Monday, November 23, 2009

The Russian Restaraunt

This weekend, I am visiting one of the northern cities in Hokkaido. It has many Russian people that come in and out because of fishing. Many of the signs are in Russian as well. My friend who lives here, L, told me the Russian restaraunt was amazing and we should go.

We decided to go with one of the other ALTs in town, V, and her boyfriend. When we got there, we were seated at a table next to a table of three Russian guys. They said "hello" in English and then we went about talking to our group.

Soon, the first course came. It was a salad that resembled a salad that we would find at home and sharing the plate with it was a purpley potato salad that was really good. With that, a roll thing with beef, egg, and corn inside. They were both really good.

Next thing we know, one of them has come over and has sat right next to V. At first, he was just a friendly guy with very little English. He said hello, asked our names and then where we are all from (normal questions in Japan). We answered and are enjoying talking to someone from another culture (we're here for internationalization, right?). Through out all of this he seems very interested in V. After a few minutes of this, he headed back to his table with his two buddies.

We continued our meal and more courses came. We received some skewers with some amazing meat on them and some yummy borscht. He returned again. He asked us all our names again and told us his. It was voulvog (or something like that). He tried to have us pronounce it, we failed miserably. Then he asked if the guy sitting next to J was her boyfriend. She said yes and made sure it was clear that they were together. He wasn't deterred. He asked L and I. We said no. His next attempt was to get us to dance. We all kindly refused. He returned to his table yet again.

In his absence this time, another yummy dumpling soup came. It was delicious and had some mustard that went on the dumplings.

As we were eating it, he returned. This time to offer for each of us (starting with J and ending with me) if we wanted to smoke. Yet again, we refused. Around this time, his friend commented that he thought I was beautiful and that his friend was crazy. We laughed and went back to our conversation again.

We were nearly finished with our meal when he returned again. This time we were starting to feel like "stop bugging us, J is not interested and neither are we." The restaurant owner must have been able to see this, because she came over and sent him away. His friend, yet again apologized and told me again that I was beautiful.