Well, there goes 17 years of vegetarianism...

So an outsourcer took me and my colleague out to dinner the other night. I guess the idea was to try and sweeten us up in case we ever get anywhere in the company - he wants to make sure we'll use his services, right?
Business in Japan is very social, as you all know. And then there's the whole thing of 'face' and making sure that relations stay smooth and that nobody gets offended.
This guy takes us to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Tokyo: a very swanky members only club on the 20th floor of a skyscraper in Yurakucho. We're led to the best table in the house - right by the central window with 180-degree views of the night skyline. Amazing!
We get through a few pleasantries, exchanging business cards, all that kind of thing, when the guy asks what we'd like to drink. I go first and ask for an iced tea (being that I no longer drink anything harder than an OJ). If you could have seen the dude's face. He was not happy at all. Japanese business dinners tend to be very boozy affairs, and this guy definitely felt his face 'threatened' by the fact that I was not partaking of the wicked expensive wine and sake that he was pouring down his and my collegaue's throat. So 'Strike 1 against me,' I thought. This was not going well.
Then it comes to ordering up the food. Now, bear in mind that this is a 70 year old company president taking two young(ish) pups out to his private members club. Never mind that he is our outsourcer. According to Japanese etiquette, it was clear that he would be doing the ordering. We didn't even get a look at the menu.
So first course, what comes out? Six oysters on a dish of ice...each! And not your cute, mini Irish oysters - big monster Japanese oysters from Iwate, as big as your hand.
A glance was exchanged between me and my colleague - she knows I'm a vegetarian - and I just signalled, "It's all right." I decided to take a hit for the team: better to swallow a but if fish and keep a good relationship with this guy than make a whole thing of not partaking of his generous offer and causing a whole kerfuffle.
In the end, the oysters were fine. They just take like the sea. And the lemon definitely helped. And after one or two goes, I could shuck like nobody's business. My only concern was that they'd awaken some long undiscovered seafood allergy and that our business meeting would end in the emergency room with me in anapylactic shock. But I was grand.
A little later, the guy looks at our empty plates and says, 'Seeing as you both enjoy fish, why don't we move to the sushi bar next door. I'm great friends with the chef. Usually you can't get a table, but he always finds room for me.'
Oy! What did I do to deserve this... Cut to about two hours later and me polishing off like my 20th piece of sushi. I lost track of how many different types of fish he wanted us to try. As he got drunker and drunker, he just kept repeating how happy he was to be able to teach some youngsters the 'elegant' way to eat sushi (apparently I was putting them away like a country bumpkin).
The funniest part of the whole night was when my colleague, who has a really good heart, suggested we should order some salad on the side. She was hoping that I could focus on this while she did her best to polish off the raw tuna, abalone, urchin, fish eggs, shrimp and God-knows-what-else. So, the salad comes out and there is about two leaves of lettuce per bowl, with the remainder being made of up of sashimi, mini fish eggs and scallops! Not even a cherry tomato or slice of carrot to help me out.
I polished off everything put in front of me save a slice of cold omlette and some rehrdrated gourd! Yay me!