Yesterday was a very, very rainy day. I kept trying to leave the house but Betsy wouldn't start and the rain was so ridiculously bad I just sat around and chilled and ate everything I could. My original plan had been for me to go to BJJ at night, but Mike rang me up out of the blue and asked if I wanted food and a drink, to which I said yes!
But I'm getting ahead of myself, first things first, the pasties!
Now, some of you may foolishly think that pasties come from Cornwall, and that's true if you want average non special pasties. But there is also a secret special type of truer, realer pastie that comes from Somerset! It's a big secret and the special technique is passed from father to son on dark, wind swept nights! Cornish pasties are but pale, pale imitations of the true wonder of The Somerset Pasty! James told me this and his father told him and he cooked some of the SECRET Cornish Pasties the other day! And with a surname like Pankiewicz he must be the real Somerset deal!
They were damn good, with Thai curry ones for the adults and less spicy ones for the kids. Mmmm.
Look at that!
Anyway, he made loads and I ate them over Thursday and Friday. In case you haven't guessed, this post is going to be a food and beer post, but there you go, I'm in a food mood!
Oh, and my plan for yesterday had been to get my hair cut, but that didn't happen so James did it! I am now hairless, mostly!
So, I meet up with Mike and Rodney and an ex student of theirs at a bar/restaurant in Hadena, which is the town over. As it was pouring with rain, James gave me a life as he and Hisano were on the way to have a meal. These bar restaurants are called Isikias and they're where people hang out after work.
The place was bigger on the inside than on the outside and the beer was cheap. How cheap? 105 Yen per pint, which is about 85p. Only until 8pm, but I got there around 6ish...
This is cheese wrapped in pastry and deep fried. Lovely! I also had chicken, spaghetti carbonara, chicken on a stick (a big Japanese bar food), a potato/cheese/egg dish, chilli octopus and some other stuff I was too drunk to remember.
From there we discussed me only having a month left and things I needed to do. Mike asked if I'd done Karaoke in Japan, to which I said no.
So our next port of call was the Karaoke bar across the street!
By this time it was raining real heavy and we got soaked to the skin walking 15 metres (well, running). It was a super strong downpour. Damn nice day today though.
Anyway, the Karaoke bar was called "Big Tomato", I dunno why. And it was a series of rooms, one of which you booked and you sat in and selected songs and sung. Lots of families there and other people, even some Evangelical Christians singing standing up in their room.
It was decked out like some quaint European street.
This was the room complete with stereo system and video screen. You chose the songs using some complicated hand held device:
Strangely, it played videos whilst the music was on, but they weren't the videos to do with the song. So when anything rocky played, a generic video of Japanese bikers was shown. Whenever something romantic was played it was moody emotional Japanese couple arguing, falling out and making up. Anything R&B or poppy had dancers in a warehouse.
The deal we had was that we could drink as much as we wanted whilst there so we got to work demolishing a bottle of sake whilst singing our way through assorted songs. I did Bohemian Rhapsody, some Sting, a little Jay Zee and some Michael Jackson.
We finished on Piano man.
Quite a surreal night, all in all, but a good one. Tonight I'm going to go to BJJ.
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