"Nau!" (Now!)

Kashikiri nau

In Japan, people like to use English words and expressions. Sometimes it becomes a bit strange, such as the "Let's"-craze. There are very large numbers of posters all over the country urging you to "Let's [some noun]". This sounds a bit strange, e.g. "Let's ice cream" or "Let's country fare!".

Our very loyal customer, the owner of our magic bars, and the boss in my bar trying to block them both out when he saw me using the camera.

With Twitter and other similar short status update services (Facebook and Twitter have recently become popular here, and everyone uses the Japanese Facebook-clone Mixi), "nau!" (meaning "now") is very popular. Like "Pizza nau!" (I am eating pizza now), or "Tokyo now" (I am in Tokyo now).

Two magicians performing magic

On Thursday when I went to visit my colleagues in the magic bar, they had put a sign on the door that said "kashikiri nau" ("reserved now", i.e. the whole place is booked for an event and no one else can get a table). I figured I count as staff, so I went inside anyway. It turned out to be a friend who had booked the place for a "Everyone who makes curry in Sapporo"-event.