The Izakaya

 One evening, on a date with the husband, we decided to visit an izakaya street. For those of you not in the know, it’s a row of small izakaya’s lined up one after another either inside or outside. The one we went to was inside, with many small eateries lined up on both sides. We visited two places, one standard izakaya serving a range of meat, fish and vegetable dishes, and one which served only oden. I don’t come across many izakaya’s which focus on serving oden these days, which is a shame because it’s one of my top 10 Japanese foods. If you ever come across it, it’s a must try, especially the daikon. In the winter, you can of course also get oden in the convenience store.

Anyway, I digress, my love for oden taking me slightly off topic. It was a rare date night for us, as recently we’ve both been quite busy, but it was especially rare for us to have a chance to have a drink together due to the fact that my husband is usually the designated driver. While we were sitting there, we could overhear streams of conversations in both Japanese and English, watching as hopeful young men tried to get the attention of pretty girls who walked past their table. All inhibitions go out the window once people have a drink or two inside them.

Watching all this go on, listening to animated conversations about terrible bosses, cheating partners, best nightlife spots in Japan and every other topic you could possibly think of, it got me wondering how to describe all of this in writing. This led me and my husband to have a lengthy discussion on the topic, and whether or not it was even possible to truly capture the lively atmosphere of so many different places to eat being mixed together in one place. Perhaps if I was more artistic in my writing I could do it, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this little stream of consciousness.