It was Wendy's last night in Tokyo, so she needed a good girls' night, Tokyo-style. The Tokyo metro stops running at 1am, but clubs are open until 5am (the metro reopens again at 6am). Since our "catch-the-last-train/pay-too-much-for-taxi" incident in Osaka, the plan was to just head out late and stay up til the metro opens.
A friend recommended Club Ageha, but it required a shuttle ride from Roppongi. Rather than risk being stuck out in the boonies for the entire night, we aimed to go to WOMB and HARD @ Soft.
We started off at an izakaya, but with no English/pictures on the menu and the inability to verbally communicate with the staff, we only stayed for one dish each. I accidentally ordered skewered chicken liver, although Wendy saved it with her grilled mackerel dish (sake was honorable mention).
But off we went, in search of Soft. Figuring that the party at Soft would be more underground (read: small), we headed there first. (We wanted to save the WOMB party for the later hours, because that place looked crazy.) It took us a while to find Soft, but after several stops in convenience stores for directions, we go there. We stopped by the Am/Pm next door to grab a beverage because you can drink in public. Plus, drinking at a bar/club in Tokyo can get pretty pricey. The cheapest drink we found for the night was ¥500 (about USD $6). Kind of like NYC prices I guess. I got a nice peach fizzy drink and Wendy got a small bottle of whiskey and and a bottle of coke. Classy!
But thank god for this website, because HARD was such a great dance party! Really happy that I found this listed. The basement was small; it had a bar, a dance floor, mini stage, and a bathroom (tucked away in a corner. The entrance was pretty mysterious too). The DJs were playing excellent music (electro/dance/etc...the 3 DJs we saw were all sic), the energy level was high and positive, and the people were into the music and dancing. It didn't feel pretentious at all, considering how hip the place felt. If I lived in Tokyo, I would definitely hit this party up all the time. (Plus, it didn't hurt that there was a little eye-candy at the bar.)
At about 2ish, we decided to check out WOMB, in another part of Shibuya. I got directions from their website, but we just couldn't seem to find it. We stopped into more convenience stores (story of our night), but it just didn't happen. We did find the right area, and asked around about WOMB, but it sounded like it was wrapping up anyways (it was 3:30am at this point). We checked in with Club Asia, a hip hop club, but the cover was still ¥3500 (USD $42!! Apparently the average for the bigger, multi-story clubs.) We passed on that, and then came across Atom, which they were charging ¥3000. Since it was Wendy's last night (and probably the only time I would be out in Japan for the rest of the trip), we went in.
But the bouncer that greeted us asked Wendy where she was from, and ended up giving us a discount; it turned out to be ¥1000 each, including a drink ticket. Score! And let me say, Atom was CRAZY. It was only 2 floors (we had to take an elevator to get there), but it was packed, especially on the main room. I have never seen such an enthusiastic crowd at a club. We could have been at a concert and these people were the band's number one fans. Everyone was singing at the top of their lungs and dancing so hard to US and Japanese hits. It was intense! The other floor had good electro music, but there wasn't as much people and there seemed to be a group of white males on the prowl for Japanese girls. A bit creepy. We just danced on the other floor.
No pictures allowed. Oops.
Even though Atom had great energy, the vibe was way different from Soft. It was more meat-market; kinda gross. At the end, we closed the place down at 5am, and they kicked us out onto the elevators. (Can we say "fire hazard"?) There must have been at least 250 people waiting to take just the 2 elevators, no optional staircase.
When we stepped outside, it was daylight, and crowds of people were making their way back to the Shibuya station. It wasn't open yet, so we killed some time at a rice bowl place. It was the perfect post-clubbing meal.
I have to say, Tokyo is pretty safe (other than the elevator-fire hazard). When we were walking towards the station at 5:30am, there were a few guys, who you can tell had a late night drinking/clubbing, just passed on the sidewalk or at a storefront. They didn't look homeless at all, they just needed a place to rest. This was just amazing to me; it's THAT safe.
And that was our night-to-day out....thank you, Shibuya!
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