The woman running the establishment was very welcoming for us to come sit down...and then practically shoved her son over to our table (over his vigorous protests) to serve us, as very clearly he was the only English-speaker in the establishment. We ordered some light plates (it was somewhat like a tapas bar, but with Japanese food of course)
We noticed down the table from us there was something of a lively commotion forming as some Japanese business men and two Taiwanese traveler were proceeding to communicate in broken English and becoming progressively drunker. We didn't think much of it until suddenly the table shifted with the two parties moving into the table right next to us.
"Where you from?" one Japanese man suddenly turned and asked Lydia.
"Austria"
"Ahh, Australia!"
"No, Austria. Near Germany."
"Yes, Austraila. Good good, and you?"
"America. California."
"Ahhh, America! She is from America! Surf! I surf!" complete with surfing pantomime
And suddenly we were part of the party. They bought drinks (sake and tea) and plates of food for us and were incredibly eager to practice their English.
At one point, while Lydia was trying to explain what Austrian dumplings were, I was oddly called upon to use my limited food-related Chinese. "They're like siu mai," I said. Which, even odder, the Japanese understood but the Taiwanese did not. The Japanese had to write out the kanji for it before they understood. "Ohhh, Hong Kong food! Sow mai!" I then had to explain to Lydia what siu mai were and how they really weren't like dumplings at all but close enough for our purposes.
The night ended with the business men (turns out they work as safety engineers overseeing the frozen food industry) heading out, and a very drunk Ruby (one half of the Taiwanese couple) proclaiming her love of Lydia and me and how dare we leave her and Tokyo tomorrow. She then insisted on paying for our meal, hugged the restaurant hostess and staggered off into the night with her boyfriend.
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