It was a cloudy Saturday. The weather forecast showed that we would have s heavy rain in the evening. In these days the weather forecast has been quite accurate. Actually it succeeded in forecasting yesterday's heavy rain. So, I decided to go out the indoors of some building. The aquarium of the Shinagawa Prince Hotel that opened recently came up in my mind. My wife visited there, but she finally stopped entering, because she had to wait for three hours. Therefore, this will be the re-challenge for her.

Firstly we took the subway to Kanda for transferring to JR of the Yamanote Line and finally we arrived at the Shinagawa Station. We went up on the slope in the Takanawa district and we found the Epson aquarium. However it was so crowded and we would have to wait for 30 minutes. So we gave up entering and returned to the Shinagawa station. Then I suddenly recalled that there was an oyster bar in this station. When this restaurant was built about two years ago, it was so crowded that I stopped going there. However I thought it would be mo more crowded. I asked the way to the information girl of the station. She said it was located at the fourth floor of the station building, named as Attore. We passed through the main road of the station building and we took an escalator to the fourth floor.

The formal name of this restaurant is the Grand Central Oyster bar & Restaurant. The headquarters of this restaurant is in the Manhattan of New York, which started their business in 1913. This Tokyo branch restaurant seemed to import not only the menu and cooking but also the total interior of the dome-shaped ceiling like the abstinence method age the equipment of the bar. Well, it is really and American style. In the case of the Rolleys of the beef stake restaurant in Akasaka, which is also the directly imported from the U.S.A., they serve in the American style. It means that the volume of the beef stake is too big for our Japanese to take. Therefore I should be deliberate in ordering here. Maybe I should order the course firstly and additionally I can order the set of raw oyster. When I looked into the menu of the raw oyster, it was written one piece. I asked a waiter whether it was really literally one or a half dozen. She replied me that it was one piece. I thought this was in Japan and laughed by myself.

There were really various kinds of oysters in the menu. For example, they were the Olympia (United States Washington), the Stella bay (British Colombia Canada), the Daikoku god island (Hiroshima), Atsukeshi (Hokkaido) and so on. As I had no knowledge in selecting nice oysters, I ordered the set menu of the oyster that platter. When the waiter brought me the platter, he explained me the each name of the oysters. But I had forgotten about it. When I took one of the raw oysters, I found that it was very juicy and melted in my mouth. The appearance of these oysters are milky white color and beautiful. Even if I tried to distinguish the tastes of each oysters, I could not identify, because the tastes of the horseradish, the tomato sauce or the vinegar, putting together, was too strong.

I have had experiences to take the raw oysters two times in the United States. The first one was in a jazz bar of the port New Orleans at midnight. It was 20 years ago. As it was the homeland of the Dixie land jazz, the atmosphere was very wonderful. Maybe some of the musicians were the real experts and well-known. It was really regrettable for me not to have confirmed their names. With listening to live jazz performance and drinking whisky, I took raw oysters. The minimum set was a half dozen.

The waitress brought me six pieces of oysters. But some brown things attached to these oysters. I was afraid that they have not washed with water. So I asked the waitress whether I was all right to take such oysters. She laughed and showed me how to take them. "You should clean up them by using the tomato ketchup." As I was in a good mood with jazz and whiskey, I followed her instruction and took them without any hesitation. They were very nice taste. Moreover I took another one dozen of oysters. Later I returned straight to the hotel and fell asleep at once. Next day I woke up with very good feelings. Luckily my stomach was all right. The charm of tomato ketchup seemed to be very effective.

Another experience for me to take raw oysters in the Unites States was at the restaurant in Alexandria. I had a business trip to Washington several years later. I was tired of a few days' hard negotiation. As a weekend came, I wanted to take tasty foods. My friend took me to a famous sea food restaurant in Alexandria. They served us the blue shell crab, which was the crab immediately after the slough. It was so soft and tasty. This was the main dish. As the starter, we took raw oysters, which went into my mouth and were very nice.

The Tokyo oyster bar not only buys domestic ones but also imports their raw oysters from the United States (Seattle and Boston), Canada and Australia. In Japan it is said that we should not take raw oysters in such month with "R" in the end. For example, we should not take raw oysters in October, because the last character of the name of this month is "R". The reason is because in such the month, the volume of glycogens of oyster's good element would decrease. However, as this Tokyo oyster bar imports oysters from the southern hemisphere, it should be no problem.

When I was young, I have often had business trips to the United States. Among them this blue shell crab trip was the hardest one that I have ever had. On the first day the negotiation started from 9:00AM and ended at 6:00PM. There was only one lunch break fro 20 minutes. I was impressed by the way of American's negotiation. They showed us some principles to solve the issues beforehand. They stopped us to escape in future and attacked us. However it would be very obvious for us that we would face problems in future if we would follow their style. So we had to say None! They asked us the reasons. We replied, but they would not accept it. During the break, I thought of a good idea to explain. So I disclose what we thought. The U.S. side was disagreeing. Finally they said that they were frustrated. I was laughing in my mind, because they were so simple minded.

The second day the negotiation started from 8:00AM ended at 7:00PM. The situation was not improved. We went into on the third day. The standoff continued from 7:00AM to noon. It was the time for us to move forward during the lunch break. We thought that this negotiation would not reach to the conclusion. The U. S. side offered us one idea for the resolution, on which we might agree. So our Japanese side had a discussion for a while, but I suggested making a clarification on two points. When the negotiation stared again, I had two questions to them. As soon as I rose up this issue, I found that one of the U. S. counterparts showed us a surprising expression. I thought these points seemed to be crucial ones. I thought I got them. We intensively discussed them and reached to an agreement. I found that it was already 8:00PM. I was so thirsty.

This was the toughest negotiation that I have ever experienced. After that, all of us went to a restaurant in Washington DC, which was famous for lobster cuisine. Although we were tired, 0-centimeter hugeness lobsters were served to us. On that occasion, one of the American counterparts said to me," Among Japanese delegation, only you didn't go to the toilet, did you?" At first I didn't know what he meant. Soon I realized that he observed Japanese members' going to the toilet. It was true that most of them except me had a toilet, sometime every hour. However only I didn't go to the toilet since early morning until dinner time, just like as Americans. So he might feel closer to me. But it was my first time experience to be praised by others for such a strange matter. It was because of raw oysters of Tokyo oyster bar that I reminded of a stupid memory.

(June 7, 2005)