Drink Bar, Two!

When you arrive at a restaurant in Japan the first thing they want to know is how many people. You know this because they make a hand signal for three or for two (depending upon if they consider Carlos a person or not) and give you a questioning look.

The second thing they want to know is smoking or not smoking. They say a Japanese sentence to us and then stare at us while we wait to answer. We know what they are asking because we, as we do all day, ask ourselves "what would they want to know at this juncture?" David, on one lucky day, figured this out.

If you are at one of the seriously un-fancy restaurants that we frequent, the next step is what you want to drink... and there is something they call a "drink bar". This is where you get up and get your own drink. So you say, "Mizu (water), two" while holding up your two fingers. And they say "Hai(yes!)!" or nod. Then you say, "drink bar, two." And they point you in the direction of the drink bar and write down that you want drink bar... two.

And then you sit there and wait... and wait... and wait... and wonder why nobody is waiting on you. Do they not like Americans? Do they not like white people? Are you supposed to have taken your shoes off? And then you see this...


What is this, you ask? Well, it is a call button. And pushing it for the first time feels awful... like you are a part of that social psychology shock experiment where people were ordered to push buttons supposedly shocking other people. You hear the buzzer when you push the button and someone comes running and you feel like Leona Helmsley demanding more ice water for her poodle, or something. But, after a few times of pushing the button, it feels great. No more running people down to get service. No more flailing arms. Just a simple little button for service.

Then there is the ordering. Whatever you order, you start with the thing you are ordering and then say the number of that thing that you want... "Udon, one!" or "Pizza, Two!" If there is an English menu, you better hope that the waiter can figure out what on the English menu corresponds to the Japanese menu. If there is no English menu, then you bust out your rudimentary Japanese/English with a Japanese accent.

Chicken = Chikyu
Beef = Beefu
Pork = Pooku

If that doesn't work, you point at something on the menu, say "two!" while holding up your two fingers, and pray you aren't getting the octopus testicles in sesame sauce.

And then you get your food... need a napkin? TOO BAD. It is the rare event that you will get an actual dry napkin here. You will get a wet towel that is either hot or cold in a plastic wrapper, but you will not get an actual helpful napkin. Apparently, they are neater eaters than we are.

And finally, the check. The universal sign for check is not so universal. The first few days we tried to do the whole pretend signature thing that lets everyone else on the planet know you want the check and we got nowhere, so we quickly learned the word for check... "Okanjo!"