Sayonara Dinner and Karaoke

I'll note up front that this entry has nothing to do with the news or the nuclear plant situation. Consider this a commercial break of sorts, I'll get back to the serious stuff soon enough.


One of Husband's coworkers is being relocated for most of the next year, so went to dinner at Manmamiya and then to karaoke.

That night's house appetizer was some sort of tofu topped with mushroom and shallots/green onions/whatever those things are. And something red. Tomato, maybe? The squishy thing on the side might have been a radish cake or potato-based or something, all we could say for certain was that it had sesame seeds in it.



Manmamiya is an izakaya, so there aren't any entrees. Small dishes are ordered for the table and everyone shares. You end up with fairly small portions of everything (if you have a large group) but lots of variety and the whole meal isn't unreasonably priced when all is said and done.

I forgot to take pictures of both salads, the sweet potato fries (served with honey butter, I'm going to try making those at home sometime) and the cherry tomatoes wrapped in bacon on a stick, but I think I got everything else. We got multiple plates of the dishes we really liked.

Chicken and onion skewers:

Fried something-plantlike-or-other, I can't remember what it was called.

Soft tofu, but it came with a great many flavor toppings to choose from.
Sweet? Salty? Spicy? Take your pick!


Not sure if this is a dragon roll, but it's at least similar.



On to karaoke!

The room we were in had the usual setup - booth seats around the edge of the room, a couple tables, karaoke sound system and television...this one was notable because of two things: really comical pairings of stock footage with lyrics and a cartoon of a panda with a microphone in an inappropriate place.


Lyrics and stock footage

Japanese songs (the handful we did) and one of the Chinese songs had the official music videos, or at least ones that made sense with the lyrics. The rest weren't so lucky.

For example, random Chinese song gets pandas!

"Rehab" by Amy Winehouse was paired with farmland and rural America.

"Don't Stop Believing" by Journey had footage of a girl waiting for a friend in Central Park in the middle of the afternoon.


"No You Girls" by Franz Ferdinand was backed with video exclusively of ornate architectural features.


"Love Shack" by the B-52s has all kinds of amusing juxtapositions. You don't need the audio; suffice to say we're not demonstrating perfect pitch, but make up for it with oodles of enthusiasm.

"Closer" by Nine Inch Nails was completely unrelated with its sunny Central Park visuals.

(Lyric: help me I've got no soul to sell)

(Lyric: help me get away from myself)

(Lyric: my whole existence is flawed)

(Lyric: you can have the hate that it brings
This one is my favorite. That squirrel is clearly full of angst.)

"Creep" by Radiohead was alternately spot on and completely wrong. This one actually had a sort of plot, starting with a shy guy with a crush on some blonde that walks her dog. Some of these screenshots are funnier out of context.



So after Shy Guy gives Blonde Girl the love note or poem or whatever, he literally runs away.

And then he sits on the beach, poor acting making him look pretty relaxed and like he's forgotten all about his humiliation and assumed rejection.

But far from "running out again," she stalks him while he's wearing headphones to strike from behind!

She steals his ear buds! And smiles a truly creepy smile.
She puts one bud back in his ear and puts the other in hers. Everybody in the karaoke room went, "yugh." Shared earwax is kinda gross.
But they're both apparently creeps and weirdos, if this out-of-context image is to be believed. So I guess it all works out.


Yeah, the endings of the video and song didn't really jive.


Inappropriate Panda!

On the karaoke machine next to the keypad used for adding songs to the queue, was a looped video. No words, no sound. Unfortunately, it took me a few tries to get the whole Panda sequence because the current or next song's information would randomly pop up.

But it was just so unexpected I had to share it. The internet had to know!

It started out all cute, with a panda traipsing about with a microphone...

...and then it just got weird.

Goodnight, everyone!