Alexander's

One of the great pleasures in Japan are Izakaya. These are more or less traditional bars or restaurants -- I can't decide. They sell a variety of food there and usually everyone eats something, but I guess the alcohol is more important than the food. Also in the nice ones, that I like to visit, you sit on the floor around a 20cm high table without chairs and every group has a room to them self. The waiter is called via a small bell on the table and sometimes there is even a typical japanese rice paper door, so it is possible to create the illusion of privacy.

Japanese sometimes know no bounds in these places. Sometimes I feel like walking through a warzone. The usually very orderly Japanese are lying around half undressed, totally drunk and playing games that some people in Austria might consider more than just rude.[^1]

I love going to Izakaya. That goes double if I can go with japanese friends. Only thing I'm a bit unsure about is which kind I like best. The really high stung and traditionals with waitresses in Kimonos are great, but so are the slightly rundown ones with stains on the floor and walls and the really unfriendly staff and of course the crazy themed Izakaya. Everyone is an experience in itself and I'm fond of having visited a wide variety of them.

This Friday I went to a prison themed one with a small group[^2] of three exchange students from Todai and two japanese girls. Apart from an equal number of girls and boys it doesn't get much better. The japanese are responsible for the spirit and if we don't understand some menu items they can explain, while there are still enough foreigners to keep the language simple and slow.[^3] Prison themed means that you enter through a dark tunnel that is a bit like a haunted house. After that a beautiful waitress -- clad in a kinky police uniform -- arrests one or two of the guests and drags them to their cell in cuffs. The room looks like prison cell. The door is made of rusty metal bars and the walls look like massive stone with a bit of prison graffiti on them. The normal waiters are wearing prison uniforms and once or twice during the evening a group of monsters escapes and scares the prisoners.

I've been in a prison Izakaya before. With a bigger group and almost only Gaijin. It was by far not as fun as this time. This time the girls screamed so much when the monsters came, that one of the waitresses -- the one in police uniform -- came by to ask if everything was allright. One of the monsters gave me a hug and the food had little surprises in it.

I've heard there is a similar one, but themed as hospital of horror. I really have to find that and go there.

The photos are on my flickr site.

[^1]: People are forced to do things they really don't want to do just by sheer pressure from the group. I've seen people beg, barter and suffer. No one is touched, but in the end they always play along and do what the group wants them to do [^2]: Groups of 4-8 people are the best. Bigger groups are too big to talk to everyone and smaller groups don't develop the nice dynamics [^3]: Slightly slurry and fast Japanese, where only half of the things are really said and most of the important content left to the imagination of the listener, is just impossible to understand.