Went out last night with Yoshi to his favorite izakaya. These places are cool because theres nothing really like them in the states. They have basically all counter seats with the people taking orders and serving food from the center. We had to wait for about 5-10 minutes before we could sit down...with so many people, it was amazing to see all the different sorts of food ranging from tempura to sashimi, to both cooked and raw lobster. We had sashimi (not really, i forgot what its called but its very lightly cooked on the outside), vegetable tempura, and oysters. With a couple beers thrown in it cost 3200 yen total. not too bad, but a little high to do every night.
We hit a few bars afterwards....the Pig and Whistle, an Irish style pub. Hamad, the Pakistani guy is pretty funny cuz hes very aggresive when it comes to women. Yoshi explained that in muslim countries, you cant act that way around the local women so theyre a little suppressed. So in the end he ended up meeting one korean and oen taiwanese lady in the Pig and Whistle, both of whom have been in Japan for a while...apparently the Taiwanese lady married a Japanese guy, has a daughter, and is on the whole quite unhappy. This seems to be a common theme....
Oh yeah, we were also hanging out with yet another brit who works for BAE (apparently the 2nd largest defense contractor in the world after lockheed???) who was able to take a year off from work to go around the world. Lucky folks. Its amazing how few people from the states are here and how many Brits there are!
On the whole, a pretty decent abeit expensive night. In general, going out costs waaay too much! But i guess its that way in the states too....
Posted by eric at October 18, 2003 12:18 AM