From Hood 2 Up

If you're ever in Hiroshima, I highly recommend a pub called From Hood 2 Up. Too highly, in fact, as the patrons there kept buying me shots of tequila.

The patrons are self-styled Japanese gangstas, with piercings, studs and tattoos, wearing Obama T-shirts, LA baseball caps and La Cosa Nostra hoodies. If I had not noticed that Japanese people are very nice, I might have been intimidated. The young gangstas kept buying me shots because, as they said, "you are the same age as my father!" I especially liked the dreadlocked bartender, Taka, who showered me with gifts and invitations. He had a foreign currency collection, and I contributed an Indian 500-rupee note to it. When he looked at the note and saw the picture of Gandhi, he jumped up and down with delight, shouting, "non-violence! non-violence!"

These are the meanest and hardest young punks from the streets of Hiroshima.