Although Japan suffers the blight of Christmas muzak and gaudy decorations for just as long as any other place, when the day itself arrives that strange Japanese pattern of ‘we’re nearly there, we’re nearly there, we’re nowhere’ reasserts itself. After over a month of preliminaries and expectation, Christmas day is indistinguishable from any other working day. All my Japanese friends, those who are not fortunate academics with much longer vacations than most people, are at work. They won’t be giving each other presents, not as a rule anyway, and so a major retail opportunity goes begging. I suppose the Japanese department chains and other stores have tried to make Christmas the holy rite of consumption it is in most Christian places, but they must have failed. The people of Japan deserve a pat on the back for their powers of resistance.

But I am getting ahead of myself, because Christmas Eve came first.

Both Satomi and Akiko are already spoken for over the Christmas season, and Emi is in Kyoto. I want to use this opportunity to have a look at Tokyo nightclubs, so I plant myself in Roppongi. I find I can’t set foot on the street without an American Negro sidling up to me and whispering the irresistible words ‘Wanna see da best strip show in Tokyo?’ or ‘Wanna meet some sexy Japanese girls?’ or ‘Sexy massage.’

From my hotel window I have a good view of Tokyo tower, which is supposedly taller than the Eiffel tower. Having seen both I find this hard to believe. Perhaps it is the chunkiness of the tower in Tokyo that makes it look squat by comparison. The tower in Paris creates a delicate soaring effect that this one fails to achieve.

Tokyo is grey. Grey cars, grey buildings, grey clothes and grey sky. Sarariman uniforms are extended in view of the inclement weather to include grey trench coats. The press of bodies is one of the first things to strike foreigners coming to Asia, and I feel the need to adjust every time I come here. Apparently the first thing that strikes Asians when they venture to Caucasian shores is how fat everybody is. ‘And they don’t care!’ they say. But I digress.

I start at the top when it comes to nightclubs. Just around the corner from my hotel is Velfarre – an awful set of consonants for the Japanese tongue. People have described this club to me as gorgeous, spectacular, enormous and extravagant. From road level I ascend a huge red-carpet staircase. The entrance fee tonight is 5,000 yen. This entitles me to descend in the lift back down to the level I started at. Stepping out of the lift I find a large dark room, high-ceilinged, tiered, with an gigantic mirror ball slowly revolving at its centre. Everything I see here I saw during my first forays into discos in the mid-1970s, so why is it so expensive? A singer called Anri is on stage and she is, I later learn, well-known. When I tell friends I spent part of Christmas Eve at an Anri concert, they say ‘how romantic!’ Indeed, the audience is made up predominantly of couples, most sitting quietly and watching the band. They can only be described as well-behaved. Anri is a pretty, confident girl, not brash or raunchy, not affected. She finishes with a tear-jerking version of ‘Silent Night’.

The only other gaijin I see are two female employees both dressed as Santa Claus, whose function seems to be to create excitement by dancing and running around the club. My presence surprises a few people. One girl recoils from me as if I might contaminate her as I move past. After the show is over the two energetic gaijin females get up on stage and dance to KC and the Sunshine Band. One of them appears to be conducting a destruction test on a pair of white hotpants. Overall, the club is a disappointment, so I look for something else. The Gas Panic bar is not far away. I am sure it will be a little livelier than Velfarre.

Actually Gas Panic is not the dive I’d expected. Pairs of prim Japanese girls in cashmere cardigans sit at tables. Admittedly, two are squatting on the bar and revealing their underwear. The gaijin staff appear to have learnt their manners from the Japanese. They are all impeccably polite. It is really still too early to be here (only 11:30 pm). KC and the Sunshine Band blast out of the speakers. This time it is the original song. In Velfarre it had been a sampled and remixed version.

I am not interested in staying here either. Both clubs have unexceptional music, dress, décor, behaviour; nothing I haven’t seen before. Whereas Velfarre’s look is seventies disco, Gas Panic’s is seventies punk. I’ve run out of enthusiasm for this evening, so I drop into Starbucks for a caffe latte. Upstairs I find a big armchair by the window and look out onto the street. Beside me a girl is alone but asleep in her armchair. Across the room another is doing her knitting. Christmas in Tokyo is really rocking. I can’t wait for New Year.

I walk back to the hotel. At 1:30 am I peer out of the window to see if it is worth going out again, but the streets look quiet. I realise it is Christmas day now, and fall asleep.

Later on Christmas morning, I go for a long walk around the city – to see what happens to normal people today. Nothing much, though at Takeshitadori I see a girl with long fire engine red hair wearing a kimono, looking like a cross-dressing underage kabuki dancer.

After dinner I go looking for another famous club, Yellow. I set off through Roppongi. Tokyo’s finest women appear to be out tonight, and this drives my search, but all I find is many interesting and intimate little bars dotted around the Nishi-Azubu district – good for taking a girl to, not so good for taking a girl from. After crossing my tracks several times I realise I’m getting less interested in forking out 4,000 yen to listen to house and techno, so I trudge back, running the tout gauntlet once more, to my hotel.