Wednesday was Judy’s birthday and so after work we met up in Shinjuku to check out a Taiwanese restaurant that I had heard good things about called Seiryumon: Ten to Ichi (”Seiryumon: Heaven and Earth”). The restaurant consists of two floors, each with a unique theme. Care to fancy a guess as to what they are?

We decided to go with the “earth” floor because I had heard that it was the more interesting of the two, and after exiting the elevator, we were amused to find ourselves standing before a small door next to which hung a metal gong. The hostess instructed me to hit the gong three times (actually six times, since I apparently didn’t hit it hard enough the first three times), upon which a slit opened in the door and a creepy mechanical “doorman” appeared and asked us for the password. I gave him the password and the door swung open, revealing a dimly lit cavern filled with small tables nestled about (I later found out that the restaurant was modeled after an old opium den in Hong Kong — how quaint).

Although “earth” seemed more like “hell” (which is rather true, I suppose), the restaurant turned out to be a pretty nice place. The atmosphere was a nice mixture of spooky and kooky, and our waiter was a guy named Toshiyuki Suzuki (haha, I’m such writer). Oh, and the food was pretty good, too.

Continuing with the hellish theme, Judy and I will be visiting Tokyo Disneyland on Saturday for further celebration of the blessed occasion (hey, that kind of rhymes too).