Olemiswebs

What do you do?

Today, I’ve been the whole day at home. Half of it sleeping, recovering from the tough week with the guests; and the other half preparing a trip I am going to do in Christmas… and suffering some allergy. 🙁 Therefore, I have not been out tonight in spite of being Saturday night.

But I did something else. I decided to walk from home towards a place I had never been and look for some place to have dinner in. If you remember what I wrote a couple of months ago, Tokyo neighbourhoods vary a lot from the area close to the stations to further places. I live relative far from my station, and today I decided to walk towards another station which, I realized today, is almost as close as “mine”.

Anyway, when I arrived to the next station’s area, I started finding lots of shops, restaurants and some more people than earlier. It is a pity that I did not bring this time the camera with me, as I saw some interesting things. I saw two hairdressers, with all the personnel training with dummies (Saturday at around 9 pm!) and a Spanish restaurant with a big flag, and no Spaniard in it (it seems every neigbourhood in Tokyo needs to have at least one spanish restaurant).

Finally, I went into a small sushi place, the only restaurant in a non-main street… It is normal that they looked surprised when they saw a western face sitting there. They understood quickly that I do not speak a word in Japanese and they (owners and all customers) did their best to communicate and did not wait long until they started asking me where I come from, how long I have been in Japan, why I am in Japan, where I work, how old I am, if I am single or not,… From all these questions, they are showed special interest in the company I work for. This makes a point, and you can realize how they use it when they talk one to each other about you… I had read about the importance of this in the japanese society, but today I experienced it.

After that, I walked back to my place, but using a different path. I was not in a hurry, so I could spend some time trying out new ways. And in a small corner, next to the tracks, I saw a small bar, from outside seemed very noisy and with lots of people. It reminded me to the atmosphere in some bars in Seville, so I looked in through the window, and found out a couple of paella pans next to the window… What…? I could not see anything else due to some curtains, but I decided to go to the door, and check why those paellas were there… And I checked that they were not the only spanish element of the bar: the name is “Barrera” (remember: it is placed next to the tracks), there are tapas and vinos in the menu, spanish pottery, bull fighting and sevillanas posters, a Spain’s map, … It was the first spanish bar (not restaurant) I have seen in Tokyo. When I was standing at the door, someone opened it, and I just went in… It was full of japanese people, and also an italian guy living for some years in Tokyo was hanging out with a friend. Just two people in the bar apart from him spoke English, and those who did, surprisingly could also say a few words of Spanish… Guess what they asked me, and what was then repeated to everybody… Yes, the same questions as in the sushi place, and special attention to the professional activity…

And now that I am reflecting about this, I remember another example, when we visited Yokohama. We asked a couple to take a picture from us, and it happened to be a spanish guy with his japanese wife. We talked for a while with him, and we did not talk about work… But his wife, suddenly, asked us what we do for work. The guy was visibly a bit embarrassed, as he knew it is not that common in Spain to ask that in the first two minutes of conversation…

But in Japan it is. So, be ready for that.