After the Italian, we wanted to find a pub, which is obviously hard because all the signs are in Japanese - and Japanese pubs don’t look like English pubs - my how we take for granted the good old hanging signs with rustic names like ‘The Foxglove’ and ‘The Shepherds Arms’ outside British pubs. We stumble across one of the many neon signs - the one that says ‘Vanilla pub’ in a garish pink glow. We should have known. I suspected something was a little funny about the place - having to get to it by an elevator up to the second floor. The small size of the place, the curtains closed, but Siobhan just had to barge in there!
We had entered a ‘Snack bar’ or, if you like, a hostess bar. They seem to have these a lot in Japan, and its our own fault in hindsight for entering it. They are places where working men can go for a drink and a bit of attention from a beautiful Japanese lady who will listen to their every word and make them feel special for a their stay. We shouldn’t have been fooled by the word ‘pub’! Anyway, we enter - it’s pretty quiet, there is a gentleman at the bar, and the workers behind the bar are all women in glamorous costumes. They stare at us then at each other thinking ‘Foreigners? In Japan? In Shinjo? And what are they doing here?’ especially considering it was me and two girls. But nevertheless we sat down and got some drinks. Soon after the drinks, Ai and Koyuki came along to chat with us! I don’t think they were quite sure what to do with us, but it was quite funny really, using a mix of broken English and broken Japanese they probably quite enjoyed a change of scene.
We spoke about Hobbies, introduced ourselves - it wasn’t so bad! It turned out that it was Koyuki’s third day on the job so she was a little nervous! Me and Emily were only slightly freaked out by what we had entered into - surprisingly it was Siobhan who was most uncomfortable - which is quite unlike her, and especially considering she was the one who boldly barged through the threshold through to the bar.
The memorable 'Pub Vanilla'
My poor Japanese managed to get us out of the place within 30/40 minutes or so, saying we had to meet a friend at a certain time. Our short visit wasn’t cheap. It cost us about ￥5000 for 2 drinks each and a chinwag with the lovely ladies! We got our photo taken with them too for that much money! It was an experience, but we shan’t be reliving it anytime soon!
After our close escape, we quickly saw a karaoke bar. Siobhan had been to the same place with her work collegues so it was tried and tested - and safe! The place was quite quiet so we had a chance to sing a bit of Karaoke (a beautiful quintet of Disney’s ‘A Whole New World’ was the highlight, featuring myself, Emily, Siobhan and the two Japanese girls who were the only other people in the bar that Siobhan started talking to). We had a drink or two their and then continued on our way to actually find a proper Japanese pub.
I'm not drunk...just enjoying the Karaoke!
We tried to ask somebody where we could find a ‘pub’ pub (Izakaya is the Japanese term), luckily we bumped into a group of merry-sounding young Japanese guys who were on their way to an Izakaya. ‘Great!’ We all thought - ‘How exciting! We’ve founds some friends who want to have a drink with us!’…..we arrived at the venue and they told us to sit down to wait to be seated…..and they left us! They got their own booth and left us to get our own! We weren’t expecting to be ditched like that, especially when they were being so nice and friendly to us(…well, a few appeared to be a little scared of us) - but the Japanese are typically polite, but sometimes the friendliness can end there! It was quite funny, we laughed it off and got our own booth. After buying some drinks we invited ourselves into another booth with a group full of young Japanese girls and had a chat and a few photos with them, and then finally invited ourselves into the booth of the Japanese guys, chatted and had a few photos with them! It was fun, but we wanted to move on, so we left them.
Us and the guys who abandoned us!
Back out on the streets of Shinjo, we bumped into a group of slightly older guys - again a little merry - who were on their way to an Izakaya and invited us along….it turned out to be the same Izakaya we’d just left, so we told them and they went and found another one! They were much more friendly - probably because they were quite drunk before they’d met us - they bought us Beer, Sake, Sushi and we had a lot of fun laughing and chatting with them! It turned out they all lived in Kaneyama, where Siobhan lives.
The Kaneyama guys
By this time it was about 3am in the morning and we were all quite merry. The pub was shutting and we ordered a special kind of taxi. I think the Japanese word is ‘daiiso’ but I can’t quite remember. Instead the of the taxi having just one driver, it has two. One person picks up your car, and the other follows behind. It’s a great service and not too pricey! What was quite impressive was that the guy managed to find my car in a busy car park at the Hospital in a very short space of time, and in the meantime we chatted to a bunch of merry young Japanese people outside the bar! It was a crazy great night - so much seemed to happen in what was quite a short space of time!
Our Taxi driver, who I shall call 'Jimmy', driving my car back to Siobhan's place!
The day after we woke up at 1pm - considering that me and Siobhan had had about 3/4 hours sleep within the space of two days, we slept very deeply! For a late breakfast we had Mister Donuts (one of the things we should also import from the US) and then bought some ingredients for tea! We had a real craving for a proper British dinner. Emily had a Microwave/Oven, so I volunteered to try making Yorkshire puddings and also craved to make Chicken wrapped in Bacon stuffed with Brie! (Probably my all-time favourite dish!) Emily made cheesy mashed potatoes and we had some broccolli too! (Siobhan was useless….I think she laid the table….I THINK) It was so delicious! We just chilled out at Emily’s and had a lovely meal together! I must say my Yorkshire puddings worked out quite well, unfortunately I couldn’t find shallow enough trays for the batter, so they were probably more Yorkshire cakes - but they still had the same great taste! Given the size of Japanese kitchens and the small size of the Microwave ovens (which I must say are sufficiently effective when they play the role of ‘oven’), it was tricky keeping everything hot and ready at the same time. But we managed OK!
(Congratulations! You made it to the end of the most recent two part epic!)
No comments:
Post a Comment