2015-06-12: Last Chance, Go Hard

Last day of Jukendo. That means train harderer than ever before. Also we made some videos of us doing the kata. There were elements of merriment during the making of these videos as we are not actually that good yet.

Sensei has gotten quite creative in his parking. Fortunately the car model is a Fit. It certainly does.

But those moments aside it was a hard training session and we deserve some special attention.
Layers burgers deserves some special attention as well.

Just as nondescript as the other place

We visited them once before but that was at their normal place, they have a Hawaiian version of the place as well. Arguably their normal place is Australian themed, more so than the stupid places trying to be australian themed anyway. It had Australian beef, a BBQ and surfboards which is about all you really need to claim an aussie theme really.

Change Aloha to G'Day and it could be Australian themed.

Oh plus beer. Lots of beer. I think that might apply to all themes for restaurants though except maybe hippie themed. I am unlikely to verify this though. Stupid hippy restaurants.

Cultural Observations: Sumimasen

Sumimasen translates as Excuse Me. Simple enough. If you bump into someone it is often the right thing to say (assuming you are not trying to be all Digby in Trainspotting). There is of course a japanese twist to it.

A Princess diary as dessert menu. heh.

When you are at a bar or even a reasonably nice restaurant it is completely acceptable to just yell it as loud as you want and it functions about the same as yelling Garçon. You get attention and usually very quickly. Typically every member of staff yells Hai in an almost reflexive manner and someone is at your table in moments. At that moment you can just say Onegaishimasu which translates as Please but in this situation means Please do that thing you already know I want you to do i.e. when I say it they know it means More Beer if you would Good Sir

Happy Princess with a Princess Drink

Yelling sumimasen does not, as far as I am aware, carry the same connotations as yelling Garçon (especially with the finger click) and I don't think it results in the same amount of spit in your beer.

I am a sucker for Gaufrettes. And for chips. But especially potato gaufrettes.

Unfortunately I have never been able to get the intonation quite right, Ewa has had it working since pretty much day 1. I have been failing miserably since the same day.

Lots of burger, not enough Princess drink. Time to unleash the polite yelling.

It has become an almost self fulfilling failure as, each time I try, I start thinking about how to say it which only makes it worse. It needs confidence in the pronunciation, not second guessing.

Polite yelling successful.

Today at Aloha Layers Burgers there were a couple of Japanese ladies trying to yell Sumimasen and it wasn't working for them. A mighty bellow issued forth from my throat without thinking and half the staff were at our table within seconds.

Rating: 9/10 (Finally!)