'Members Only'

We saw a lot of these signs last night... I suspect that by Members they really mean 'Japanese people'.

We're staying in downtown Tokyo - this way we don't have to deal with the subways closing early and being stranded. We found out after a short nap last night that there was an interesting drinking area right near our hotel - about a 5 block walk. We headed over and discovered these little alley ways full of tiny little bars that each could hold no more than maybe 6 customers. Each had cover charges of about $5 or more and most of which had signs saying 'members only'. We found a list of places that were foreigner-friendly and decided to try one. The place we found was pretty good - they were playing all of Neil Young's 'Best Of' album (I suspect that's the one because it had a bunch of songs from Decade on it, a song I didn't know and a few more recent ones that I did). I wonder if the two guys working at the bar noticed Ryan and I quietly singing along to every single song that was coming on?

Regardless, I kind of understand why they would make these places members only. I can imagine that if two foreigners who don't speak Japanese walked into a 6 person bar and sat down, it would really make things awkward for everyone sitting there... The place we chose was quite large - fitting probably 20 people in it so we just hid off in a corner and tried not to bother anyone too much.

Today we're off to ... well we were supposed to go to the fish market again but it's getting pretty late for that. I think we may go check out Ginza - a kind of snooty shopping area where they have a bunch of small galleries. I've been kind of eyeing a few photography galleries / museums so maybe we'll do one of those too and then tonight we're heading to the club (which we scoped out yesterday).