An Okinawan Friday night

On Friday night I went back to the Okinawan place that my former co-worker took me to. I had been meaning to go back but had been afraid to return by myself since my Japanese is so terrible. Most sensible people, therefore, would conclude that on the next trip I took someone else who could speak Japanese fluently, but in fact I took my new co-worker who knows NO Japanese besides konichiwa- hello, and kampai - cheers, two important words, but they can only get you so far. When we got there we barely made it through the door, because the tiny little restaurant was packed and there was nowhere to sit. As we stood in the doorway trying to decide what to do next, some people noticed us standing there and kindly moved down to make room for us to sit. As we walked in I literally heard the word "gaijin" float around the room, everyone seemed so surprised to see us.

As we went to sit down I wasn't sure if the people who had moved over were going to acknowledge or ignore us, but to our delight they initiated conversation. Of course, the first question every foreigner gets in Japan is always "Where are you from?" after establishing our respective nationalities we will usually explain that we're English teachers and it goes on from there. Our neighbors were so friendly and inviting, they shared their food with us and even bought us drinks at one point. They spoke very little English, so I had a great opportunity to practice my Japanese and I was actually able to understand some of the things they said to me if they spoke slowly enough. The woman sitting next to my co-worker told me in Japanese that her childhood friend had been from England and I actually acted as a translator to tell my co-worker what she said, that was pretty awesome. One guy, an incredibly drunk university student, came down to our end of the table just so he could talk to us. His English was no better than the others' but he and my co-worker seemed to hit it off and they chatted for a while about sports and music. The mama-san, owner of the place, also came over to say hello. She recognized me of course and gave us a sliced dragon fruit to share.

This Okinawan place has lots of regulars and you can tell who they are based on their bottles of alcohol. All along the wall of the restaurant are shelves with decorated bottles, the bottles have the names of the owners written on them in gold and silver and many are decorated with charms and little figurines like you'd see on a key chain. When people finish off the bottle they just refill it and put it back on the shelf when they leave. Several of the people we were sitting with had their own bottles with little cartoon characters dangling from them, leave it to the Japanese to make even drinking cute.

My co-worker and I stayed until about 1 in the morning, but since we had to get up for work the next day we eventually decided to call it quits. We told our new friends that we will return next Friday, so both of us are really looking forward to that. We are both thrilled to have somewhere fun to go on a Friday night that is only a five minute bike ride from our school. The Mama-san also charged us very little for the amount that we ate and drank, so saving money is always a plus too! I wish I had found out about this place sooner, but now I will definitely have to take advantage of it.