A medical prison theme?

You’ve probably heard it before, but I’m unsure if you can truly comprehend just how much the Japanese love food. They love talking about food, they love watching other people talking about food, they love eating, oh and they love watching other people eat. They are completely infatuated with new products and restaurants….for all of thirty seconds that it, until the next craze hits.

A fine example of this behaviour in Japan at the moment would be the arrival of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. The shop opened in Shibuya (along with other branches scattered throughout Tokyo) around the beginning of June. Now I can understand that with all the people in this city there’s bound be a bit of wait for these deep fried rings of dough. But we are now mid way through July and everytime I’ve passed a Krispy Kreme store there has been a wait of at least an hour. And this is every day. Day in day out. Crazy I tell you.

Anyway back to my point. Not only do the Japanese love food they’re also totally obsessed with any opportunity that arises for them to throw on a costume. So why not combine the two?
There are at least 5 themed restaurants in Tokyo, that I’ve heard of anyway. Ranging from Alice in Wonderland through to a Catholic church theme. I decided this was something I was going to have to experience first hand.

Which brings to my exciting Friday night out at the Alcatraz: Medical Prison Izakaya in Shibuya (an Izakaya is I guess the closest thing the Japanese have to pub, where the focus is on drinking and lots of small plates of food that everyone shares). This is how the night unfolded. It was a lot of fun and the waiters and waitresses really did a good job at getting into, um, character.












Following our meal there was really one thing left to do...
Take sticker photos to really capture the essence of the evening. Too bad I’m completely unjapanese and ruined almost all the photos…

I think the point this sign was trying to get across (according to Eiri) is that this infact is not the exit.



And on a similar food related topic, here are some photos of earlier in the week when my roommate (Eiri) and I dined at a 100 yen sushi train restaurant. Basically the equivalent of a $2 sushi shop. Mmm meat ball sushi….