Archive for category Drinking
October 5, 2004 – A bomb with skull and crossbones
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Karaoke, Lux on October 5, 2014
Today was another rainy day in Kawasaki. Lux is leaving for vacation to Canada for 3 weeks on Wednesday. Before she leaves, Zoe and I decided to take her out for dinner at Gyukaku. Yum!
After yet another fantastic dinner of grilled awesomeness at Gyukaku, we went out to karaoke at a place close to Noborito station on the Tama River. I can’t remember the name, but it was great! The song selection was huge; I sang the theme from Sesame Street, 21st Century Digital Boy by Bad Religion, and Sugar by System of a Down.
The drink menu was also huge, with a very long list of different cocktails available. The ingredients for each were all written in Japanese. I could only understand about half of the menu, but one drink caught my attention. The picture showed a clear, bubbly drink that looked like a gin and tonic. However, there was a picture of a bomb with a skull and crossbones next to the drink. Taking this as a challenge instead of a warning, I ordered the mysterious cocktail.
For the record, I have never tried drinking industrial strength drain cleaner before, but I am pretty sure that it tastes better than the bomb cocktail. Blerg!
September 30, 2004 – Beer and Food Factory
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers on September 30, 2014
Today was Phoala’s last day at NOVA. He is returning to Australia in the near future. To celebrate, most of the teachers went out after work to a place called “Beer and Food Factory” in Kamata. You can get 1200 yen all you can drink if you order one or two small food items from the menu. As you can imagine, the English teachers took full advantage of this offer.
Like many parties in Japan, there was a second party afterwards. Since I had to work the next day, I decided to be responsible and go home instead of pulling an all-nighter. I somehow managed to find the station, return to Kawasaki, and then catch the last Nanbu line train back to Noborito.
(2014 Update) The last train out of somewhere like Shibuya is usually lively and crowded, full of energetic young people. The last Nanbu line train leaving Kawasaki is full of business people (and English teachers) who look like they are already regretting their choices for the evening.
August 15, 2004 – The Lockup
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Life in Japan on August 20, 2014
During work I was counting down lessons until a rare day off. After work, most of the teachers went for a small party at a nearby Izakaya called “The Lockup“. It is easily one of the most insane places I have ever been to in Japan.
The Lockup is an izakaya chain that has a B-grade horror movie haunted house / insane asylum / prison theme. The leader of our group was handcuffed upon entry and led to our room by a waitress in a shiny fetish police uniform. Our room was actually a cell complete with metal bars and chains. All of the drinks were served in test tubes and beakers. I am not sure which movie or movies inspired the decor, but they were probably featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was truly bizarre.
We got a three hour all you can eat, all you can drink deal for the group. Half way through our evening there was a “jail break”. All of the lights started flashing, sirens starting blaring, and a bunch of monsters escaped and started running around trying to scare the customers. One of the monsters saw a room with 20 English teachers, many larger than him, and decided to move along quickly. After a few minutes of mayhem and monsters running around, the guards shot and killed the monsters, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller started playing through the sound system. I am honestly not making any of this up!
Since we were English teachers, we all took very good advantage of the all you can drink deal. The group of us noisily stumbled back towards Kawasaki station. Just as we got close to the station, Mohammed realized that he was still wearing the izakaya’s toilet slippers, and that his shoes were back at The Lockup. We all had a good laugh at his expense. The entire evening was a lot of fun. I recommend The Lockup if you want a strange night out in Japan.
July 30, 2004 – Birthday aftermath
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Uncategorized on August 16, 2014
Yesterday I thought I had a bit too much fun at karaoke. This morning I realized how badly I had overdone it. I was sick in the morning in between birthday phone calls from home. I ended up having to call in sick to work, which is terrible considering that I was out for beer with many of my coworkers the night before. I expect to hear about this later.
(2014 Update) Don’t miss work because of drinking. Also, never miss work because of drinking with your coworkers. That’s just irresponsible.
July 29, 2004 – Happy birthday to me!
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Karaoke, Keikyu-Kawasaki NOVA, Lux on August 15, 2014
Happy birthday to me! I turned 26 today!
I got woken up in the morning with a birthday call from my parents. Lux gave me some presents including a six pack of Labatt Blue. I love Japanese beer, but it’s always good to drink something Canadian when I get a chance. Canadian beer brings back a lot of good memories.
Work was a very relaxing day at Keikyu Kawasaki NOVA. After work, the usual Thursday night karaoke became birthday karaoke. The regular Thursday karaoke group is usually about 6-8 people. Tonight we had about double that. I had the best of intentions to be sensible with nomi-hodai, but ended up having a little too much fun.
July 10, 2004 – Pachinko shopping cart
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Greater Tokyo Area on August 10, 2014
Inside JR Kawasaki station
Today was my second day back to work after my parents left. Naturally, I needed a few beers after work with some of the other teachers.
We were in drinking beer near the Kiosk in Kawasaki station, when we saw a guy with a shopping cart full of junk trying to get down the stairs to the train platform. Included in the impressive pile of junk in the cart was a full sized classic pachinko machine.
Unsurprisingly, half way down the stairs the cart tipped over and his stuff went everywhere. It’s worth noting that there was a fully operational elevator nearby, but for some reason this man decided to navigate his fully loaded cart down the stairs by himself.
Beer at the station is never boring!
June 12, 2004 – Kiosk!
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Life in Japan on June 25, 2014
After work I had some Kiosk beers with co-workers. Going for a beer or two at Kiosk at Kawasaki station is becoming a regular event for some of the teachers. It is a great way to unwind after a shift, and watching all of the people in the station is never boring.
I like Kiosk!
June 6, 2004 pt2 – Lost plane tickets
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Hello House, Team Awesome Sauce on June 19, 2014
The guys are leaving tomorrow, so after returning from our rainy day in Kamakura, everyone slowly started packing. We also watched the hockey game on the Hello House TV (Calgary lost again) and tried to finish any leftover alcohol from Canada.
All of the guys booked their flights through a travel agent in Green’s home town in northern Alberta. The travel agent was a friend of Green’s father. For some unknown reason, the travel agent booked all of the tickets from Winnipeg to Chicago to Tokyo instead of the faster, easier Winnipeg to Vancouver to Tokyo. Also, not everyone was on the same flight home. Flounder was flying solo at 2:00pm, while Green, Code Red and Hippie were on a 4:00pm flight.
During the packing, Hippie couldn’t find his ticket. He carefully checked all of his bags and still couldn’t find it. We searched my room that Hippie and I had been staying in from top to bottom – no ticket. Flounder, Code Red and Green searched through their room and suitcases carefully – still no ticket. After about an hour of careful searching, we took to the phone.
Due to the time, we couldn’t get in touch with the airlines. Green called the travel agent and someone in the office answered the phone. Green explained that he and his friends were in Japan, leaving tomorrow, and one of them lost a ticket. The travel agent told Green that they were closed and hung up on him. Hippie then turned to his last resort – calling his parents for help.
We got a call back at 4:30am from Hippie’s father who had just talked to United Airlines. Hippie could show up at the airport with ID and fill out a lost ticket form. He would receive a new ticket in exchange for $100 US dollars. Hippie was not thrilled about having to pay, but was happy that we would be able to go home.
It turns out that Hippie losing his ticket was a good thing for the whole group, but we didn’t find out until we got to the airport…
(2014 Update) It’s hard to imagine that only 10 years ago it was that difficult to get in touch with an airline.
June 3, 2004 pt2 – All you can drink is not a challenge
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Karaoke, Shenanigans, Team Awesome Sauce on June 15, 2014
The floor is lava at Big Echo karaoke
(Author’s note) My memories of the evening are a bit fuzzy, and the notes from my original blog post are vague, so I am doing my best to reconstruct the events.
After witnessing the 20 Frosty challenge in the morning, we all had a relaxing afternoon at Hello House before heading out in the evening for Thursday evening karaoke. Green was still not feeling well, so he was a lot more restrained than usual. I believe the rest of the group decided to do some pre-drinking at Hello House.
We rode Nanbu line to Kawasaki and then took Tokaido line to Yokohama in order to meet up with my usual Thursday evening karaoke group. When everyone assembled, we all walked to Big Echo. Unlike the previous week, Code Red had left his video camera back at Hello House.
We had two fun hours of karaoke, making good use of the “all you can drink” policy of our karaoke room. Green was not drinking much, so Flounder, Hippie, Code Red, and I all decided to pick up the slack.
During the evening, one of Jem’s roommates, let’s call her Rana, was flirting with Code Red hard. Code Red was wearing a t-shirt featuring Stewie from Family Guy. On the walk back to Yokohama station, Jem’s roommate told Code Red that she really liked his shirt, and wanted to trade. Code Red did not want to trade his Stewie shirt for Rana’s shirt. She kept asking, and he kept refusing.
At this point, Green, Flounder, Hippie and I decided to act like helpful gentlemen and get Rana the shirt she wanted. We grabbed Code Red and pulled off his Stewie shirt while we were walking through the shopping area of Yokohama station. We handed the shirt to Rana, and then she proceeded to remove her shirt to give to Code Red.
While Code Red was shirtless, we all started slapping his exposed back, leaving huge red hand prints. Yes, this is the kind of thing that drunk frat boys do when they like each other.
Unsurprisingly, the spectacle of a shirtless gaijin guy being attacked by his friends while a gaijin female removed her shirt in a major train station attracted some attention. We received a lot of stares and laughs from people passing by, and also got noticed by the train station security staff, who watched us carefully as we bought tickets and waited on the platform.
Although he probably could have turned the “give my shirt back” game into a night outside of Hello House, Code Red instead insisted that he get his Stewie t-shirt back before our train came. Rana reluctantly agreed and they again swapped shirts.
At some point during our excitement, we actually lost Hippie for a few minutes. I can’t exactly remember the details, but he did turn up before the train left.
Through most of our adventures so far, Green had been the drunk crazy guy. With Green taking it easy, we all stepped up our game. As it turned out, our group was better when we only had one designated drunk crazy guy rather than four.
Drinking in Japan 
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