Hey friends -

Apologies for being a little quiet lately. I was in Japan for the past 12 days and since it was my first time in the country, hell, my first time in that part of the world, I wanted to be fully immersed. So my publishing schedule is a little off, but I have an immense amount of stories and photos from my trip that I’m eager to get into. For now I wanted to share a journal entry and a small vignette from a night in the mountains.

Skylar

12/02/2025 - Takayama, Japan

I wish I could tell you her name. It’s my only regret from that night. Well, I also wish my rendition of Mr. Brightside was a little more on key, but I’ve been living with these pipes for 33 years so I’ve come to accept my limitations.

We were in Takayama, a small town in the mountains of central Japan. With a few hours to kill before our dinner reservation that night, we were on the hunt for some drinks to whet the appetite and warm the soul. It was no easy task because my only qualm with Japan, after five days in the country, was that the bars don’t open early enough.

We walked by a few bars, all shuttered for another hour or so. But next to one, there was promise. A dim light was glowing through the noren hanging in the doorway and some chatter coming from inside. A sign outside caught our eye, so we opened the translation app to see what it said. It was open, and apparently there was beer - good enough for us. It also translated something to the effect of “you sing,” which was curious but we didn’t think much of it.

We pushed through the noren and into a thin blue haze of cigarette smoke. Three women leaned at the bar talking, drinking, dragging on their cigarettes. The walls wore old tapestries and sun-faded posters, the kind of dive décor that looks like it’s been around for decades. The bar itself was thick, worn wood, crowded with little jars and bottles and containers full of mysterious substances. Behind them, a line of Suntory whisky bottles stood in uneven ranks, each a different measure of gone.

The woman behind the counter lit up when she saw us, waving us in as her friends tapped their ash. We lingered for a beat, disoriented by the intimacy of it all, then squeezed into the narrow space and took our seats.

Once we were seated, mama-san looked at us excitedly, ready to take our order. The Suntory bottles were tempting me with a highball, but we went with four beers to make the order easy. She grabbed some glasses and shuffled over to the tap, but after two pours the keg had kicked. She reached under the counter and pulled out a tall bottle of Asahi, opened it, and poured it into the remaining two. Thank you very much! she said with excitement, handing us the beer and toasting with a glass of her own. Kanpai!

We tried to make small talk with her and her friends by passing our phones’ translation back and forth. But mama-san kept talking to us at full tilt, as if we spoke fluent Japanese. All we could offer were smiles and polite laughs between sips of beer. Every few seconds she’d exclaim Thank you very much! with a smile and some hand gesturing, even if it wasn’t warranted. Eventually she tried to apologize, saying she only knew how to say “Thank you very much” and “I love you.” Maybe there was a story in there, I wondered, but didn’t ask.

But within a few minutes, I heard the word takoyaki, one of the few I recognized throughout the night. She reached below the bar and brought out a plate full of doughy octopus balls covered in plastic wrap. Straight into the microwave it went, plastic wrap and all. It was good actually, the takoyaki, better than some we had in Tokyo or Osaka even. Thank you very much! she said as we smiled and nodded with enjoyment.

It didn’t stop there. Another treat appeared out from behind the bar, this time candied sardines and other small fish in a plastic container. I choked one down, trying to be polite. It wasn’t that bad, but I wasn’t eager to reach for another. Then sukiyaki, she said, looking briefly our way then turning the gas burner on beneath a menacing iron pot in the corner. It took a few tries, but we politely declined trying to explain that we were eating dinner soon.

She scurried to the other side of the bar, disappearing for a few minutes, coming back with an old-school tabletop karaoke machine and set it in front of our group. The entire screen was in Japanese, of course, but in the bottom left corner was a button to view the “English Songs.” We looked at each other nervously, the “you sing” translation outside the bar suddenly made more sense.

She sensed our hesitation and put the machine in front of one of her friends instead, who queued up a soulful Japanese ballad. Her voice was soft and kind and something told me this wasn’t her first time. Promptly after her song ended, the karaoke machine ended up back in front of our group.

Decision time. Between the four of us, it was the girls’ turn for a duet. Money, Money, Money by ABBA was the choice. Within seconds, the old TV hanging in the corner of the room prepared the lyrics. There are a few defining moments in karaoke: the confidence you have when you pick a song, the dread you feel when you realize that you in fact do not know the song, and the exasperation of wondering when the fuck will this song ever end. Our friends clapped and danced along anyway, cheerfully off-beat.

Then the machine and the microphone landed in front of me. I scrolled through a few choices, eventually landing on Mr. Brightside by The Killers. Maybe not the ideal audience for a mid-aughts sing-along, but hey I’ve spent enough time singing this in the car that I was pretty confident in my ability to muscle through it. Halfway through the first chorus, ever the cheerleader, our new friend brought out a maraca from somewhere behind the bar to join in.

Thank you very much! I love you! Thank you very much! mama-san said repeatedly as she walked us out of the little snack bar and into the cold mountain air, waving and bidding us a good night.