Pages

Monday, 19 March 2012

Drinking In Nagasaki -from my time in japan-


I noticed that whilst I mentioned briefly in my main catch up post what I had been up to I never went into full detail about my time in Japan. I shall be doing a series of posts about certain aspects of my time living there. More so just for me to remember them. The writing might not make sense nor be interesting but stay with me. Also just to cover myself everything written about Japan is my own opinion. The opinion has come after three different stays, in three different cities at three different points of my life. Now that has been cleared up let me begin.

Night Life in Nagasaki

Like any party loving Brit I was looking forward to having good nights out. To meet the typical Japanese person who wasn’t someone I worked with and to just get away from the stress of having to deal on a daily and hourly basis of being treated like a moron. I think the Japanese do not understand what clubbing actually is, at least not in Nagasaki. It was almost impossible to find anywhere other than hostess and host bars, many more of the former then the latter, and anywhere we did find was usually just a long bar with a few tables and a couple of staff, one being the master drinks maker. In England we have an already set idea on what is cheap, what is expensive and how a pint of beer should be. The Japanese do not understand nor know what a pint should look like. They find it perfectly acceptable if not better that the beer be half head and half liquid…

 (This is actually how it looks.)

I have done beer pulling training with the guys who own Heineken. The head must be no more than 1% of the pint. In England a punter will complain if there’s not the right amount of head…insert sexual innuendo here… I know I would. Yet all you see on the adverts is nearly all head. The bar that I became a regular in poured the beer so badly I asked if I could pull it myself. It was Carlsberg which is one of the more difficult pints to pull, I think it’s the pump, yet it didn’t bother them. They instead stirred the beer hoping that would flatten the head. A STIRRED LAGER. It was all wrong to me plus the fact that more often than not the beer would be costing me at least 500 yen. Expensive.

I found out about the beer situation pretty early. That unless I was buying a can of beer, often cheaper than fruit or vegetables, it was best to avoid the golden nectar. I decided to stick with spirits. After all back in England when I go out that is what I stick to. Again another shock. There were no sours to start off the night, there was no Sambuca to have with lemonade and there wasn’t even any lemonade. Instead the choice was vodka, whiskey, rum, Tequila or shochu. I could never afford Malibu rum and vodka is usually the one drink I avoid like the plague, it has the habit of making me extremely aggressive. I did try shochu which gave me my first ever hangover and made me paralytic. In the end I realised that the cheapest drinks, which is important as I was only on a volunteers wage, were tequila a drink that I have learned makes me vomit like I’m possessed and vodka which makes me loud, aggressive and in the words of an Irishman incredibly more chav like. 

 (My first night out with a screwdriver.)

Also unlike England there is no designated clubbing spot. The clubs are not one building but instead could be a room on the third floor. You would be well advised to walk up the random staircases you see dotted around the town and know that you will come across another bar or more likely a hostess bar. There are many different views on hostesses. My idea and again this is my own opinion high class escorts that get the men incredibly drunk for more money and where dresses look like tacky prom dresses….. My own opinion. They also seem to have nails that make me wonder how they do anything with them and maybe the reason why they have to drink so much is because they are tense from not being able to masturbate… ahem my idea of a joke. Sorry…



 (See what I mean though there are different styles some are not as bad as this. This picture is for dramatic effect)

So on the first night out, me and partner decided we should celebrate in style. We wanted one drink and then go home. Now we are typical English girls who decided that one drink is never enough and decided to go and get pissed, go to a club and pull some random men. THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN HERE...much

I have written earlier about our escapades. We could not find a club but different bars. 

The one that we became a regular in was called Dindi with the swastika sign. The staff were lovely if a little useless when it got busy. I mean one night when it was packed because it was some gaijin party, full of obnoxious Americans, one who asked why, when saying no to my friend who was asking if I wanted to go home, I was saying no to him. Um I just met you mate plus you look like a skeleton with skin with a crappy baseball cap and misjudged arrogance….
Like I was saying it was packed and it ended up that my 1000yen for 90 minutes paid for only two drinks though I had ordered ten. They kept forgetting and were not able to handle being busy. Are you wondering why it was 1000yen for 90 minutes?

It is common in japan for a thing called のみひょうだい (nomi hyoudai). It’s a set amount of time where you can drink anything. It can work out cheaper if you are a borderline alcoholic like me. Yet like always it’s only designated drinks, tequila, vodka, crappy beer and whisky. Not the best choice but I’m not going to moan. 

Dindi is a room on the 3rd floor of a random building by a tram stop. It has a bar and a bit of a dance floor with some couches. Compared to the clubs I’m used to working in, and partying it I could not comprehend how they could deal with busy periods. They don’t get busy.


(See tiny.)
It mainly played hip hop and r&b. I like heavy club/dance music or heavy rock/metal. So not my cup of tea. Luckily the bar man became a friend of mine so the only reason I ended up going was because he let my 1000yen nomi hyoudai last till 6am when the bar shut. 

That is the one strange thing. Bars either shut incredibly early at 12 or incredibly well early at 6am. Though do not worry McDonalds is open 24 hours so there is always somewhere to wait for the trams/trains to start and taxis are ridiculously expensive. 

Like everywhere in Japan it is legal, if not easier to smoke inside. So every bar, club, restaurant, café etc. is smoky and dark. You will be sat there smelling of smoke. My lungs are probably black tar.

  (That is my friend but that is the amount of smoke I was constantly surrounded by)










SO for now that is it. Japanese bars are a strange breed. Where you relax and unwind and lose all your money. Whilst it was nice to get out and mingle, mainly it seemed with Americans there were also many Japanese who wanted to talk to us and feel if my breasts were real. Yes they are naturally large…It’s strange I was touched up more by woman then men. Like everywhere enjoy yourself and the strangeness and you may be lucky you may pull a bloke that looks like this.



Yes this did happen. Don’t have nightmares.

No comments:

Post a Comment