"...they don't all look that, right?"

My remember my first time going to a host club the way everyone remembers their first kiss. Except, I don't actually remember my first kiss...but that's beside the point. It was sometime in February 2011.

My lovely friend Santana (from Europe), who I didn't really know at the time and Lilly and I went. We were walking on the streets of Kabukicho (me feeling horribly uneasy) and did manage to get approached a couple times by pretty boys, but their turned down foreigners. In retrospect, I'm guessing it was my wide doe-eyed stare of fear that probably did us in.

Santana complained that hardly anyone was out that night, which was surprising because it was a weekend, I think, and also 8pm, which is a good time for going. And then...he found us.

The Hesitation.

The Hesitation needs his own paragraph. He was this short Japanese guy with a colored mowhawk and a terrifying face that I have yet to see on another host. One eye is much smaller than the other, and even if they were normal, he'd still be not a great sight to look at. Perhaps that sounds mean, but I'm just being honest. Even nowadays, I pass by him. Also, we call him The Hesitation because when I looked up the club on Host2Host and found him, google translated his name to that and I nearly died laughing. He's infamous to us now.

He had begged us to go, but we were hesitant given his....look. He insisted there were a lot of ikemen (beautiful men), and so we all finally agreed.

Me: Lilly....are they all going to look that? Is that how hosts look? The posters don't look like that!
Lilly: God, I hope not....we'll just run.

They, fortunately, were mostly rather attractive.

My Japanese....sucked. It still sucks. But then, it really REALLY sucked. We were the first customers in that night, and the hosts were all shocked to see us. I was sat in between my two friends on the long couch, and the hosts sat in chairs across from us. The first host, bless his heart, put in quite an effort to make conversation and used all sorts of crazy hand motions. The only conversation I remember with him was him trying to make me understand something about LA having guns and making a gun with his hands and shouting BANG! At the end of the night, I picked him to walk me out.

At some point in the night, I joined Lilly's conversation with two hosts which got on the subject of penises. Little did I know what a common topic that would become for me. But I degress...

One host insisted his friends (the rather stocky host next to him) was quite well-endowed. Both Lilly and I were really curious, and I insisted she should pick him and then take one for the team so we would know for sure, which she did....and he didn't. But even to this day, we call him BP (Big Penis).

The Hesitation also sat next to Lilly for a while attempting to canoodle his way to a hotel with her, which I found amusing and she found horrifying.

Afterward, I wasn't sure exactly what I'd just experienced...but I knew that I wanted to get better at Japanese and try it again.

~W. Anon

The Shortest Host Club Introduction Possibly Ever Written

If I had to estimate how many host clubs I've been to in the past 5 months, I'd say around....25, perhaps? All of these except one were located in Kabukichou, Tokyo's infamous Red Light District.

Bottom left corner. Its Blue Steel from Zoolander!

Here's a super quick introduction to hosts clubs:

Step 1: You wander Kabukichou, get creeped on by various old men and Nigerians, and then eventually a host might come up to you and offer a flyer for his club. Host clubs are usually 500 to 1000 yen for one or two hours your first visit. This first visit is called shoukai.

Step 2: You find the club. Normally, for legal reasons, the boys may not walk you there, and thus you get the joy of wandering back alleys by yourself. In my case, I did this with a friend or two. Safety in numbers, ladies. Upon finding the place, you show your ID at the front. You must be at least 20 to enter these clubs, and they are very strict about that. The boys, however, are not kept to the same standard. The youngest I've seen is 18, but I swear there've been 16-year-olds. Hard to tell with these pretty Japanese boys, sometimes.

Step 3: You sit, get a warm towel to wipe your hands on, and someone asks what you want to drink for the night. You get all you can drink (I always go with a milk tea and shochu combo). The hosts rotate throughout your time, handing you business cards with their name (a fake) and a cool design, or, if they are higher level hosts, their picture on it. There's flirting, drinking games, and amazement at the fact that you are foreign, speaking Japanese, and actually in a host club. Many of the clubs I've been to have never had a foreigner there before, in fact.

Step 4: At the end, you get to choose whichever guy you liked best to walk you out and exchange numbers/mail with so he can entice you to come back and shimmei him. This is far more expensive, as you are actually paying for this guy's time so he can come and sit with you. However, you will not be able to go back to the same club again without paying a higher price. This is why I've been so many.

So there's the quick and dirty version of a first-time visit to a host club.

I try to keep the meishi (business cards) each host gives from each club. Once I find them, my goal is to write an entry on them.

<3 W. Anon