Visitors from Wales

Hooray - my first visitors from Wales arrived yesterday! Matt, Mandy and Livi are armed with JR rail passes, comfy walking shoes and a sense of adventure and are ready to explore Japan. I missed most of their first day as I was in work, but David showed them the delights of Makuhari which included a trip to Saizaria (family restaurant), a games arcade and a 100 yen shop. Classic.

Last night we thought we'd take them to a local izakaya (pub), but everywhere was full. I'd forgotten how busy Friday nights just after pay day could be. Salary men cutting loose. We did go into a yakiniku (DIY BBQ) place, but we weren't that impressed with the menu....It's one of those places where it would have been better had they NOT translated the menu into English. Delights included "cow's third stomach", "uterus", "pig's foot" and "tripe"....Livi wasn't impressed (and to be fair, neither was I). We made our apologies and ran.

We went to the local steakhouse instead. Although the food was good there, the service was unbelievably bad. We've been there many times and had never experienced that before. We'll blame it on poor Shoji, a Kanda student majoring in Spanish. His English was great, but his serving skills left a lot to be desired. So many of our students work part time in the restaurants of Makuhari and this neighbourhood gets so many foreign visitors, I reckon we should teach courses in "English for waiters and waitresses." The course should include note-taking skills and provide tips such as, if there's a hungry 10 year old from Wales at the table, she should get her dinner first.