[Date: Mon 7th May]
I’ve been keeping count of how many times I’ve hit my head in this ryokan. It was built in god-knows-when and is entirely made of dark wood. Smoking is banned by the Asakusa fire department and for good reason. We’d all be incinerated in seconds if so much as a spark caught in here. It’s shoes off at the entrance and slippers or bare feet on warm old wood or tatami for the most part. It’s fantastically dark inside yet the whole place is open and airy. And low. Outside our room, the lowest beam in the house sits about a metre away from the sliding frosted-glass door. The way it works is this: you open the door to leave, turn around to slide the door closed and turn back and stride away immediately clocking your head on the low beam. Eight times now. I have a theory that, much like when you bite your tongue and it swells up making it more likely you’ll bite it again, my head has now swollen so I have to consciously duck a bit further with each successive day. I’ll be limboing out of here looking like an extra from Coneheads come our final day.
Yesterday we went to a themed bar in Shibuya called The Lockup. The theme is that of a dungeon-jail complete with serving staff in prison overalls or guard’s uniforms (with requisite short skirts, of course). Barry told the jailor at the entrance that I was the oldest therefore I was handcuffed by her and led to the cell which contained a low table and cushions. In there we ate and drank for a while before the lights all went out and a great crashing noise was accompanied by red flashing emergency lights. A monster had broken out! Cue monster rushing round the various jail cells and scaring the everliving shit out of people followed by gun-toting guards rushing into cells letting off a few rounds and shouting “Are you ok?” The loud rock music in the background was replaced by heroic Ghostbusters music as the police arrive and contain the monster who, by this time was holding a luckless prisoner hostage in her cell.
The food and drink in the Lockup was as peculiar. We ordered drinks, all of which are marked on the menu with big warnings instead of any real information as to what’s in the drink. The food is similar but you at least have a fighting chance of knowing what’s in it. The drinks don’t even say which ones are soft and which are alcoholic. We ordered takoyaki and taiyaki. It turns out both were “Russian roulette” dishes, meaning one of the 5 or so individual pieces was poisoned with the most almighty spicy sauce. You may have guessed by this description that I lost Russian roulette with my takoyaki. I can take my spice most definitely, but Jesus Neon Christ this was evil. It took me most of my pint of beer and the best part of ten minutes to recover.
The other kind of roulette we’ve been playing is what Barry calls bread-roulette. The idea being that you walk into a conbini for breakfast in the morning and just take a wild guess at what the hell is inside the vast number of different types of bread products they have. I have so far not lost this game in as spectacular way as I did the takoyaki roulette. I’ve also found that curry-pan is brill and a sad omission from the British shop shelves.
0 Responses to “Bread Roulette”