A woman working as a hostess in a Japanese bar has to concentrate on just one task, keeping the customer happy.

Happy customers stay longer. They drink more of the bars’ expensive drinks.

That means more commissions for the hostess and more profits for the bar.

There are thousands of hostess bars in Tokyo. Club Lounge Monina is one of the more respectable establishments.

Paid to entertain

The foreign women working there told me they were not prostitutes but entertainers - but they were not keen to give their real names for fear of what their friends and families back home might think of them.

‘Karen’, who is from the Philippines, said: “Our job is just to talk to people who come in to drink, to sing along with them on the karaoke machine, to make them laugh and to try to listen to them.”

Lucie Blackman was killed while working as a hostess

She works five nights a week from Monday to Friday at the club. She says she earns 2,500 yen (10) an hour.

But that is just the beginning. Hostess bars have complicated systems of rewards and bonuses.

“We get tips as well as the commissions for the drinks and if we invite customers to the bar we get money for that too,” said Karen.

Hostesses can also go on dinner dates with customers, known as dohan. They get their dinner paid for and then bring the customer to the club.

The night we were at Club Lounge Monina one of the customers was giving out gifts to a couple of the women he was sitting with.

The women who work there insisted they did not offer any sexual services to the customers.

Maybe some girls work as prostitutes, I don’t know what goes on in other places, but not here ‘Vivienne’

‘Vivienne’, who is from Brazil, said she was worried before she started but she said: “I was so tired of working in a convenience store. I thought to myself, I will give it a try. That was two-and-a-half years ago. I’m still here, I think it is OK.

“Maybe some girls work as prostitutes, I don’t know what goes on in other places, but not here.”

The bar we visited is owned and run by Monina.

At 34, she is unusually young to be a hostess boss or mama-san.

“The best hostesses are good looking for sure, but then it also depends on how they attract customers. It’s not easy if you’re not smart,” she said.

Stricter controls

Currently most of the women she employs are from Asia.

“I used to have many girls, from Cameroon, Senegal, Europeans, Americans, every country but the dating funny tip become much stricter and also the economy’s not so good. Before it was easier to give higher wages, but now it’s not,” she said.

The authorities do seem to be tightening up the dating advices exeter in
rules. In the past many women worked in the entertainment districts illegally on tourist visas.

That is not so easy these days.

The immigration department says it has introduced more rigorous checks on young women arriving from certain countries where they suspect significant numbers of illegal workers are coming from.

Since 2005 new measures to combat human trafficking have also been introduced.

Responsibility

Monina said there was only so much a mama-san can do to ensure the safety of the girls who work for her.

“It’s really the girl’s responsibility. There are certain rules that you teach the girls, how to tell who is a good, who is a bad customer for instance, but you cannot control what they do out of hours. After the club closes it’s up to them to decide how far they want to go with the customer,” she said.

Hostess bars are part of the mainstream of Japanese culture. Business deals are done there and clients dating parent single tip. Wives know they are part of life for “salarymen”.

After the club closes it’s up to them to decide how far they want to go with the customer Monina

But when you sit there and watch the young women cuddling up to the older customers, or so drunk they can barely keep standing to finish their song on the karaoke machine, you wonder whether it really is that innocent.

Of course there are establishments far more sleazy than the one we visited.

As Japanese journalist Kentaro Katayama points out, if a salaryman is looking for sex a hostess club is not necessarily the best place to find it.

He said: “If you really want to have sex with somebody it’s much easier to go to a prostitute.

“Going to a hostess club would cost you more than meeting a prostitute in Tokyo. It is very expensive, and yet still people like to go.”

Leaving British shores for a year of adventure in faraway lands has almost become a rite of passage for school-leavers and university graduates.

Whether it be teaching English in an African village, swinging from a bungee in New Zealand or backpacking across South America, the gap year industry is booming and is now worth an estimated global 5bn each year.

But, while young people are filled with a sense of adventure and eager for experience, some can also be naive of the dangers which sometimes lie in wait for them when they step off the plane.

Darker side

The case of British bar hostess Lucie Blackman shows the gap-year experience can free lesbian dating advices
have a darker side.

On Tuesday a Japanese businessman, Joji Obara, was cleared of raping her and causing her death but there is no doubt she was killed.

Last month the body of 22-year-old Lindsay Ann Hawker was found buried in sand in a bath in Japan, and last year student Katherine Horton was raped and killed by two fishermen on the island of Koh Samui, Thailand.

TIPS FOR SOLO WOMEN TRAVELLERS Trust your instincts Dress modestly Be aware of local customs Pack door locks/wedges and a personal alarm Copy travel documents and give them to family Know the way to your hotel Take licensed taxis and sit in the back Tell people where you are going Don’t arrive in a place after dark Think about how your behaviour may be read Say a firm ‘No, thank you’ to unwanted male advances Keep your drink in sight Take out good travel insurance Source: Objective Travel Safety/gapyear.com/Lucie Blackman Trust

But these stories made the headlines because they were so rare.

So, are young women prepared for the dangers of travelling alone?

Matt Searle, of the Lucie Blackman Trust, set up by Lucie’s father Tim to advise young people about safety, says they are often not aware enough.

“Years ago a gap year would have been out of the question for most people because it would have been too expensive,” he says.

“But now young girls leave university and have enough money to backpack around, say, Nepal - and will go and do it.

“But they often don’t realise that when you step off the shores of Britain, everything is different.”

Opportunities

Evelyn Hannon, editor of the Advice dating advices guy triangle
Journeywoman newsletter and website which is accessed by 60,000 women worldwide, says women find travelling solo rewarding and therapeutic. But they must also prepare well, she says.

“Solo travel for women has become a rite of passage - at key moments in their life, such as at the end of high school or university.

Lucie Blackman’s body was found in a cave outside Tokyo in 2001

“But they have to realise how to stay safe. It isn’t like walking in their own neighbourhood.”

Georgie Aldous, one of the female trainers for Objective Travel Safety, which runs a safety course for gap year travellers, says young women seem to be more “savvy” than their male dating seduction tip.

“But they find it much harder to stick to those instincts, especially if they are younger and with other young men,” she says.

The crucial things for young women to remember are to trust their gut feelings and to acknowledge cultural differences, she says.

“They must realise about their appearance and that what goes here doesn’t always go elsewhere.

“In Britain it is normal to have equal relationships between girls and boys - but in many countries it is very much still ‘Bruces and Sheilas’. If you chat a man up, you will run into problems of him trying to make a move and all that leads to,” she warns.

The cultural differences are more pronounced in countries where religion plays a large part in daily life, she says.

“This is purely because none of the parents in these countries would let their daughters go around unaided,” she adds.

“This is where a lot of problems stem from - this coupled with the perception of northern European women as having a bad name for themselves.”

Observing etiquette

Tom Griffiths, founder of gapyear.com, believes being culturally aware is key.

“As a young woman, whether you agree or disagree with it, there are places where women play a subservient role in society and you have to be aware of the etiquette,” he says.

Joji Obara was found guilty of killing Australian Carita Ridgway

“For example, walking in front of the Taj Mahal in a bikini is not going to go down too well.”

In the age of the internet, there was “no excuse for not knowing these things”, he says.

But while women may be dating dating man successful tip woman during the daytime, problems often occur at night, when defences are down.

The Lucie Blackman Trust says women cannot afford to let their guard relax with people they do not know - especially because of the dangers of date rape drugs.

Lucie is believed to have been drugged by her killer.

The reality is when you are backpacking, you will be with other people, you are rarely alone Tom Griffiths

“If you are going to a bar, try to do it with a group of people that you trust,” Mr Searle says. “With regard to drinks - make sure you see the barman pour it, and don’t let go of it.

“Only let someone look after your drink if you trust them with your life - because that is essentially what you are doing.”

However, despite the perils, the vast majority of single travellers return from their adventures safely, and Mr Griffiths says solo women are often the toughest of them all.

He says: “They are the most confident travellers and other men and women backpackers tend to look out for them - and the reality is when you are backpacking, you will be with other people, you are rarely alone.”

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Let us kick off with a site that is ideal for budding musicians.

SoundJunction is an extremely comprehensive site dedicated to all things musical. If you want to find out about different styles of music from rock to jazz, or if you are thinking about taking up an instrument, it is all here.

There is a heavy bias towards education, which tends to mean each topic is discussed in exhaustive detail.

For example, navigate through the “How music works” section and you will find articles, photos and the history of specific musical instruments. There are even expert tips on how to play instruments, in some cases there are video clips demonstrating the instruments in use.

But if you really want to get your hands dirty, head back to the main menu and click on the “Composer” section, which contains a simple piece of music-editing software.

It is loaded with a selection of pre-recorded samples. These can be dragged and dropped onto a timeline, eventually building together to make a finished track.

While it might not be up to professional standards, it is free, and this simple application allows the novice to grasp the basics of digital composing.

A great site for anybody thinking about taking up an instrument or if you just want to know the difference between a violin and a viola.

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Billing itself as an online encyclopaedia of interesting vehicles, Diseno-art is a must-visit site for fans of all things vehicular. This site ignores average everyday vehicles and focuses on innovative and interesting machines.

The homepage features top notch news, which is regularly updated with photos and articles about the world’s most exotic vehicles. But the site really comes into its own when you stray away from the pictures of the latest super cars and start investigating the weirder vehicles stored in the archive.

Broken down into sections focusing on cars, boats and aircraft, a quick click on any of these groups reveals hundreds of pages detailing exotic vehicles, old and new.

The concept car and strange vehicle sections are of particular interest. Here you will find photos and stats about some of the weirdest modes of transport ever conceived. How about the land-walker exoskeleton, or the dolphin-shaped speed boat?

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If you would like to animate your own cartoons, write your own video games or even create interactive artworks, but cannot be bothered with all of that complicated coding business this next site could be for you.

Scratch is the brainchild of Dating free pal pen tip zambia Institute of Technology’s (MIT) media lab. It is a set of tools designed to be used by people without computer programming skills - that is most of us then.

It makes use of a graphical interface which allows the user to build a sequence with building blocks. These are dragged, dropped then linked together, a little bit like multimedia Lego.

Images can be selected from an existing library or imported from your hard drive.

Once imported, a number of action blocks can be assigned to the image. These blocks are assigned commands like “move” or “play drum”, and the blocks can then simply be stacked together to create an animation.

Once your masterpiece is complete it can be uploaded to the Scratch site for other users to check out.

Scratch’s inspiration comes from Hip-Hop DJs, who take a bit of this and a bit of that to create something new.

While the site is primarily aimed at younger users, it is still a lot of fun for grown-ups with a creative streak.

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Finally a site for anybody with their feet on the ground but their eyes fixed on the heavens. Astronomers have thousands of sites dedicated to stargazing, but this next site is for fans of man-made celestial objects.

Heavens Above is a community dedicated to watching satellites, the Online dating advices arizona
Space Station and even the Space Shuttle.

A community of thousands of stargazers, they have built up a database of satellite orbits and their co-ordinates in the night sky.

To find out when a satellite or other object is orbiting and visible from where you are, click on the “Select location” option, simply choose your country, then choose your town or city.

From here the site will present you with a list of visible objects in space and where a telescope will need to be aligned to see them.

Click on the “International Space Station”, for instance, and the site reveals the time and date of its next visible orbit from your location.

Even if the weather obscures your view of space you can still check out the progress of an object of interest. Choose the orbit option on the satellite info page and the site offers a graphical representation of the object’s path through the night sky.