Snack Boo

Last night I went to a snack bar called Boo.  Actually, I went out for dinner with a friend, and we went to a sumiyaki restaurant (not to be confused with sukiyaki).  At this restaurant, each table has it's own charcoal grill--it's a clay pot full of piping hot embers with a little metal grate over the top.  Then you order raw meats and vegetables and roast them yourself.  As the business increases over the course of the evening, the smoke in the restaurant increases and the good smell of charred animal flesh infuses itself into your clothes.  It's really great!

Anyway, as I was saying, after dinner we went to Boo.  Actually, one thing I didn't mention about Snack Funny and Snack Rinka and Snack Boo is that they're all literally right next door to each other.  I mean they are actually different doors in the same building.

Boo was pretty quiet but Mama and the lady bartenders were all very friendly, and Mama invited me to go watch a sumo match with her later in April.  And here's what happens every time I go to a snack bar with a friend, including last night at Boo: MY friend and I arrive to find we're the only ones there, and we sit at the center of the bar.  We strike up charming conversation with the ladies, then a loner arrives, sits at one far end of the bar and gives Mama some sort of edible gift, like leftovers from a restaurant or something.  The loner talks to Mama a lot and also makes a lot of phone calls that make you think his friends are going to meet him there, but no on ever shows up.  Eventually another loner shows up and sits at the opposite end and talks on and off to the youngest and/or prettiest bartender on and off, chain smoking all the while.  This loner may or may not have brought his own alcohol.  This loner will also occasionally pipe in on our conversation.  The when it's time for me to leave, the first loner says nothing but the second, quieter loner stands up and shakes my hand and says how great it was to meet me, and he looks forward to seeing me again sometime.

I kid you not, this has happened at all 3 places and more than once at Snack Funny.

Anyway, I don't have any more stories.  But I was thinking that a lot of people I know have never seen a Japanese- or Asian-style public toilet.  In case you haven't heard, they're sometimes referred to as "squatters."  Here's why: