After a number of years of going to the Yatai-Mura (described in my second post), one night they (the staff) heard me talking about Karaoke. My Japanese friends who were with me at the time spoke to the owners about how much I enjoyed a good Karaoke session. They told us that they owned a Karaoke bar that was just a 10 minute walk from the restaurant and wanted to know if we wanted to go sing. We said sure, that would be fun!! About 15 minutes later one of the staff motioned for us to come outside (we had already paid our bill) where we found he had driven his car up and would take us over himself (now that’s customer service!). A blink of the eye later and we were entering “Haikara-tei”, over on the Tokaido road in Kita-Shinagawa not far from Shimbaba station. Haikara-tei was a casual bar that also served very nice snacks. They had a couple of electronic dart boards, and it was kind of a neighborhood hangout. On the second floor, there were around 6 - 8 Karaoke boxes of varying sizes. We had a great session that first night, and it was the beginning of a fun, albeit relatively brief relationship.
One night on a future trip to Haikara-tei I happened to notice that one of the staff spoke beautiful English. This was an absolute shock to me. She was a woman, and her name was Mako. I asked Mako if she ever worked at the Yatai-Mura, and she said that yes, on occasion she actually did. This was an incredibly powerful moment for me, for in my years of going to the Yatai-Mura, despite my Japanese co-worker friends occasional efforts to translate for me, there were SO many things I wanted to say to the people over there, and now Mako was the key to open up this world.
So I stated to hang out more at Haikara-tei, and in the process, had a number of fun Karaoke sessions there. On one memorable occasion, Mako was actually bringing up the drinks to our group on the second floor. While she was in our room, I asked her if she liked to sing. She said yes. So then I asked her to sing a song with our group. She declined (as she was working), but I insisted, and after further twisting of her arm she finally agreed. She sat down (we had a group of around 8 at that session), and proceeded to sing (and I hope my memory is correct here) “The Rose” by Bette Midler. Our group sat in stunned silence as Mako delivered an incredible rendition of this song, her voice an absolute thing of beauty. When she was done we all looked at each other in shock. Wow! Now who wants to follow that??? Come to find out that aside from working at Haikara-tei, Mako also was some kind of professional singer. Well that explains it!!! We made her come back and sing some more songs that night, and it was another incredibly memorable time.
Through further stops at Haikara-tei I also came to find out how it was that Mako spoke such good English. She was married to an American, from New Jersey Japan
As a customer of Haikara-tei, I also came to become friends with the manager there, a man named Kenji. Unfortunately, Kenji could speak no English, but with Mako and Peter around as well as my Japanese co-workers, I could always communicate with him. Before too long, Mako-san and Kenji left Haikara-tei. Kenji, who was also a very accomplished chef, decided to open his own Iza-kaya over in Oimachi. It was named Conne. Mako-san went with him as his assistant. I will write a separate post later about Kenji and Conne. After a while Mako moved on again, this time to a restaurant called Hibiki in Odaiba. Here is a picture taken with her over there a couple of years ago, along with my friend Rick from Alabama
Sadly, Haikara-tei closed one day a few years ago. It obviously wasn’t related to my efforts to keep them in business. Truth be told though when Mako-san and Kenji left it was not as fun anymore. I hope to see Mako-san and Peter during my next trip over to Japan. Maybe I can convince her to meet us for a Karaoke session. I know just the right place . . . .
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