Posts Tagged izakaya
February 19, 2005 – New nickname
Posted by Barniferous in Azeroth, Drinking, Friends and coworkers on February 19, 2015
After work I went out to my favourite izakaya Ryuu with Palmer and Azeroth. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may notice a pattern developing.
In addition to the famous 100 yen draft beer, Ryuu also has very cheap sushi. I ordered some tako nigiri (octopus on rice) for only 70 yen each. Unlike other discount sushi, the pieces of fish were surprisingly large.
After a fun evening of beer and sushi, I was given a new nickname by my Aussie and American roommates: Frenchy McFrencherson from North Frenchland. If Canada does change it’s name to North Frenchland, it will make the anthem a lot harder to sing.
January 22, 2005 – First busy day
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Canada, Shizuoka, Teaching English on January 22, 2015
Today was my first really busy day at Mishima NOVA since I transferred in November. It reminded me of a typical day at Kawasaki NOVA.
The teacher’s room at Mishima NOVA is tiny, narrow, and chaotic. There are 6 chairs in a space barely big enough for 5, and we had 8 teachers working today. It is not a good place for claustrophobic people.
After work I met up with Azeroth and Palmer at Ryuu, which has now become our regular izakaya. There is nothing like beer and sushi after a busy day at work!
January 17, 2005 – Izakaya
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers on January 17, 2015
After work I made yet another visit to the new izakaya “Ryuu” with some co-workers. We got 2 free orders! Ryuu is quickly becoming the popular after work beer spot for teachers, likely because it is really cheap.
There was no karaoke afterwards for a change.
January 8, 2005 – New Izakaya! 100 yen beer!
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Life in Japan on January 8, 2015
After work, I went with Palmer to a new chain izakaya called Ryuu. It has great atmosphere with tatami mat floors and low tables. More importantly, it features 100 yen draft beer (about $1) and 260 yen orders of food. The 100 yen beer even comes with a small mystery snack. Palmer was friends with one of the staff, so we got a free order of food.
You really can’t beat 100 yen beer.
November 10, 2004 – Ryoba
Posted by Barniferous in Azeroth, Life in Japan on November 10, 2014
After work I went to a chain izakaya called Ryoba with Azeroth. They specialize in cheap sushi and 100 yen draft beer. The beer was nothing special, but the sushi is amazing, especially considering the price. I can understand why Numazu is known for its sushi.
November 2, 2004 – This karaoke looks familiar
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Karaoke, Shizuoka on November 2, 2014
I slept a lot during the daytime to catch up on my recently lack of sleep. I was planning on having a quiet evening at home, but Palmer invited me to go out with a few of his friends that were visiting. Realizing this would be a good way to get to know my new roommate better (and have beer), I agreed and we were on our way.
Our first stop was a small izakaya on the main street that runs by Seiyu. It was a small izakaya where Palmer and friends have been several times, so the service was really friendly. Notable on the menu was whale sashimi. Yes, raw whale meat was available for purchase. I was curious, but one order cost nearly 2000 yen.
Raw whale meat – controversial and possibly delicious
After beer and non-whale pub food, we went to a karaoke place called Uta Club which is conveniently located across from Numazu station’s south exit. Uta Club is popular because it is one of the cheapest karaoke places in Numazu. One hour of all you can drink karaoke costs 780 yen, and there is a special cheap price after midnight. After a short time, I realized that I was in the same place that The Penpal took me for my first karaoke experience in Japan.
From Numazu station to my new apartment is about a 15 minute walk. It seems much, much longer when you are full of cheap beer. I don’t know the way perfectly yet, so I am very happy that Palmer knew where he was going.
So far I have been in Numazu for two days and had two fun nights out. Hopefully this continues!
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.
May 30, 2004 – I just told her it was small, didn’t I?
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Greater Tokyo Area, Karaoke, Shenanigans on June 7, 2014
Where’s my microphone??
An uneventful day relaxing at Hello House was followed up with an eventful evening out in Kawasaki.
Code Red, Green, Flounder, Hippie got on Nanbu line headed towards Kawasaki, where we would meet up with some of my coworkers and friends. On the train, Green asked me how to say “you are beautiful” in Japanese so he could talk to some ladies. I got an evil idea, and then spent the rest of the train ride practicing Green’s new Japanese phrase, which was absolutely not “you are beautiful”.
We met with Jem and Rivers and went to a nearby izakaya for some food and drinks. By this point I had informed everyone except Green the meaning of the words that I had been teaching to Green. We were all having trouble containing our excitement. Green practiced a few more times to try to get the pronunciation correct, and then waited for his opportunity.
We pressed the order button in the izakaya – a wonderful invention that summons your waiter or waitress to your table. An attractive female waitress arrived and took the order for our group. At this point Green spoke up with the phrase he had been rehearsing for the past 30 minutes.
“Excuse me” he said in Japanese. The waitress turned and looked at Green. You could cut the anticipation in our group with a knife.
“I have a small penis” said Green proudly in Japanese. The waitress looked confused. Green, assuming his pronunciation was bad decided to repeat the phrase slower and more clearly.
“I – have – a – small – penis!” he repeated, again with a smile on his face. At this point the waitress started laughing and walked away, which caused our entire group to crack up laughing hysterically. Green realized what happened “I just told her it was small, didn’t I?” he cleverly guessed.
Green asked me how to explain to the waitress that it wasn’t small, but actually very large. I taught him how to say “very small” instead. His BS detector went off and he decided to give up on the whole idea.
After the izakaya, we went out to karaoke again. Karaoke quickly became the fun activity of choice for our group, mainly due to the incredibly cheap drinks. We spent a few hours rocking out and making liberal use of the all you can drink policy before heading back to Hello House on Nanbu line. The trip home was not boring – one very drunk member of our group started walking up and down the train cars with a condom in his hand. This presented the other passengers with an excellent opportunity to pretend that he didn’t exist, which they did very well. Never a dull moment!
May 21, 2004 pt2 – My friend is Canada
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Hello House, Team Awesome Sauce on May 22, 2014
Me and Code Red in Shinjuku on the way back from the airport
When the guys got back to Hello House, we organized the sleeping arrangements. Hippie would be staying on the foldy floor couch in my room, while Flounder, Code Red and Green would be sharing the extra room that I rented for their stay. Fortunately for them, the extra room had a bed. Flounder and Green agreed to alternate nights in the bed and on the floor, while Code Red set up a futon in the closet.
After unpacking, the travelers got their first experience with Hello House’s coin operated showers. After showers and a quick tour of Hello House, we set out in search of beer.
Since it was Friday night, all of the izakayas in the area were very busy. In my first three choices I was told that there would be a two hour wait, which didn’t work for us. As we walked from place to place looking for a beer, we attracted a lot of attention from the locals. It wasn’t often that they saw five enthusiastic gaijins walking around the Noborito area. One of the highlights came when I was not paying attention to where I was walking and managed to walk directly into a pole designed to separate the street from the sidewalk. The pole was just at the right height to hit me in my lower nether regions as I passed over it. The other highlight was a very drunk girl who started talking to us in English while her boyfriend held her up. When we told her we were Canadian she proudly replied “My friend is Canada!”.
We eventually ended up at an izakaya on the other side of Mukogaokayuen station that was full of hard drinking Japanese people. When I say hard drinking, I mean stumbling to the bathroom, puking, then coming back to finish their beer drinking. The frat guys approved. We ordered beer and izakaya food. Flounder and Green tried sashimi for the first (and probably last) time. After the bar we returned to Hello House to watch a bootleg copy of Wrestlemania while drinking some of the ample supplies of alcohol that the guys brought from Canada. It was a great first night!
(2014 update) It turns out that the izakaya staff were trying to tell me that there would be a 2 hour limit on our table, not a 2 hour wait. My Japanese was still pretty bad at the time.
April 15, 2004 – Karaoke U-Drunk
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Hello House, Life in Japan on April 15, 2014
Karaoke U-Bou, better known as Karaoke U-Drunk
Tonight I went out to the Thursday version of a going away party for a long time Hello House resident, let’s call him Sean. Since conversational English teachers have different days off, the going away party was offered on both Thursday and Friday to allow more people to celebrate Sean returning to Ireland.
Like most going away parties, we started off at a nearby izakaya. One of Sean’s Japanese friends, Rex (likely not his real name) was pouring drinks Japanese style. This meant that everyone had small glasses and Rex was filling them with beer from 1 litre bottles. As soon as there was any space in a glass, Rex dutifully topped it up. This is a great way to get hammered because you have absolutely no way to know how much beer you are drinking. I realized pretty quickly that if I wanted to survive the night that I would have to take over as the official beer dispenser.
In addition to going through 1 litre bottles of beer at an alarming rate, we also ate some great Japanese bar food including deep fried cheesy rice balls and deep fried pregnant sardines. Yes, every single sardine in the order was full of eggs. The beer helped us all get more comfortable with this concept.
After the izakaya, the party moved on to nearby Karaoke U-Bou, which was affectionately known as “Karaoke U-Drunk”. For those who don’t know, karaoke rooms in Japan have a magical phone on the wall that allow you to order drinks. Most karaoke places offer an all you can drink option, and Karaoke U-Drunk was no exception. The plan was to stay for an hour, but we ended up leaving after 3. The highlight of the night was Rex singing Earth, Wind and Fire.
Leaving parties are awesome!
Drinking in Japan 
Recent Comments