Last Tuesday was a national holiday, and while the rest of the family was running around with their own business, me, crazygay (My host brother named after his favourite insult - hehe, talk about lasting revenge.) and Okaasan went to a cool sushi bar. As with most of the things you want to do in Japan, this was preceeded by plenty of waiting, but that's essentially a way of life here and it was great to look around the restaurant and the different dishes going around.

The dishes are coloured according to their price, with the highest at around thousand yen and the lowest below a hundread. Needless to say we didn't bother with the expensive ones (Leave that for another time when you're being treated by someone you don't mind bankrupting). How expensive this kind of dining is really depends on how much you need to eat. I didn't really find my dishes amounting to that much, despite the otherwise classy feel of the place. Crazygay on the other hand eats like he is feeding an Ethiopian family in his stomach, and thus this wouldn't be a practical option after a busy day for him.

One cool thing is that (assuming you can speak Japanese) you can just shout at the nearest chef to prepear you whatever sushi you like. Below the food conveyor belt there is another belt with tea mugs; on the table were two types of tea, and the tap you can see in the picture provides hot water. Japanese restaurants also always serve free water, and it's very unusual to buy other drinks. At out home too water is the usual drink, with a cool ice compartment below the fridge. If I feel the urge for a Fanta Grape, I can just pop out to the nearest vending machine. Vending machines are indeed absolutely everywhere, usually with several next to each other, offering a huge variety of hot and cold teas and coffees, carbonated drinks, juices and sports drinks. They are also much cheaper than in Finland, with the highest price for a bottle I've seen beeing 140 yen, or 0.86 euros, or 0.67 pounds, or 1.3 dollars.