9 November 2024
Hanging out in dark alleyways
Katamachi bar district
The other night I went to the main main area of Katamachi and remembered there were back alleyways that are very interesting.
Tonight I went back looking for them.
There was a lot of construction going on in the general vicinity of where the alleyways pictured below are, and so I suspect the ones I saw last time are now gone. I have a vivid memory of a couple of record listening dens with an old guy and a hifi system and a heap of records and not much else. I could find no such thing tonight.
What I did find was a bunch of 3 seat bars and little restaurants. It was all very interesting, but possibly gentrified. The areas with the signs all the same monochrome hue kind of give off the vibe that someone is coordinating it all rather than letting the shacks fall over or catch fire after going into disrepair so that they can then be replaced by something new.
This is a welcome gate. But what was I being welcomed to?
Probably the best photo of the evening. This is like what I remember, but just one small bit.
This area is what I was mentioning above, all the signs are similar, it does not appear to have developed organically over 100 years.
Here is the local shrine for people planning to tie one on.
One last shot of the back alleyways. These were taken before 6pm, hence no people yet.
On the hunt for my dinner and a lot of places have big lines. Although it is not shown here, this line goes around the block and is probably 100 people long. Surely that is many hours wait? I have no idea what kind of food is inside.
Eventually I headed back to the underground restaurant area near my hotel, and some places were closing at 7, restaurants! So my choices were limited and I ended up having this thing that they called special hashimoto rice beef. Which was basically omurice with a teriyaki rather than curry glaze with a small steak on top. I opted to get the token gesture salad. It was actually pretty good, much nicer than last nights pasta.
Tomorrow is a hiking day, but nothing too long, if I don't get lost.