn't really happen after that.