You can read about all the fun stuff I did this weekend by checking out Jenny's website since we were together for most of it. The one thing you won't see there however was probably the weekend highlight for me... my first snack bar! Now I've actually been to a few 'snacks' before, but only the cheap old lady variety. By that I mean that the prices are cheap, not the old ladies... however since most of them have probably been hostesses all their lives they probably were 'cheap' at some point. Actually cheap is not a word that should be used when talking about snack bars as they are normally quite expensive. You pay huge amounts of cash for crappy drinks, but what you really are paying for of course is the company of scantily clad young ladies. It's quite a strange thing for a westerner to understand, since we usually stuff money in panties in order to see them come off. Gavin took us to his favorite Kuroishi 'international' snack bar. It's international because the girls all come from other asian countries like China, Tailand or the Philippines. I was fortunate enough to be seated with a Chinese girl who actually spoke very good English. Hugh was on the other side of her and was so drunk that he kept speaking to her in Japanese even though I doubt she could understand him. She told me that she was actually a computer programmer, but couldn't find that kind of work in China because of the sexist attitudes in that business. I have no idea how much of what she told me was true or a line, but I think she probably prefered speaking English with a bunch of gaijin than pretending to speak Japanese with perverted salarymen.

Anyway, big thanks to Gavin for shouldering almost all of the bills Saturday night. You are a good man.


I found a really interesting series of interviews with Japanese hostess girls and mama-sans you can read that gives you the inside scoop of the biz. Check out parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 if you have the time.