Restaurants and Hand Towels

In every single sit down restaurant your server brings you hand towel when you sit down.  In many restaurants your server may bring you a diaper wipe-type thing (except no smell, just wet throw-away cloth) wrapped individually in plastic to keep it damp.  It's disposable.

In nicer restaurants, you get warm, damp cloth hand towels.  One per person.

The purpose of these is for you to wipe/clean your hands before you eat.  It's actually fantastic.  Grace and I have figured out that if we share one then we get to put one in my purse for another time (and let me tell you mamas...it comes in handy every single day!  I'm guessing you can buy them, but I haven't seen them at the store.  I'll miss having them so handy.

Claw Machines

We thing it's interesting some of the things you can try to win in those "claw" machines here.

How have we eaten out, not speaking the language?

Presentation is everything (I think) in Japan.  Outside of many, many, many of the restaurant windows are plates of food showing you what is offered inside.  Apparently, plastic food is an industry here.  We were going to visit one of the manufacturing facilities that makes this food with our friends upstairs (and the girls were going to be able to each make their own plastic sundaes.), but it turned out they only had the tours/classes on the weekends - which didn't work out for us.

However, plated presentation reminds me of the things they judge on Master Chef.  Have you seen our post about waffles??? Beautiful :)

Anyway, here is a sampling of window shopping (photo taking) I have done through the summer.  And, sometimes we asked the waitress to come outside the restaurant and then we pointed to what we wanted in the window.  It works.  And, I mean LITERALLY this is how we have ordered sometimes.

Also, many of the restaurants have photos in their menus too.  In those restaurants, we don't ask the waitress to go outside with us to order - we just point to ourself and then to the picture.  Not kidding.

But, aren't these presentations beautiful???