A Chinese friend invited me to KTV. I had to Google the term to find out it’s what the Chinese call karaoke. I’m not really one for singing but tagged along anyway.

The place was near Holborn/Chancery Lane in London. The feel was very different to any other karaoke box I’ve been to. It was quite a dark and chic with shiny surfaces and accented lighting under the tables and along the walls. Many of the rooms were glass walled so that you could see inside from outside but because it was so dark it didn’t feel too intrusive.

The actual KTV itself left me baffled. I felt like I should be able to pick out some of the kanji from the Chinese songs but apart from very common words like ‘love’, there weren’t that many I could recognise. Even those which I did didn’t see to match the on-yomi very closely.

There were a couple of Japanese people there, too, so I did get to hear some Japanese songs, too. There was the theme song to the first anime I ever watched, Rurouni Kenshin. That brought me back… to where I’m not sure, but some time in the past. Then there was an HY song a Japanese friend sang a little too well for my liking!

Even with Japanese, my reading ability is far too slow and fragmented to keep up with karaoke, though. It’s definitively a good avenue to learn Japanese but something I never really got into.

The venue felt quite luxurious and there was a price tag to match. We were told we were £90 short of the minimum spend so someone ended up ordering champagne just for the sake of it! A minimum spend for karaoke and a high one at that? Considering how much everyone had drunk, it seemed a little over the top. By the end it was £35 a head. As I turned up late and missed the food I have to say that was the most expensive soft drink I’ve ever had!