Last night in Kyoto, I joined a Japanese family for dinner by mistake. It was the greatest part of my trip.
Last night my wife was tired of walking all day and needed to rest her feet, so I went to dinner without her. I found a random restaurant on Tabelog and made my way to a small 8-seater restaurant. When I sat down, I was seated next to a group of 4 older locals, 2 couples (probably around 60-70) Shortly after I sat down, one of the people asked me where I was from in English. I told her I was from the US and she said, “okay.”
I continued eating and about 30 minutes in, one of the men in the group of 4 started showing his wife and 2 friends a picture of their cat. I couldn’t help but notice and chimed in, “very cute cat!” The man got so excited. He hardly spoke any English and I speak maybe 10 words of Japanese (thank you Duolingo) but we started chatting with what we could. One of the wives would also translate more in depth sentences. Turns out she was an English teacher before she retired.
Next thing I know, this group is ordering sake for me, ordering sushi, steak, etc for the group and splitting it equally with me. We laughed, shared stories, and learned a lot about each other. They kept calling me friend. The dinner went from 6-10 PM and it was such an amazing time. Afterwards, they paid and got up to leave but first they asked to take pictures with me and one of the men added me on Instagram lol. As they were leaving, the man who sat closest to me said, via google translate, “it has been a great pleasure to get to know you. I look forward to seeing you the next time you visit Kyoto.” Everyone gave me a handshake, we exchanges pleasantries, and they went on their way.
I finished paying my bill, and as I finished, the group came back and asked me if I would join them for a drink at a local bar. I couldn’t say no, so we went to a bar and continued to tell more stories. After 6 hours with the group, we parted ways, again exchanging pleasantries.
It was so moving to me that despite cultural differences, language barriers, and age differences (I’m 32), we were able to come together and share such a unique experience. I won’t post the pics out of respect of them, but I will say, they are pictures I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.
Editing this post because a lot of people are a curious on me leaving my wife behind: she had a pretty bad rash from the heat and all the walking and told me to go out and have a great time. The only ask was that I text her on my way back to the hotel to see if she was still awake because she wanted 7-11 lol. She loved the stories and was very happy I got to experience something like that.
A few more in the comments like this one.
My wife and I walked into a random bar in Golden-gai a dozen years ago on our honeymoon trip. We sat and ordered our drinks and were just minding our own business in a small bar, when two mid-twenties Japanese salarywomen started talking to us. Chie knew decent English from a year abroad while Yuka barely spoke any English. All she could yell in her broken, drunken English was “I want a Canadian boyfriend!” (we’re from Vancouver). Many drinks and hours past the last train later, we said our goodbyes while exchanging Facebook contacts. It felt like we had known each other for years. Little did we know, that this was just the start of an incredible friendship.
A few years later, we returned to visit Chie in another city where she now worked. We had dinner at a local restaurant which she kindly paid for, then invited us to her apartment to have some snacks and tea. Time got pretty late and she just said “oh why don’t you guys crash here?” Having no other plans for the night we graciously accepted her offer. We woke up next morning and saw breakfast already prepared for us, and as it was a normal workday for her, she just told us to take our time and lock up whenever and leave the key in the mailbox.
But the story doesn’t end there. We went back to Tokyo and visited Yuka during sakura season. She invited a few of her friends and we went hanami in Ueno park, and karaoke afterwards. Her English was still quite poor, though we could communicate as my Japanese is conversational and one of the friends spoke some English as well. We also visited her hometown and they showed us around, brought us to a pottery experience (we still have the bowls we made), and just had a great time overall.
A few months later, Yuka contacted us and told us that she wanted to move to Vancouver! She chose our city because she knew we live here. Over the next few months, she would regularly Skype with my wife to practice her English, and when the time came, we housed her for a couple weeks until she found a place to stay. She went to English school here and improved her English massively over the next year or two. More importantly, she found her “Canadian boyfriend” (actually a Brazilian who was also here to study/work). They moved back to his home in Brazil during the pandemic and got married!
Eventually they would move back to Japan to her hometown, as they both work remotely for foreign companies. This past winter, as we and my parents had planned to visit Japan, she invited all of us to visit her family (now with a newborn baby!) in her parents old traditional house where we enjoyed a wonderful osechi lunch made by her mom (who would not stop cooking), while her dad proudly showed us pictures from his youth and had great conversations with my family (through translations of course).
Had we walked into another bar on that fateful night, all of our lives might have been very different, but to us, this is what travelling is all about, and for me, someone’s who’s been to Japan over 20 times, this is what I always tell everyone why Japan is the best, because of the people. In two months, I’m going to achieve my goal and will be visiting the last of all 47 prefectures. Many of my Japanese friends always marvel at how many places in Japan I’ve visited, but to me, there’s never enough time and I’m still just scratching the surface.
Tldr: go to Japan.
