We pick our lodging so carefully – private room, good location, right (low) price point, common space, a kitchen, non-smoking – I have a check list and I’m very cautious.

And yet – sometimes things just work out oddly.

Tonight was weird.

While doing Air BnB here in Japan and indeed all around the world, we’ve met some lovely fellow travelers and some amazing hosts. Folks from all over Europe – gals from Moscow when we were in St. Petersburg, Australians everywhere we travel, a smattering of Americans, South Koreans, South Africans – you name it, we chat them up!

And tonight’s group seemed lovely. A mother and daughter from Australia, by way of the Philippines – enjoying a long holiday during a school break. The daughter is 14 and a charmer. Smart, cute, and very well spoken. It’s her mom that’s the surprise.

We arrived back at our lodging in Osaka around 6:00 PM – tired and wanting nothing more than a glass of wine and dinner. We were the only folks there – our charming hosts live elsewhere but visit daily – so we toasted our bread, microwaved our pork chop, and opened our bottle of wine. We’d basically finished eating when the other couple arrived home. The daughter made up her own dinner, and the mom announced that she wasn’t hungry – she’d just join us for a moment.

Her conversation was very garbled – and she was telling us a lot more than we wanted to know about her life, including how she felt about her parents – who she hadn’t visited for years.

I thought she was drinking tea. It was in a coffee mug, and we’d been enjoying our tea and hot water. It wasn’t until I walked into the kitchen that I realized she had been drinking her own bottle of wine – and it was 3/4 finished!

Now her confusing and very personal dialogue made a lot more sense. She was drunk. You can’t drink 3/4 of a bottle of wine, weigh maybe 100 lbs and have no food without feeling the effects – and clearly her daughter was used to this.

Her daughter announced about midway thru one of the mother’s rants that she’d heard this before and was going to bed. She got up, washed her dish, and left.

The Intrepid Traveler and I were a bit stuck. Our room is Japanese style – so futons on the floor and no chairs. So we couldn’t really sit and read in our room. The only western chairs in our lovely Air BnB were in the common space, and so was the mom!

We tried to send our new best friend a message telling her we wanted quiet – I started using my iPad, the Intrepid Traveler started editing the pictures on her iphone. But the mom didn’t take the hint. Instead she started on a rant about folks using computers, iPhones and the like when they came to her house to visit.

I’m guessing they were tying to let her know she was going off the deep end like we were – but what can you do.

Eventually – we excused ourselves to go to bed. She continue to rattle around in the common room for a while – before she too went off the bed.

First time for everything… In the morning there was an empty bottle and 1/2 of wine in the trash. I guess her drinking didn’t stop when we left.

There’s a first time for everything..

Signing off – The weirded out Soup Lady and the Intrepid Traveler