My Relax Place

Kabukicho is Shinjuku’s Red Light district filled with hostess bars, host bars, shops, restaurants, night clubs, and “love hotels”. It is often called the “Sleepless Town”.

Nowadays, if you stroll down the street in Shinjuku’s sprawling adult entertainment zone, Kabukicho, you’re likely to be propositioned by a crowd of aggressive black touts, who entice passers-by with offers of the area’s many corporeal delights.

A more recent development appears to be the rapid emergence of black hostesses, who are competing aggressively with the Chinese and other Asians who had previously serviced customers. They are from Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia and other places. Most of these hostesses work at a type of establishment referred to as an “international club,” ostensibly inexpensive watering holes that operate similarly to Japan’s native cabaret clubs. The posted signs indicate a price of 4,000 yen for 90 minutes of fun. To ensure you get the black hostesses, be sure to request “Afurika no ko” (an African gal) to the maitre d’ upon entering.

The hostesses will usually try to get a customer drunk by continuously ordering drinks to inflate the tab. This will end up with a more expensive bill than the 4,000 yen shown on the sign posted outside as promised. It is not an outrageous rip-off by Shinjuku standards, true, but typically deceptive. A Nigerian club owner was arrested previous in July after padding a customer’s bill to the tune of 230,000 yen! Thus, delight, deception and risqué await the visitor to Shinjuku.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 20th, 2006 at 10:36 am and is filed under Advice and Guide, Interesting Stuff. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.