Drinking in Japan

I am getting ready to leave for a two week business tour of Japan and Korea. We will visit a few companies in Korea and then have some internal meetings. Then we will go to Japan and have some more meetings. In honor of this occasion I decided to post the following story about a previous trip to Japan with our Research Manager. 


First a little background... The company I work for was a wholly owned family company founded in the early 1900s. It was recently sold to a Japanese company for a hefty ransom… Before this acquisition both our companies were greatly involved with each other by licensing each other’s technologies for their respective markets. As a result I have been to Japan a few times. One particular trip stands out from the others.

We were visiting the coating technical center and had been working on defining a process for Coating A. The coating technical center is about a 90 minute train ride outside of Tokyo. This was lab work and some of the equipment and process found in the lab were less than ideal based on how our customers would use the coating. I also had to bring some measuring equipment to ensure the coating was going to meet the required specifications once it was applied at the customer's facility. 

The last day of our work was a customer visit to the technical center. This was an important visit and we wanted to make sure a good impression (and good test parts) was made. The test run went pretty well. We finished late in the evening. Late enough that the train schedule changed. Most of the day there is a train about every 15 minutes going back towards Tokyo. In the evening, after the rush, the train schedule changes to a train every hour or later every 90 minutes. The trains actually stop running at either 10:00 or 11:00 pm for the route back to Tokyo. We were catching this last train at either 10:00 or 11:00.

We finished the trial and just missed the next to the last train so we had about 90 minutes to wait. What better way to wait than to have a snack and do some drinking.

This seemed to be a meal I like to call “Let’s See What the Gringos Will Eat” type of meal where nothing is off limit, think Fear Factor with chop sticks (at least the eating part). This is never one of my favorite meals but it happens every time I visit Japan. So I go with it. My policy is that as long as someone at the table (Japanese) will eat it I will also try it. This policy has not failed me yet but I have eaten some interesting things that I never would have ordered off the menu by myself.

Normally this consists of various raw fish items. Some of the more notable things I have eaten on Gringo night include: fish testicles, sea urchin (nasty), salmon roe, and glow in the dark squid. I caused a bit of a laugh when eating the squid. I of course asked what it was. Once I found out it was glow in the dark I did what anyone would do. I put my hand over the top of the bowl and looked inside it through a small gap to see if it was glowing. I was disappointed. It was not glowing. Apparently this particular squid only glows when it is alive. I felt ripped off…

The only thing interesting in this “Gringo” meal was sushi style horse. The dish consisted of a few small pieces of uncooked horse meat placed in a bowl with a kind of cocktail sauce. It was not too bad. Oh, did I mention that we were drinking a lot as well.

I was matching them drink for drink, kind of. We started with beer. Next we drank some Sake. After the Sake we drank some Tennessee style whiskey. Then we went back to beer. Then Sake again and I’m not sure what else, all in the course of about an hour. Needless to say by the time the horse arrived it didn’t taste too bad. I actually remember thinking it was pretty good.

Now it is time to go and catch the train. Did I mention that I had a large case full of tools? I did and I carried/drug it along the sidewalk and through the train station to the train. We made it with a few minutes to spare for the 90 minute ride back.

By this time I have to go the bathroom pretty bad. A wise man once said, “One does not buy beer, one only rents it.” This saying is also true for the other types of beverages I consumed during the evening. I think I had to use the restroom at least 2 more times on the train. None of my Japanese colleagues went once. I felt a little silly for not being able to hold my liquor, but not enough to try to hold it/pee myself on a public train.

We finally arrive back at the train station for our final night. We have a short walk to the hotel and check in. Since all the drinking was pretty quick, I am feeling better and better as the night goes on. We manage to check in and I make it to my room.

The next thing you need to know is that I get motion sick from time to time. My worst time was fishing with my grandpa on Lake Erie. We went the morning after a large storm passed through and the waves were about 5 feet tall. I made it through about 4 hours when I had to toss my breakfast over the side of the boat. On the bright side, I still will eat biscuits and gravy... Then I lay down and went to sleep for a couple hours, long enough to get a nice sunburn on my right ear and on the rest of the right side of my face. Oh what a trip especially since we did not catch any fish to speak of.

I have been made sick from a spinning carnival ride and I have felt some nausea from a roller coaster or two. I didn’t throw up on those last occasions but my stomach felt very bad. Here is the first ride I remember being sick on. 

The ride is still there today if you are interested. It is in operation at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, California. My family visited there every summer to visit my grandparents. 


All the other times that I have thrown up from motion sickness are drinking related. Once I get to the point when the room starts spinning I might as well go and sit on the floor next to a toilet because I will be making a deposit/refund. I won't go into details about those instances. 

After checking into the hotel room I turn on the TV and find CNN, nearly the only English speaking channel available. Then I decide to call my boss at work. It is late in the evening in Japan which makes it early in the morning in Indiana. I don’t have many memories of the call to my boss. Then I call another co-worker and I also don’t remember much of that conversation.

My third and final call is to my wife at her work. I don’t remember too much that we talked about. I am getting most of the details from the Chief after I returned home. At some point I yelled “raw horse” into the phone. I received a “What?” in return so I changed it and yelled “Horse tartare!” I did not know it but the Chief had put me on speaker phone in her office and I was entertaining the entire office staff.

By this time all the drinking has caught up with me and the room is starting to spin pretty badly. I sign off the phone call with the Chief by saying, “I gotta go and yak now. Bye.” (Abrupt hang up of the phone). The Chief says that is a pretty good start to a morning because a good laugh just hits the spot.

Meanwhile, back in the hotel, I go into the bathroom and sit next to the toilet. Sure enough I refunded. I will spare some of the details but I didn’t know I had eaten a pair of boots. As with most yak sessions, there is some action followed by a pause, then some more action and another longer pause. This cycle continues for a while. The question I always have to ask is if this is the last yak and is it safe to brush my teeth to get the taste out of my mouth. During one of the longer pauses I notice the toilet is pretty fancy. I don’t mean gold plated or anything like that. More specifically I mean the toilet seat has some features unknown to me, being from Indiana.

First of all the toilet seat is heated. I noticed this when I first checked in had to take care of business. What I did not notice is the control panel on the side of the toilet seat. This thing has more features than my car.

Here is a picture of a similar seat.

There are other buttons that I’m not sure what they do because I don't read Japanese. So since I have some time I decide to try them out. There is a button controlling a fan that takes the grumpy air and makes it happy. One button gives a kind of courtesy flush. The next button made a little wand come down in the back of the toilet seat. I was intrigued by this and stared at it a little closer. Once the wand was fully extended it squirted water straight into my face.

It was warm water. I thought that if I was sitting on the toilet, instead of praying to it, the washing action might be OK. 


I now have this at home:

It has a heated seat that gets very hot if it is set on the hottest setting. It also has a remote control with buttons in English...

Also, one feature that I was not counting on, it will not squirt water unless someone is sitting on the seat. The first thing I did after installing it was to test that feature. 


Now I really like the home field advantage.


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