This week both of the Fred's are back on site again so I've got more help right now than i can handle. Fred No 1 had been back to the states for Thanksgiving, and Fred No 2 flew back with him and is here for about 10 days to see what going on.
Talking about work though things are going real well the building is coming on and we're starting to put a lot of the mechanical and electrical equipment in position but that's enough about work so back to the blog.
Seems like for the last couple of weeks the only thing I've been doing is going out for meals, this time we had arranged to go for a meal at the local Monkey restaurant. Seriously some where in Utsunomiy there is a restaurant that has a couple of monkeys, yes real monkeys that bring towels and sometimes drinks for the customers.
Was watching the news a while ago and my ears pricked up when i heard the word Utsunomiya that's where i live i thought, check out the link below
http://itn.co.uk/news/d055200bb0a58b2f20bd11f967a2ce80.html
Anyway we got some of the Japanese guys on site to find out where it was and booked in, turns out it's about 4kms from my apartment, only a real small place but what the heck lets go for a look see.
So we all arrange to meet up at the place at about 7pm, me and the two Germans got there a bit late surprise surprise, we had got back from work a bit late then had to find a taxi to take us there. I had a map with an address on which was obviously all in Japanese so couldn't tell if it was the right one or not, had my doubts when the taxi driver asked to study it a couple of times on the way, but he got us there in the end.
In we walked no monkeys in site, but everyone else was already there the food was on so we ordered some beer and started to tuck in. Then the monkeys came or should i say the monkey there are two but they work in shifts, two hour shifts apparently something to do with workers rights, load of monkey business if you ask me.
The monkey was dishing out hand towels, the guy gave him one and you had to hold out your hand and he gave it to you, "Just like that" as Tommy Cooper would say.
During and after the meal the owner of the restaurant who was also the guy who had trained the monkeys put on a bit of a show with them for us. Don't know if this is normal practice for everyone but there was a fairly big group of us, about ten and i guess it was good money for them.
Anyway check out the video i took on my camera, yes i had it with me this time could not let this opportunity go by.
There were two monkeys like i say, think the smaller on is dishing out the towels and the bigger one is doing the dancing, if you look in the back ground while he's doing his dance you can see the small one peeping out over the top the plastic bin in the corner. After the dance the guy fed them, the big one was obviously in charge and the small one didn't dare come anywhere near him while he was eating, the guy said that the big one would beat him up if he got to close, can't come between a monkey and his food.