It is a little after 8 pm as I make my way with a group of friends through a crowded Shibuya — Tokyo’s hippest shopping and entertainment district — marked by towering skyscraper malls and giant video screens advertising everything from a Tower Records sale to the new Tupac Shakur docufilm.

Our destination is a cavernous basement izakaya, or Japanese pub. Izakayas are about the only public place where the sedate Japanese really let their hair down as they unwind after a hard day’s work over two-hour long nomikais, or drinking parties.

Like most izakayas, this one, trickily concealed in the basement of a 10-storey building housing restaurants, clubs, massage parlours and bowling alleys, has the traditional akachochin or red lantern hanging just outside its entrance. Inside, the place is dimly lit, smoke-filled and noisy. We are instantly enveloped by the strong welcoming smell of beer, sake and shochu (a distilled local wine). This izakaya is bigger than most and is divided into several little seating arrangements, most of which are in groups of fours. A smiling waiter leads us to our area — a longish alcove with seating for 10.

We take off our shoes and sit Japanese style on small rectangular cushions placed on a tatami floor, all around a low sunken table. We follow general izakaya etiquette and order a first round of drinks from a selection of beer, wines and cocktails — the Japanese mix just about any fruit with any alcohol.

Because I am a gaijin, or foreigner, unable to speak more than a few words of grammatically mangled Japanese, my friends helpfully translate the menu for me. Ordering the right food to go with the drinks seems to be important, which at first took some getting used to, since back home most of my drinking was done with cornflour-covered chilly chicken, peanuts or chanachur. I guess, correctly, that the food here is going to be an excitingly long way off from my chanachur days as ceramic plates start appearing laden with sticks of yakitori (grilled chicken coated in soya sauce), delicate gyozas (dumplings) bamboo shoots with bits of meat, grilled tofu squares and daintily wrapped crisp spring rolls. We pick up our chopsticks, lift our glasses and with loud “kampais” (the Japanese equivalent of “cheers”) begin the first round of the evening.

Like in all pubs, after a while everyone begins sharing closely-guarded life secrets with everyone else. Typical Japanese reserve begins to wear off at the edges, as my friends start talking more frankly, less guardedly. “I want to say something to you all,” says one friend getting up a little unsteadily. He has been drinking a brilliantly coloured cocktail that tastes a bit like strawberries and oranges blended with a generous amount of vodka, interspersed with shots of warm sake (Japanese mix drinks as a matter of course and tankards of draft beer are punctuated with sake shots through the night).

He stands up and folds his palms together, dressed in a batik T-shirt, baggy trousers with more than one bead necklace around his neck, this young man has recently returned from the United States. A little earlier he had solemnly confessed to me that he was “not certain about his life”. Before he can make his little speech though, the appearance of food causes a mild distraction.

Food served, we turn back to our sombre friend. “I am a homosexual... and I think you [here he points a wavy finger at the only sober person at our table, a brooding early thirtyish, very shy colleague] are my type.” A few seconds of confusion greets this announcement, everybody is trying hard to be polite which means no questions will be asked. However, given the lateness of the hour and the number of draft beers that have gone around this table, some lapses are excusable.

A friend sitting across the table hollers at me in what she thinks is a whisper: “Did he say homosexual?! Why is he still standing? Does he like someone at the table? Why didn’t he simply speak in Japanese? It would have been easier to understand... Why did he have to tell us now?!”

On second thoughts, an izakaya was probably the best place to make an announcement like this. With coming out of the closet publicly still pretty much the exception in Japan, a crowded smoke-filled izakaya provides the sort of atmosphere that makes such disclosures a lot easier.

Within minutes of the announcement, everyone’s involved in the more immediate matter of ordering another round of drinks. Seemingly, endless rounds of drinks and food don’t end up costing the earth at izakayas because of the popular Japanese system of splitting the bill equally between everyone. So the more people invited to a nomikai, the less each person pays.

Once introduced, however clumsily, the topic of sexual orientation sticks to our sunken table which is now beginning to resemble the Maidan after the Calcutta Book Fair. Overflowing ashtrays, odd bits of paper, ballpoint pens, cigarettes stubbed out in empty soya sauce dishes, paper napkins, half-filled cocktail glasses and empty sake cups litter the polished lacquer tabletop. The conversation revolves around same-sex relationships — maybe everyone’s trying to make our young just-out friend more comfortable. Or maybe it’s simply more fun to talk about sexuality after alcohol takes care of our inhibitions.

With noise levels in the izakaya rising in direct proportion to the lateness of the hour, we’ve now been yelling out at each other for the last hour and a half. During a momentary lull at our table I happily realise that everybody’s yelling out at everyone all over the place. Ribald jokes accompanied by much laughter comes from a table of salarymen nearby; an impromptu karaoke session is breaking out at another table of young office-goers. Things at our table, in the meantime, have become more chaotic than ever with my young homosexual friend singing the Japanese version of My Grandfather’s Clock to no one in particular. Calling it a night just about now seems to be the right thing to do.

We leave the izakaya and step out into the crazy neon-washed world of Shibuya at midnight. As we walk by crowded pachinko parlours, exotic massage clubs and 24-hour coffee shops, we’re already working out the details of our next nomikai.