Snakku

Ryan and I made the bad choice, however, of going back to Ueno, which, we learned, is all but dead on a drizzly Monday night. After lapping the train station a couple of times looking for something interesting, we were about to pack it in when Ryan suggested as a last ditch effort we head into a local snakku.

Now, for the uninitiated, a snakku is a nightclub (in the old sense of the word) where customers of one sex (usually male) go to pay a bunch of money to sit and drink and chat with employees of the opposite sex. That's it. Seriously. There's nothing dubious about it (except for the prices).

About the only time I got anything out of going to a snakku was the first time, when I was nineteen, didn't have a clue what kind of place I'd been taken to, and spent the whole time there waiting with trepidation for the moment when the lights would be dimmed and... you get the idea. But none of that ever happens (not at a snakku, at least). No, the most risque it gets is some flirting, a la what goes on in Canadian bars between waitresses and male clientele.

And that's the other thing about snakku: Monday was the first time in my life I'd ever been to one and paid for it. I've normally never had any interest, so have only gone when taken along by a Japanese host. I could never see the point in paying all that money to sit with some college girl who's a lousy conversationalist and have her giggle in delight at your Japanese ability when you know, ultimately, nothing'll come of it.

But away we went on Monday, and spent an hour drinking thoroughly-watered-down brandy (ends up tasting like unsweetened iced tea), smoking cigarillos and each making silly small talk to three successive girls dressed in evening gowns. Now, they were all nice enough people, but, as they would switch off girls every twenty minutes, this meant I ended up having the same conversation three times in one hour. Ugh.

Only the last girl was of any distinction, one because she had a little French instead of English, and two because she spoke with comparatively husky voice - I say comparatively as it was husky when compared with the usual high-pitched cutesy tone that passes for non-threatening and, thus, attractive to Japanese men. I'm not much for cute, so a natural voice was appealing (hey! one of the reasons I was attracted to my wife when I first met her is she speaks in a normal voice...).

Anyways, by 01.30 I was back at the hotel and bedding down, expecting to sleep in and skip Tsukiji. Little did I guess, however, what the body clock had in store for me...