The master of all surveys responds.

Osaka, Japan — trying to find the nearest train station before the trains stop running.

Cafe Bar Continue is a bar in Osaka that has every video game console since the original Super Nintendo set up at the bar, allowing you to play games while you drink. It was like being in your own living room, except with a bartender at your service.

Video games are surprisingly difficult to start playing when you don’t know the language. We ended up playing a fighting game, and finally devolved to Super Mario Cart, where we confirmed once again that Yoshi is an asshole.

Skewered chunks of food, dipped in batter, coated in panko, then deep fried. One man’s heart attack is another man’s culinary utopia.

Note for future reference: you only get one skewer of each kind in your set, so if you see two of something, one of them is probably for your neighbor.

Osaka, Japan.

(Seen on the street in Osaka, in front of a plumbing shop.)

On the best invention of the last 20 years:
Allen: Maybe the iPhone? Wait, no, big data. What do you think it is?
Mike: Fracking.

On what your shop would sell if you were to open a tiny specialist retail shop in Daikanyama:
Allen: Antique astronomical instruments.
Mike: English literature books from the 20th century.

On the rise of China and Japanese nationalism:
Mike: it should be a very interesting 15 years coming up. And it’s all going to start over a random pile of rocks in the ocean.
Allen: A lot of shit starts over random piles of rocks.

On driverless cars:
Allen: I wonder if people will eventually stop getting driver’s licenses?
Mike: You don’t need a pilot license to get on a plane. Well, maybe if you’re the pilot.

On the last person to ride a horse down Fifth Avenue in New York:
Allen: I wonder who the last person to ride a horse down Fifth Avenue was?

On hypothetical ISIS battles royales:
Mike: Hamas vs ISIS.
Allen: Survivalist patriot militias vs ISIS.
Mike: ISIS vs Nazis.

“And it is good.”

Nekobukuro “Cat’s House”, cat cafe inside Tokyu Hands Ikebukuro, Tokyo.

A cow wearing a bag… MADE FROM COWS.

No wonder the poodle is concerned.

Not pictured:
– the maids
– table of Japanese dudes who kept staring at Mike, and when Mike finally waved to them, they responded with, “Tommu Kuruzu desu-ka?!”
– Allen being served a drink while the maid server asked him to do a chant, and him dutifully chanting along (“Tate! Tate! Tate!”). Turns out the maid simply wanted him to stand up.
– an energetic maid song and dance show.
– debate between Mike and Allen about whether a maid cafe’s most likely cultural antecedent is the Shinto fertility rite, or the tradition of geisha entertainment.
– old man with glow sticks who knows all the maids by name.