Japanese cafe

This, to me, is good. I had left my friend’s Paul’s house hoping to find someplace I could sit and do a little work. We had just eaten lunch and I wanted to find a place to sip some coffee or tea and write. I knew where a Starbucks was, but not only was it a bit of a walk; more to the point, it was a Starbucks, and I did not want to be in the interchangeable environment of a Starbucks. Now, Paul happens to live near a very fashionable shopping street in Kawagoe, and I was reasonably certain I could find some place to sit down. But there was nothing really available. A lot of places to eat lunch but no place to sit and sip a little coffee or tea. I mean, technically speaking I could have done this at a restaurant. But not without drawing attention and feeling out of place, and for someone as self-conscious as I am, this is not a good situation.

So I had resigned myself to Starbucks and was strolling in that direction when I cam across THE PLACE. A honest-to-God little Japanese Café with tables set aside just for drinking coffee. It was as if physical reality had created the place I had had in my imagination. Although the main area was obviously set aside for lunch, there was a little nook, off ot the side, with a few tables set up, perfect for sitting and working in an unobtrusive manner.

The glass doors of the place slide open. As you walk in you hear soft jazz play over the radio, see coffee products piled on the counter. You head to the little table and take a seat There is a menu sitting at the table and thankfully a picture of exactly what you want: a cup of coffee. The price is steep—450Y—but it is what you would have paid at Starbucks. You turn to you left and there is a glass divider between you and a couple of Japanese business men in suits and serious conversation. The waitress walks over, carrying a menu with a couple of pictures of sweets on it—disgusting looking things actually, they don’t do sweets well here—but you already have the menu with the picture of coffee on it and can point to it in your limited Japanese, and at least think you are saying “this please” (koday kudasayi). And the coffee arrives in a small cup but you don’t care about the size because now you can sit in a café and know you are in Japan.