This week's drinkin' stories

We've got a couple of business trip visitors here this week, so of course we had to have a party. Party stage 1 was at a restaurant in the sort of red-light area, but it was starting later than normal at 8:30. I had taken one of the guys (Chris) to a restaurant when he got here Sunday. I think I may have mentioned this place before, where the owner was so excited to see American's in his shop that he forced the waitress who could speak English to sit down and talk with us. Well, he did the same thing this time, and invited us back, said he would give us free beer and gyoza when we came. He started naming days we should come back, "Monday?, Tuesday?". I told him as politely as I could in Japanese that maybe we would come. We finally settled on maybe Friday. He looked at Chris and asked if he would come, too, and Chris said "Absolutely".

Now, I don't want this guy thinking that Americans are liars, especially because of something a Canadian said, so we started off the night at stage zero, this restaurant, for 1 beer before we go to the party. No sooner does the waitress (who is surprised to see us) put the beers down then the owner tells her to bring more. So we got our free beer, but were already 2 ahead of the pace when we went to the party.

Pretty standard Japanese party, lots of food and beer. I learned both that the word for cuttlefish is "ika" and that it's delicious. Probably drank a little too much, but I pushed through to stage 2, the hostess bar. I heard one guy on the phone negotiating letting Americans in, and we were off.

It was your normal hostess bar, girls being especially friendly to me. Whether this is because I'm American, or because I'm single, or because the Japanese guys said something to them, I don't know. I must be learning something, because I was able to make a little small talk with girls in Japanese, and to tell them Chris is a movie star.

I don't know if it's a good sign or not, but I've learned enough Japanese to get myself into trouble now. I tried to tell the girl next to me that she's tall, which I though was funny since the word for tall is the same as the word for expensive. Clever Japanese play on words with the girl I'm paying to be my friend. However, my pronunciation was a little off, and I guess I said it it a way that made her sound like an evil giant. She seemed a little hurt, did the playful hitting thing, and told me "Not takai, ookii". This just confused me more, since ookii means big, and even I know you don't tell a girl she's big. Got into a big discussion, mostly of me apologizing and trying to figure out what the right thing to say was.

We stayed there for the usual amount of time, but since the party started late, it was almost 4 before I got home and passed out. I felt surprisingly OK this morning, but when I saw Chris this evening, he apparently didn't fare quite as well. Anyway, sorry no pictures this time. We're going to Tokyo tomorrow, so maybe I'll have some then.