Last night I went out with Mike (the new Jet in town) on a tour of the back alleys in Ajimu.
Ajimu is a beautiful town, but it’s not known for it’s nightlife. Even on the weeknights, we rarely spend our time in Ajimu. We go one town over to Usa.
Mike was asking me the other day if there was any place at all to go in Ajimu, and I said there were a few places that were kind of hidden away in alleys. I suggested we spend a night exploring the local pubs in Ajimu.
There are actually quite a few little pubs and Karaoke bars hidden away on the side streets in Ajimu. None of them are visible off the main street, so you do have to explore the side roads a little bit to find them, but we found quite a few. Mike commented “Why are we driving to Usa every night when there is all this stuff right in Ajimu?”
And I thought, “Yeah, why am I driving all the way to Usa?” And then there was no one inside any of these places, and I remembered why I liked going to Usa.
We walked by several places, but only actually went in 3. All of them were small places with no one in them. We went in a Karaoke bar that had a drunk Japanese business man at the bar, but I'm convinced one of these comes standard with every Karaoke bar in Japan, so he doesn’t count.
The other two places had absolutely no one in them. Just us and the owner.
Beats me how these places stay in business. I think I'll still be making the drive to Usa most nights. On the other hand though, there is a bit of romance about these small, deserted pubs out in a small town like Ajimu in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rice fields and mountains. Perhaps on a different night there might even be other people there, and we can observe the locals in their natural habitat. Small town life does fascinate me to a degree. Mike and I agreed to come back in the future and spend a few more nights exploring the pubs in Ajimu.