I'll be the first to admit, not speaking the language (or understanding it for that matter) had gotten the better of me since my arrival. I found myself shying away from eating out because I wasn't sure what to say when ordering, convinced that I would offend someone by not knowing some custom or something along those lines.
Well that may have all changed yesterday. After a long day of trekking around Kyoto, visiting shrines and ended up in the Gion district (premiere location for geisha spotting) I was pretty hungry and home was still an hour's train ride away. After resisting the initially temptation to hit McDonalds (again) and just order by number I plucked up the courage to try out a local ramen shop. Now I say courage because restuarants tend to have drapes with inscriptions over the front entrance, so you can't easily see what's going on inside. You find yourself debating whether or not they are infact open (or if they are even restaurants...). After that there's the doubts about the inscription - I mean that looks like quite a long name - what if it actually says we don't accept foreigners (trust me some don't hence my aforementioned doubts). Anyway the long and the short of it is I successfully ordered ramen and a beer and the only part of the experience I messed up was paying my bill. Now the way it seems to work over here is that you eat and drink and a receipt that is on your table of items consumed is just updated. When you're done you take the receipt to the front, pay and leave. Of course not being from here I waited...and then waited somemore. Then I started wondering why the waiter was just looking at me staring at an empty dish.
Once back in Osaka, spurred on by my new found confidence I went bar hopping, starting off at a place called Bar Whack and then headed closer to home to the Black Room. In both places I was either the only customer or one of a handful and in both I discovered, people in bars like to chat (a lot). Eight or so rum and cokes later I found that I had met and chatted with a bunch of people, translated R&B song lyrics, been hit on by a bartender (apparently I told her she had a big nose when I was trying to repay the compliment) and all this was done with no common language base - just a notepad, a phrasebook and some good old Dutch courage.
Henceforth I've decided that I shall improve by Japanese by combining learning with a more enjoyable past time - drinking. The Japanese love to drink and they seem to love chatting so I should be fluent in like a week or so...
Well that may have all changed yesterday. After a long day of trekking around Kyoto, visiting shrines and ended up in the Gion district (premiere location for geisha spotting) I was pretty hungry and home was still an hour's train ride away. After resisting the initially temptation to hit McDonalds (again) and just order by number I plucked up the courage to try out a local ramen shop. Now I say courage because restuarants tend to have drapes with inscriptions over the front entrance, so you can't easily see what's going on inside. You find yourself debating whether or not they are infact open (or if they are even restaurants...). After that there's the doubts about the inscription - I mean that looks like quite a long name - what if it actually says we don't accept foreigners (trust me some don't hence my aforementioned doubts). Anyway the long and the short of it is I successfully ordered ramen and a beer and the only part of the experience I messed up was paying my bill. Now the way it seems to work over here is that you eat and drink and a receipt that is on your table of items consumed is just updated. When you're done you take the receipt to the front, pay and leave. Of course not being from here I waited...and then waited somemore. Then I started wondering why the waiter was just looking at me staring at an empty dish.
Once back in Osaka, spurred on by my new found confidence I went bar hopping, starting off at a place called Bar Whack and then headed closer to home to the Black Room. In both places I was either the only customer or one of a handful and in both I discovered, people in bars like to chat (a lot). Eight or so rum and cokes later I found that I had met and chatted with a bunch of people, translated R&B song lyrics, been hit on by a bartender (apparently I told her she had a big nose when I was trying to repay the compliment) and all this was done with no common language base - just a notepad, a phrasebook and some good old Dutch courage.
Henceforth I've decided that I shall improve by Japanese by combining learning with a more enjoyable past time - drinking. The Japanese love to drink and they seem to love chatting so I should be fluent in like a week or so...
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