Adventures in Japan

Drunken Ramblings and Amblings

Friday night was a fairly expensive night.

We went drinking, you see.

Drinking is not a cheap thing to do here. No wait, that’s a total lie. It’s pretty easy to drink cheap here. Just buy your beer at the supermarket. Easy. Especially if you get the purple stuff. But drinking at a bar is expensive. As is buying bottle of whisky out of a vending machine.

We, Carla and I, met Ben, the nice Aussie who shouted us some beer last time we met, at The Green Leaf, a nice little bar kinda close to where we live. Small bar, but not full of gaijin trying to pick up. So that was nice. We were surprised by the amount of Japanese people. Just last night someone from the Orange House came back from the Green Leaf telling tales of white morons on the make.

He, the guy from last night (who is also from Colorado), did not mention the meat pies. They were pretty tasty, shipped straight from Australia. Man, I can’t wait to start earning Japanese money, so I can stop converting prices into Canadian in my head. Ten bucks for a pie and some fries. Almost twenty bucks for a pitcher.

At some point I should mention that I was having problems with my voice all day yesterday. Made shouting over the music a little more painful.

At some point, Ben’s friend Chris and a Japanese girl showed up. There was much talking and laughing. It was nice.

Ben decided that he wanted to go to the Rock Rock Club. He had read about it somewhere, thought it sounded cool and wanted to give it a look. But we had to move quick, cuz it was close to midnight and all the trains were about to stop running. So Ben took his bike and we (Carla, me, Chris) took the subway. First we almost took the wrong subway, then we caught the right one but missed our transfer. So we walked the rest of the way, asking locals where we were and how to get to the station we needed to get to. We eventually found the station but no Ben. We called him up and he swung by on his bike and took us to the Rock Rock.

Really cool place, and I’m sure I’ll never be able to find it again. It’s down some alleys and up some stairs is the best I can remember. Rock Rock is small, crowded and loud. And it cost 1000 yen just to get in the door. That works out to about 15 bucks. But you get a free drink with admission. I got a Suntory whisky. I seem to remember liking it. So much so that I ordered another one. It cost 700 yen, about ten bucks. Luckily, I was already quite drunk from all the pitchers at the other bar. Rock Rock is kind of a well known secret in Osaka it seems. Plenty of big name bands have stopped in and played. Given it’s size, I can’t imagine how a band could even fit in there. But the were all kinds of autographed pictures on the wall.

My memory is a bit hazy, so I can’t really recap much of what happened at the Rock Rock. I remember that there was a Japanese fellah asleep in a booth when we arrived. When we left, he was asleep on the floor. I remember the DJ played nothing but rock. Mainly American. Mainly older stuff. I remember an Elvis concert playing on the TVs. I remember Ben and Chris surrounded by Japanese girls. I remember a lot of pictures got taken. I remember meeting a nice guy from the states. He was also taking a lot of pictures. We took photos of each other, then he introduced himself. I forget his name. When he heard that I was from Canada he said, “Oh! So you hate George Bush!” I replied in the affirmative and he gave me a high five. I remember spitting off a stairwell for no particular reason. No wait, I was trying to hit the gutter. I remember finally noticing that there was a guy standing in the street looking up at me spitting down on him. I remember hiding.

I also remember the long walk home. I have no idea how long of a walk it was, but it was long. We stopped into a Yoshinoya for a quick bite to eat at some point during the trek. My voice was completely shot by this point, which made ordering a little harder than usual.

Good night. Good times. I’m afraid of figuring out how much we actually spent.