So, we’re sitting in a Japanese restaurant ordering dinner in our best Japanese – and doing fine, I might add, when a Japanese woman sitting at the next table with her husband tried to help.  It was very kind of her, but her English was about on par with my Japanese and she started to speak in Japanese to me.  When I explained via Google Translate that I only spoke a small amount of words in Japanese, she was not deterred and continued to repeat the words over and over as if by hammering them into us we would magically understand.

We had ordered sake and we weren’t that fussed with the taste, so we ordered wine and beer – and were quite happy with our choice of beverage, I might add.  However our new best friend kept butting in (sorry helping) by telling the waitress what she thought we wanted.  Then she very kindly ordered a different kind of sake and asked for two more glasses so we could have a taste.  She then offered her food for us to have a taste and again – I agree that this was very kind, even though it was unnecessary.

She then organised for two more drinks to appear and kept saying “Free. Free.”  It tasted pretty disgusting, and she wasn’t making the situation easier as she continued to tell us what it was even though we said we didn’t understand what she was saying – something about soba – we were guessing the noodles?  The drink was made from soba noodles?  I don’t know!

So after exhausting our limited conversation in Japanese/English where neither of was understanding anything, we decided to go….. and then the heavens opened up and it absolutely pissed down!

Our new best friend was trying to make it known that it was ok for us to stay and drink more with them for at least 10 minutes or one hour more.  This might have been fine if we weren’t exhausted from our day and if we hadn’t had enough of the conversation, so we tried to say we had to get back to the hotel to check out, etc….. To which she replied that she would call the hotel for us!!!!!

What she was going to say to them, I don’t know!

Anyway, we finally got away and had to run back to the hotel in the rain.

I’ll just add that we carried umbrellas around with us ALL DAY and not a drop of rain!