Kichijoji at night

If possible, I think Kichijoji is even more crowded at night. We met up with a couple of Madoka's friends from work. We headed off to an arcade to kill a little time while some people were finishing up work before eating.












Here's one of Madoka's friends beating the hell out of Tekken. We watched him beat the whole game on one coin. It was very impressive.







Rhythm games like this taiko drumming game seem pretty popular. Watching the people playing was enough to dissuade me. It looks extremely difficult.







Grabbing games are also very popular. Half the arcade was filled with them. Unfortunately pictures were hard to get. All the flashing lights were hard on the poor autofocus.





We spent about an hour in the arcade and then headed to a restaurant. I'll get photos next time I'm there. Everyone sits around a low table in between two benches. There's a hole in the middle of the table in which a waiter drops a bucket full of hot coals. He then lays a metal grill on top of it. The food consisted mainly of raw marinated meat and vegetables which you're supposed to drop on the grill and cook yourself. We also had salad and sashimi(raw fish). This is a slow way of eating, and is intentional. While you wait on the food to cook, you drink. This makes heavy drinking quite endurable, since you're constantly getting food to offset the effects of the alcohol. My favorite for the night was definitely tako wasabi. It's small pieces of raw octopus soaked in a sauce of wasabi and soy sauce. It's extremely good.