A Cafe and Some Snacks

My weekend (Monday and Tuesday) was a series of peaks and valleys.

It’s hard to explain exactly why, but one recent situation has come to an end and the knock-on effect from one door closing led me to accept that other situations here may be coming to a close too. Yet there are always more ideas and opportunities presenting themselves to me, it’s a matter of figuring out exactly what I want to do with the rest of my time here that is the key to everything.

So I decided to get out and see some new places, make the most of my time here and let the pieces fall where they may.

One cafe I’d heard about and read about I decided to venture towards. Now, I’m not going to name this cafe on account of my experience there. That is not to say that if other foreigners were to go, they would have the same experience I did.

Anyhow, I arrived at this cafe and was told upon walking in that they were full. Now, I had cast a glance over the cafe itself before being told they were full and there were at least two tables with two seats available and two seats at the counter that were occupied by one person’s jacket and bag. Rather than walk out directly, I decided to wait it out for a moment. The guy working at the cafe noticed that perhaps someone at another counter was about to get up to leave, so he said something to the tune of “Wait, he may be leaving”. More waiting occurs, it’s clear this guy isn’t leaving, so the waiter apologizes and just kind of waits for me to leave.

So I point out to him the two tables over the other side of the cafe that are free and clear and he was just kind of like, “Oh, yeah. Over there.” and then just kind of waves over towards the tables haphazardly.

My default disposition in these kind of situations is that I’m at fault, because I can’t communicate eloquently enough in order to express things as soon as I notice them. So I take a seat and write the whole situation off as a miscommunication.

That was until two more groups of people arrived and were immediately seated in the spare seats, even if they were alone. It was at this point that I decided no matter the unique atmosphere or interesting design of this cafe, it was clear that the staff here were unnecessarily rude to me, so I would not be returning anytime soon.

And so I took this photo.

This is the only photo I took of this cafe, because it was another place I could’ve sat as soon as I walked in. Shame, because the food there wasn’t too bad, but bad customer service here really sticks out like a sore thumb and it has put me off returning to a number of places.

As I mentioned at the outset of this post, peaks and valleys. Once I settled my bill, I headed to a favourite cafe of mine for a coffee and did some Japanese study. I headed home to catch up on all the latest TV shows and this bag of chips accompanied me for the viewing…

Yes, those are chocolate coated potato chips and they are amazing.

This particular brand, Royce, also has a white chocolate variety which are even better than the milk chocolate ones I had. Imagine one side of a chip being all salty and the other being covered in white chocolate. If anyone ever questions the existence of heaven as something that is even remotely plausible, I direct their attention to placing a Royce white chocolate-coated potato chip in their mouth.

Peaks and valleys, people. Tomorrow, all peaks.