An Irish Supper

Once a month or so, my friends and I meet at a pub called Ha'penny Bridge for an evening of chat, companionship, and drinking, although I no longer drink anything stronger than tea because it interferes with my daily meditation. The building itself is part of an actual Irish pub that was taken down, shipped to Japan, and rebuilt here. They also have real Guinness beer and I have been told the the setup for serving it cost about US$20,000 to install. The place definitely has atmosphere. In addition to Guinness they also have other European beer and, I think, one Japanese brand as well as whiskeys, particularly Irish brands. Sometimes on the weekends they have live music. They serve food - fish and chips, chicken and chips, shepard's pie, hamburgers, and a few other things. Everything is heavy and greasy, but after a few beers who cares?

The decorations are almost all Guinness ads and there are notes written on the walls by sports stars, people getting married, and other famous and infamous people.

This is the bar. We usually reserve tables near the door (just behind me to my left). The televisions that are around the place show sports, just like when the building was on its original site - lots of soccer but other sports, too. Sometimes there are music videos but usually it some sort of sports program.
This is part of the group, who I will not name in order to protect the guilty. Later in the evening more friends showed up. The first of us arrived at 6:00 and most of us left after 11:00. The group is international, consisting of Americans, Brits, and Japanese.
After I took that picture, they told me to sit down so that I could be included.
I guess that I should point out that everyone is involved in English language education in one way or another and that wives do not come - they do not like to listen to the discussions about teaching and school politics.