Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

2/14/2005, Valentine's Day

Valentines Day in Japan is a little different from the United States.  In Japan, women give gifts to men.  It is considered a little strange and possibly even rude for a man to give a woman a gift on Valentine's Day.  And, women give gifts to all men, not just their significantothers.  Usually chocolate.  At school, a student gave me a homemade brownie.  A co-worker gave me chocolate.

For Valentine's Day, Akemi and I met in Kobe.  We had Vietnamese food at a place called "Vietnam Frog".  It didn't look like much from the outside, but was beautiful and spacious on the inside, and the food/service were top notch.  She gave me a beautiful wool sweater as a present.  I gave her a card I made.

The crooked jazz club ("Henry's Suntory") in Kobe

After dinner, we went to a jazz club.  In Japan, cover charges can be pretty dicey, especially in Kobe.  You walk into a place, sit down, and instantly you've got a ¥6000 (≈$60.00) per person cover charge on your bill.  So, Akemi did the research and found a place with a ¥500 (≈$5.00) cover charge.  We figured we could live with that.  We got there and it was decent, at least at the beginning.  It was New Orleans styles stuff, but there were a couple decent horn players.  I got a shot of Suntory pure malt 12 year whiskey for ¥800 (≈$8.00).  Akemi got an orange juice for ¥650 (≈$6.50).  Pricey, but not unusually so, considering where we were.  The guy gave us some little pretzels which were pretty tasty.  Then, he brought us each a little plate of edamame (soy beans), which were pretty good.  Then, he brought us another plate of the same soy beans.  We were starting to wonder if these things were free.  We hadn't ordered anything, but they were cheap enough and small enough that they could conceivably be free, or included in the ¥500 (≈$5.00) cover charge.  But, I started thinking about it.  The people were really nice.  The bartender was making jokes.  The woman working with him came out and sang a song.  So, I decided they were nice people and not to worry too much.  Then, they brought us each a plate with three very nice looking strawberries.  This time, we really started to wonder.  We didn't touch the strawberries.  I asked them how much the food cost.  They said ¥2000 (≈$20.00).  Huh?  ¥2000 (≈$20.00) for everything?  ¥2000 (≈$20.00) per plate?  Huh? They said in addition to the ¥500 (≈$5.00) cover charge, there was a ¥2000 (≈$20.00) per person "set charge" for food.  It wasn't posted anywhere.  The info we found on the web clearly said ¥500 (≈$5.00) per person.  It wasn't written in the menu.  The snacks he served weren't on the menu.  I said if he decides on ¥2000 (≈$20.00), what's to keep him from raising it to a zillion yen next time.  He said it was my fault for not understanding Japanese culture well enough.  He said this is the way it works here and I shouldn't expect Japanese clubs to work the way American clubs work.  He kept throwing this at me over and over.  I told him to quit talking about America, since this is Japan, he is Japanese, and the club is Japanese.  He kept it up. Finally, I told him his arguments amounted to prejudice.  As you know, this would be a hot button in the United States, but it's not so here in Japan.  Bear in mind, I was doing all this on 2.5 hours of sleep.  Since my nerves were already a little fried, my eye started twitching.  Maybe it spooked him.  I don't know.  At one point, he offered to drop it from 2000 per person to 1500 per person, since we didn't eat the strawberries.  No deal.  Finally, finally, after 15 minutes of arguing, he relented and let us go for ¥3000 (≈$30.00), a mere ¥550 (≈$5.50) above what our bill should have been. At this offer, I bit.  In a strange and sudden change of moods that would only happen here, we shook hands and left with numerous thank you's and so forth.  To my pleasant surprise, Akemi was supportive through the whole thing and expressed her admiration when we left.  She did offer to just pay it all a number of times, but actually, she seemed to clearly appreciate my enduring some unpleasantness for the sake of resisting this trickery.

Anyway, let that be a lesson.  I guess you should ask lots of questions, even if it seems rude or abrupt, when you go into a club here. Actually, once before, an okonomiyaki place tacked on about ¥1000 (≈$10) for little appetizers.  We paid it that time.  We also had an internet cafe try to charge us double because she waited next to me in the computer area, even though we explained this ahead of time.  We successfully negotiated that one.  But sheesh!  With the high prices of stuff here, you'd think they wouldn't need to extract more money through this kind of trickery.  It's really annoying.  You feel like you need to ask 50 questions before you sit down anywhere, just in case they decide that napkins will cost a hundred bucks a piece on Tuesdays, or something like that.  It's totally ridiculous.  To ask that many questions would kill the fun of going out.

Going out for ice cream to cool off

After the club, we went out for Haagen Dazs ice cream.  Here we are.  I took this with my phone, so it didn't come out very well.

And, here's the ice cream.  I believe I got a scoop of chai ice cream and a scoop of cranberry frozen yogurt.

Originally, I planned to stay the night in Osaka and go back home early the next morning.  But, since I was operating on only 2.5 hours sleep, I bagged that idea.  Too bad.

A co-ed bathroom

On the way back, I stopped in the bathroom at the station in Himeji.  I was surprised when a woman walked in the bathroom and went in a stall as I was doing my business at the urinal.  Turns out, it's a coed (unisex, konyoko, whatever you want to call it) bathroom.  Both men and women go in.  Yet another example of how men have no modesty here.  This sign simply explains that this is a mixed use bathroom and direct objectors to the nearest gender separated bathroom.

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