Making friends in Pontocho Alley
This is the part where you tell him where to go. Shit. How do you say that in Japanese again?
He takes it and scowls before giving it back. Jeremy and I exchange glances. Before we can say anything else, he bolts from the curb, then hits the brakes, yelling unintelligible Japanese at another driver in his way. I grip my phone tight and stare hard at our location on the map.
He crosses the river again and again. My stomach knots.
Are we even in the right place?
After his third round of passive aggressive huffing, we decide It’s clearly time to get out. Even that is difficult to manage and we result in speaking english, hoping he understands.
My cheeks heat, feeling like a failure, unable to communicate effectively. He stops, we pay, and retrieve our belongings before the car putters away, disappearing down the block.
The sky is cloudless and the color of lilac, dotted with early evening stars. We lug our bags down a quiet street to the sound of crickets chirping and rushing water from nearby canals. We follow our phones to the end of the block to find our hostel. Light beams shine through the glass door and cut sharply through the night. Inside, two men wearing tank tops and sandals sit at a wrap-around bar laughing. They look up briefly and nod in our direction.
A woman appears from the hallway in front of a bulletin board collaged with flyers two layers deep. After an awkward moment of pulling out my itinerary, she smiles and gestures to follow.
The boards creak and bow as we ascend to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, the hostess turns left down another corridor lined with large doors decorated in bamboo.
“Here” she points as she unlocks a door in front of us. It swings wide to reveal a small room.
She hands me the keys. “restrooms” and she points back down the hall before leaving with a smile.
We drop our bags and sit on the floor, nursing our sore necks, feet, and shoulders. I turn on the air conditioner to circulate the stuffy air.
Jeremy looks around. “I’m not really ready to sleep yet, are you?” He says as he pulls out his phone.
Every muscle in my body aches, and my blisters have blisters. Still, I nod in agreement.
“There’s this place close by.” He says, looking at his phone, his face aglow in a blueish-white light. His thumbs scroll feverishly. “It supposedly has a lot of bars and restaurants. Want to check it out?”
“Sure, babe. We can go out for a little while, at least,” I smile weakly.
It’s going to be a long night.
Five minutes later, we step out into the night. Yellow lanterns glow, their orbs reflecting off puddles along the deserted streets, a sharp contrast to Tokyo’s neon thrum. Inky black water rushes over smooth stones in a shallow channel next to us.
We meander, crossing the canal a few times until our path intersects with a major street. Cars whiz by as crowds of people across the street funnel through a narrow alleyway. Above, a sign reads “Pontocho Alley.” Beyond it, lanterns dangle from rain gutters over sidewalks clogged with people peering into windows and entering doorways on the same quest for late-night nosh. We get stuck behind the rubberneckers, and Jeremy practices evasive maneuvers to get ahead, but no matter where we go, more people appear.
Plastic food adorns each window; flakey pork katsu cutlets, small plates of shiny raw fish morsels, and fork-fulls of spaghetti taunt us with their realism. We check a few places, but each one is closed or full. I begin to lose hope until we happen upon an empty doorway with a sign out front that reads craft beer in English. We look at each other with relief and nod.
This will do.
As we climb up the steep flight of stairs, a brown door with a porthole suddenly swings open, and a well-dressed couple steps out, giggling and saying goodbye to the people inside. They stumble into the stairwell, bumping into the walls as they go. We press ourselves against the wall to let them pass, and as they do, we hear muffled sounds of music and laughter emanating from behind the door.
The hinges squeal as Jeremy turns the knob unleashing a blast of 80’s hair metal. We step through the door, and suddenly, all eyes snap on us, as if we are intruding on a private party.
We cross the room and claim the last two wooden stools. The eyes trained on us lose interest as soon as the door squeals shut. Currency from around the world covers the wall behind the bar. The band Kiss plays on a small tv mounted in the corner. A young woman in her twenties asks us what we want as her tall, thin co-worker with a backward hat and skinny mustache stands waiting. Before we can look at the menu, the door squeals open again. This time, new patrons peer in, look for seats, frown, and close the door.
The god of nightlife has blessed us, and we shall not squander our gift.
I open the cocktail menu and laugh, pointing at bold black letters that read “kamikaze.” Jeremy notices, raising his eyebrows.
“You have to get it!” he says, “It’s your drink”!
I point at the drink and say “Kamikaze o kudasai”. The girl grimaces and calls over her colleague. I watch as he coaches her through the proportions of the drink and once she’s finished, she hands it to me timidly along with our snack order.
We clink glasses with a “Kampai!” and take a drink.
The familiar sour lime flavor washes over my tongue and mixes with the salty chex mix. The female bartender watches me from the corner of her eye.
“Oishii desu!” I say, raising my glass to her. She smiles, looking relieved, and asks “where…from?”.
“San Francisco,” we say in unison. She smiles excitedly and nods before returning to making another drink.
After an hour and a round of drinks later, the door opens again, and a third man joins the other bartenders and relieves the young girl. He’s shorter and stockier with a mohawk and flashes us a big smile. He takes our second order and tries to make small talk, but he knows even less English than the others.
The music shifts from Bon Jovi to a familiar tune. I smile and Jeremy rolls his eyes. Unexpectedly, the new bartender sings along, “You are... my fire. The one... desire. Believe... when I say...”
To my surprise, half the bar sings in unison: “I want it that way!”
I sing along, and with each verse, more people join in until just about everyone belts out the final line.
Who knew the backstreet boys could bond us together?
We sit for another hour and watch the tourists come and go, only to be replaced by more and more locals. By my fourth round, the music shifts from Early 2000’s pop to Japanese music. We don’t mind.
In the corner, a man in a sharp suit stands up quickly as his date, a young woman in a red dress, bows, and leaves. He sits back down, visibly dejected. Our charismatic bartender with a mohawk notices and yells across the bar at the guy and offers him another drink. He accepts it with a nod and continues the conversation.
Minutes later, a Japanese punk song begins to play, and Mr. Mohawk erupts in excitement as he runs over to join the man in a business suit in the corner. They drunkenly sing and jump up and down to the melody.
Jeremy looks at me with a big smile and a twinkle in his eye as if to say, “these are my people.”
We leave soon after, but not before the man with the mohawk hugs us like we are old friends. I smile realizing that while we didn't share a common language, we still found ways to connect. Kyoto began with misunderstanding, but it ended with communicating through song, and understanding each other perfectly.