Becoming a vampire has its benefits. I’m not referring to your Bram Stokers, Vlad the Impaler, or even the twinkling variety of vampires—I mean being a functional adult while the rest of the city’s sleeping kind of undead. One such benefit is the ability to take advantage of a nearly empty bar while everyone else is getting up for work. Enter Umiya—more specifically Umiya West Point.
In November of 2006, Tara and I had only recently been initiated into our own covenant of foreign language teachers in Osaka, Japan. Our seasoned coworker, Everett, decided taking us to Umiya would be a perfect way for Tara and I to celebrate our first official payday and act as an introduction to a Japanese drinking practice of nomihodai (all-you-can-drink).
After wrapping up our final lessons at 8:00 a.m.—our first lessons had begun at 10:30 the night before—the two of us followed Everett down three flights of stairs to the fifteenth floor and punched out for the day. Everett sent a quick message to his Japanese wife and began the process of navigating us through the warren-like network of underground walkways below the Namba area. We came topside near the Namba Hatch, crossed a narrow section of the murky Dontonbori River, turned right, and were soon at our destination.
The bartender gave us a friendly greeting and didn’t seem all that surprised to see three foreigners dressed in office apparel coming off the street at just shy of 8:30 a.m. Since there was already a patron perched on a barstool having a good time, I guessed the guy was accustomed to seeing some day drinking at his establishment.
With a little bit of further discussion on what exactly we were getting ourselves into, Everett called over the bartender and informed him that we would all partake in the tabehodai nomihodai (an all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink) special. Not being the most gender-sensitive of places, Everett and I were both charged 3,200 yen (the price for men) while Tara was given the slightly discounted rate of 2,700 yen (the price for women). At the time, these rates would have worked out to approximately $30.50 and $25.70. In other words, it was damned cheap to eat whatever we’d like from the menu and drink all that we would like from the well for the next two hours. Being three Americans, we all took this as a challenge to get our money’s worth from this experience.
We started with a round of rum and Cokes, salted edamame (soybeans still in their pods), a tiny margherita pizza with a single basil leaf in the center, fried chicken, and a katsu sando (a fried pork sandwich). Our first round of drinks went down very easily and quickly led to our second. The second round arrived along with our edamame. Twenty minutes into our endeavor, and the rest of our food arrived.
Halfway through our bar food, round three was ordered. With a few drinks in him, Everett told us a few stories from his past. How he finished his degree in the midwest, moved to Japan, and eventually ended up in Osaka. Back in November of 2006, Everett had already been in Japan for over six years. He’d been married, had a son, and had even appeared on a Japanese game show. What a life.
By the time we had reached our fifth round, the drinks had switched to tequila sunrises, and we were ready for more food. Everett called the bartender over for what seemed like the dozenth time and asked for all of the same dishes we had originally ordered with a couple of additions. He included a plate of gyoza (Japanese dumplings), and each of us were going to have our own margherita pizza—still sprouting a single basil leaf—with this order.
At the ninety minute mark, and the seventh or eighth round of drinks on its way, Tara and I remembered we were scheduled to meet with a language exchange partner at our local train station around 11:00. We had not met this individual before, but Tara and I were hoping to develop a social network of Japanese friends to practice our language skills with. We told Everett that this would be our final drink, and we’d be leaving slightly before our allotted time had expired.
“Why the hell’d you want to do that for? There’s a karaoke bar down the street that’s got an amazing all you can drink for next to nothin’. We’ll finish here and go there next. Just tell her you can’t come. She’ll be fine,” he reassured us.
While it probably wouldn’t have been advisable to meet a complete stranger for the purposes of practicing our language skills after 90 minutes of drinking, I felt conflicted about canceling so last minute. Tara and I made a second attempt to extricate ourselves.
“Don’t worry about it. My father-in-law’s a barber. He knows tons of people. He’ll hook you up with someone who wants to do a language exchange no problem.” Everett could be trusted right? He’d been on a game show.
With our final round making it to the table at exactly 10:30, we relented. We spent the remainder of the morning and a portion of the afternoon with Everett. As expected, our prospective language exchange partner wasn’t pleased by our tardy request to reschedule our meeting, and we never actually met. We were cowards, and we chose the painless path that day.
The painless path is a direction we’ve seen numerous other English teachers take while living overseas. It’s painless to go out with a group of people who share the same first language as you. It’s painless to constantly go to the same foreigner-friendly bars and restaurants because they have menus with pictures and patient staff members who are willing to communicate with broken English. Basically, it’s painless because there is no growth. That morning, we didn’t grow.
This is not an indictment of Umiya. (People should definitely go there at least once to experience the craziness of an all you can eat and all you can drink special.) It’s an account of regret. Tara and I have often discussed how naive we were when we moved to Osaka, or how we would have done things differently if we ever lived there again. Lack of money and the schedule we kept are usually the culprits we bring up when talking about why things weren’t better, but I think the painless path played its part too.
Please, if you are thinking about doing something as nutty and exciting and rewarding and memorable as moving overseas, don’t always take the painless path. It’s boring, and why would you want that?
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