Oops

---

Isakaya

As you'll probably find when I get that next post put up (it's coming I swear), my housemates (Yon-chan from Korea and Patrick from Sweden) and I tend to make frequent excursions to the isakaya (think a bar with booth space). It's a nice, dark place to just sit and have a couple of drinks with friends. Quite fun. Anyhow, my usual drink of choice is a coke and rum (the only rum drink i could find that didn't come with a colorful little umbrella in it.) Our usual Isakaya, Doma Doma, has them for a reasonable price. So, when we isakaya (I can use that as a verb, right?) we go to Doma Doma (it also has great salmon sashimi). Well, last satuday Doma Doma kindly informed us when we arrived that they were full.

A Miscommunication

We did our best to try to turn the back-up isakaya Hana no... something (it's a kanji I don't know) into Doma Doma. I attempted to order a coke and rum, and the waitress kindly informed me that they didn't have that drink. Ah crud. I ordered the sashimi anyways (again, not a good as Doma Doma, but cheaper) and decided to go with my fall-back drink, hot sake. I deliberated over the drink menu, trying to figure out how to order exactly what Americans call "sake" (In Japan, sake is everything from beer to the rice wine that Americans dub sake), and discovered there were three kinds, wonderfully described in Kanji I couldn't read. I could read numbers however and told the waitress I wanted the cheapest one (like $4.00). She asked me a couple questions and the conversation followed something like this (the words that dont look like real words are not real words. Just my attempt to represent Japanese I didn't understand):

Waitress: enowkneosih nkeowinei gurasu o mittsu woieownoie?
My translation: You want a glass right?
Actual translation: Do you want that in three glasses?

Me: Hai.
Translation: Yes.

Waitress: wnaoenoenlkenl neonoenslke eonwlne mizu enownjenwlknl?
My Translation: Do you want some water with it?
Actual Translation: Do you want it served hot with (something) or served cold with water?

Me: Mizu.
Translation: Water.

So, the waitress walked off, and I settled in expecting a glass of hot sake to show up. To my surprise, she returned with a half-liter-plus bottle of Soju (Korean alcohol similar to sake) and three glasses filled with ice. This is what happens when you can't speak the language. Thankfully, Patrick helped me drink some of it (and pay for it) and we smuggled the rest out of the restaurant (we didn't know if we could take it outside) and back home for later.

---

Photos

My Bottle of Soju
I swear I don't need AA.