Maltan

Who says Tokyo is expensive? I just had a 13 course meal 990 Yen ~ €8. Well OK, beer seems to be quite pricey in most places. Half pint 450-550 Yen.

282. Kirin - 82 Real Ale

Listing beers is getting quite difficult. My Japanese needs still bit practice so from most beer I am only able to get the town that the beer is from. That doesn't stop me from enjoying. For example I had really good stout from Osaka. Beer names are of course written in Japanese and I tell you, kanji is difficult. I tried to copy names to my notebook but that didn't work at all.

I found nice small bar called Maltan. They had several Japanese crafts of tap, names written with kanji... Owner of the place, Nakamura-san and his wife were very helpful to explain something about the beer but I didn't quite understand more than where the beers came from and the beer styles. I'm not sure if I should give these a number also, well what the heck...

283. IPA from Nagano Prefecture
284. Red Ale from Nigata
285. Stout from Osaka

I had one of most amazing evenings at Maltan. I made bar full of people friends, only couple of the spoke even couple words of English but that didn't matter at all. Businessmen with ties, bar staff, normal neighborhood people. They were very keen on hearing about Finland and hearing why I travel in Japan. They were very happy that someone came there after the disaster. I got loads of travel tips, loads of sake etc. etc. Discussions were quite fluent with couple words of English and when those were not enough, drawings and bartenders laptop with Google translator worked well. Thank you Nakamura-san for laptop loan.

When it was time form me to go and catch last train to ryokan (Japanese inn) I gave a handshake to pretty much everybody in the bar and when I was at the door everyone was waiving to me and shouting sayonara. I felt almost like a movie star. Special thanks for Takeshi-san for onsen tips.

Ps. It is true that Moomin is big in Japan. Everybody knew that Moomin is from Finland.