Bar hopping

The five of us walked down the street towards... somewhere. It was raining hard then, but we all had umbrellas, because that's what you do in Japan. It wasn't far, and turns out we were simply going to a restaurant where we sat, and drank and ate some appetizers. We were told the lunch there was much better than the dinner. There were three japanese with us and we talked about various things, one of the men, Yasurimotoさん, is a retired Kyoto police officer who now worked in the city office and has a son in Seattle. The younger man, Nishimotoさん, also works in the city office and, from what I understood, tested and monitored water quality in the area. He also keeps aquariums, so we were able to throw names of different fish back and forth to see what stuck. We also had some Shōchū, which from his talk of potatoes I though was simply a potato vodka like Chopin, but turns out it's a little different. The third man, Suzukiさん, was boisterous and seemed to be well known by many people. We sat at the first place for awhile, then all of a sudden everyone got up, into a waiting cab, and we were somewhere else. Suzukiさん had paid the bill.

The second place was much like the first, just a small little restaurant and we met someone else there. Before arriving, we were told we were going for pancakes. These were not breakfast pancakes, but meat, shrimp, vegetable, egg-omelet type food cooked on the grill at our table. The hostess came over with a bowl of these ingredients, cracked the raw egg, stirred everything together and poured it down on the grill. After a few minutes, we flipped them over, brushed a thick sauce on top, sprinkled on spices, and viola. There was sumo on the tv and we saw the champion match where Kotoōshū became the first European to win the Emperor's Cup. Suzukiさん asked us what other Japanese food we liked, then same as before, all of a sudden we were headed somewhere else. Again, Suzukiさん had paid the bill.

This time it was someplace a little larger where we all removed our shoes and sat around a low table. Along the way I was asked if I liked turtle and I had to admit I had never had it. So that was the first dish to arrive, a big bowl of soup with chunks of turtle, followed by some tofu and a selection of sushi. It was here that a pair of Katherine's friends, along with Yasurimotoさん wife showed up, so we were a larger group. It was good to have my electronic dictionary with me, though it's somewhat less useful for knowing what I want to say, but more for handing to a japanese person so they can quickly look up words (see previous post Mibu-Kyogen). This time, some money was exchanged as it was time to go, but we still didn't end up paying anything as it was made to seem like they accepted our bills, then simply passed it around the table back into our own hands!

Some people left at this point, and it was just Katherine and I, Suzukiさん, Yasurimotoさん and his wife in the cab headed to... who knows. When we arrived, I recognized the outside of the building, but had never been inside. Turns out, it was karaoke! Different than the other time I had went, this was smaller and more of a high-class lounge. We sat at the bar and was served a little tray of food (some pickled veggies, goose liver, something else) along with our drinks. The tenders were very attentive and whenever our drinks were more than halfway gone, they would be refreshed. Can't say my singing was any good, at all, and it was difficult to use the song-selector as it was full japanese. I'd say my best performance was Nirvana - Rape Me (random find), though the subtleties were probably lost on most of the crowd. Yasurimotoさん though was really a very good singer, obviously a regular patron.

The night ended with a drunken cab ride home and sincere thank yous. For two gaijin only just met, it was a perfect example of japanese hospitality.