The judges were reminded of their early days in Japan, when abundant advice was offered by those who had arrived years prior. Some, however, felt that they were stepping into an unknown world as they would probably not visit the type of bar described. The “young and casual” nuance stood in contrast to many more traditionally-focused submissions.
– Karen Lee Tawarayama
*************

ANABA
by Kristin Osani

Not for the first time since we sat down for lunch, I launch my map app so my friend can show me where to look later tonight for this bar she’s raving about. I save a pin in the general Kiyamachi-Pontocho neighborhood north of Shijo and label it anabar, allowing myself an indulgent giggle at the play on the Japanese for hole-in-the-wall.
 
“It seriously is a hole.” My friend, all excited, doesn’t even pause to commend me for my genius pun. “It’s in this stunted little apartment building, up a couple flights of rickety old stairs. Look for the duct tape doorknob. Or I guess feel for it, the one bare lightbulb in the stairwell doesn’t illuminate shit.”
 
“Sounds like a great place to get murdered.”
 
She snorts, crunches a daikon pickle between her teeth. “It’s about as big as this—” She leans one hand back on the tatami and twirls her chopsticks around the ten-square-meter room. “—but super minimal. Bare concrete, LED lights on the walls, booze right on the counter. I wanna say there are like four stools, and a bench-thing in the back by a window covered in this ratty-ass sheet. There’s no menu, you just tell the bartender what you want, and as long as he has the stuff he’ll make it for five hundred yen.”
 
“Cheap as.”
 
“Oh, and then dude, you get the drunken munchies, you gotta go down the street to this killer ramen place.” She moans hungrily, as if we haven’t just gorged ourselves on obanzai, and motions for me to pull my phone out again.
 
Only a few months into my relocation to Kyoto and she’s given me a list longer than the Kamo River of places I gotta check out.
 
If I can find them, anyway.