What’s the weirdest encounters with other foreigners you’ve had in “The Hub”

41 comments

1. > claims his girlfriend’s ex husband knew who killed JFK?

   Don’t most people know who killed JFK? It’s a fairly famous assassination. I know who killed Abraham Lincoln as well.

2. What is The Hub?

3. Lived here 10+ years, I have never been to the Hub.

4. Went to one with an old friend. It was early and not so busy but not many open seats either. There was a large round table (about 3m diameter?) with one gaijin on one side. We perched on the opposite side and this guy went 0 to 100 and had a complete meltdown that he was saving the table for his friends. He was swearing at us and saying we had ruined his night… proper head case. It was completely bizarre. We just moved (as we would have done anyway if he asked nicely). When we left about an hour later he was still there and had had two more fits with other people. It was getting busier and I could see the staff were about to step in. Should have stayed for the show but had a dinner reservation. The whole thing was sad really.

5. Never met any weird foreigners there, but a few cool Japanese people. I go occasionally for a cheap beer or two, but not the food.

6. Never been to the hub, but the weirdest encounter I’ve ever had was some blonde European women (which I am also) came up to me and started to chew me out in what I think was Russian? I have no clue who she thought I was. Asked in Japanese if she spoke English? And she froze and had this ohhhh look on her face and turned and walked away.

7. British guys (always guys) protesting way too much in trying to pretend that The Hub isn’t an accurate representation of the English pub experience.

8. I went in once because they seemed to have bitter “on tap”. Turned out the “tap” was some kind of air jet that squirted bubbles into a liquid that vaguely resembled the bitter it claimed to be.

9. I’ve only been 6 or 8 times, mostly in my first couple of years. I had some weird intereactions with Japanese folks, but I can’t ever recall any with other non-Japanese. I typically went fairly early, though. Everything I can recall were just normal chats with nothing standing out.

10. Am I the only one whose local Hub is mostly chill and filled with reasonable human beings who know how to act like adults?

    Honestly, all of my weird encounters have been with Japanese people who think them drinking plus me being a foreigner means they can ignore my boundaries. But even then, the stories are too small to make for good telling.

11. Have been once with a few colleagues… had a beer or two and then left. Pretty uneventful.

    The place I usually meet crazy (white) gaijins is Mr Donut. The crazy Asian gaijins I meet are all at pool bars.

12. Had a Japanese guy spend about two hours singing ‘back in black’ whilst air guitaring. Would not take any hints to go away nor listen when we asked him to leave. It was excellent /s

13. I once met this beautiful pair of Filipina girls there, they approached me and were very flirtatious. I had a couple of drinks with them, it was clear they were *both* really into me. After a couple of drinks they suggested we go to their friend’s bar down the street where we could drink nomihodai. Of course I agreed, who wouldn’t?? After arriving I met some very friendly gentlemen who were very impressed that I was able to entertain both of these lovely ladies simultaneously. I’ll admit, it was a challenge, but although I’m probably regarded by most as average in looks department, when it comes to personality and charm I’m as average as it gets. So this nice gentleman poured us some champagne to celebrate the enviable position I was in, but unfortunately for me I had one drink too many and don’t really remember anything after that.

14. Stories are pretty boring so far. Maybe The Hub is not as weird as we all think

15. So I haven’t had any weird encounters with anyone, but I’m pretty sure that I have been other people’s weird encounter.

    One time, my ex-girlfriend lit my crotch on fire. Smoking a cigarette, drinking everclear and trying to give oral is never a good idea. She. lost her bangs and maybe part of an eyebrow too.

16. One of my Japanese friends convinced me to go for happy hour a few times. I’ve never actually seen any gaijin there

17. I’ve frequented many hub’s in Tokyo and to be honest I’ve never had a crazy night encounter with gaijin or Japanese really.

    Ive met people new people there, made some friends and had good drunk cigarette chats but nothing too crazy. 98% of The Hubs are very chill but the one’s that get the bad reputation are the Shibuya/Shinjuku/maybe Ikebukuro hub’s since they are what you might call the “Nanpa hub’s” I suggest you go there on a Friday or Saturday to see what I mean. Everywhere else is pretty relaxed and the patrons are much nicer.

    The weirdest story I can possibly think of was when I was talking to this Japanese lady and she was saying that gajin ghosts are loud and Japanese ghosts aren’t. We shortly left that table.

18. I haven’t experienced it but want to just to say I was there

19. Where is the hub?

20. went there with a couple after our izakaya tour, met 3 Japanese there: 1 boss (married, ring on finger), his subordinate and his mistress. Also, that guy was completely wasted and the subordinate was pretty uncomfortable the entire time…poor guy

21. I’ve never been to a Hub and I don’t know where one even is. Then again, I never went to bars or pubs back home either. The only time I ever did was very briefly after I turned 21 and that was only because my friend worked there.

    Weirdest out and about encounter I had was a few months back when I went to the Jupiter in the central station of the city and found an unmasked and dirty looking old white guy who told me to take off my mask and then ranted at the cashier in English about the state of America these days. Which don’t get me wrong, its a shit show, but not because of any of the things he was crying over.

    Edit: lol at whichever fash trash downvoted me. 😂

22. The big Hub in Nagoya is now run where you can’t mingle from table to table. You have to sit or stand at your table and if you try to go talk to another party the staff will tell you you can’t. Wtf? Are they all like this now? I thought it was a pub.

    I’ve been to that one twice before and one in Tokyo once before in 2020-2021 and they weren’t like that.

23. Every time I’ve ever gone to a Hub there were no foreigners there and everyone was watching sports.

24. Early on in my time here, my group of friends were chatted up by a drunk Japanese lady. She coughed up a piece of semi-digested food, said 「もったいない」and swallowed it again.

    Fortunately, I had not been eating at the time.

25. Haven’t really had any weird encounters per se, but the only times I’ve ever found myself at one of them (the hub), it’s always been when meeting up with Japanese that say they “know a good place” for drinks.
    I suspect they think it’s more “international” there and I will feel more comfortable? Not sure xD

26. Met a mid 40’s American guy who was standing in the bar alone with one of those huge boot glasses full of beer looking pleased with himself. He tried conversation with a few tables and failed before coming to ours. His first sentence was “I bet you cant guess what i do?”. When i refused to guess he said “you probably haven’t heard of it before”.. then said “Have you heard of it.. drifting? I do drifting”. I said “What, like sleeping rough?” an he said “No, like cars”.

27. only weird person I saw in a Hub was a person I was dating at the time lol it was my first and only time in Hub
    I don’t drink beer and I’m not from the UK so I don’t really see the appeal for me

28. I only go there, occasionally, for their fish and chips.

29. >For me, I met a guy that mid conversation (not a conversation that I started) told me he’s been abducted by aliens multiple times and frequently gets visited by angels. Also met a guy that claims his girlfriend’s ex husband personally knew the guy who killed JFK?

    Doesn’t sound that weird just like people talking shit on booze. Also the second one might not be that far fetched.

30. I was walking around Ikebukuro with a friend who had just arrived in Japan when he grabbed me by the shoulder and said “look, that’s Tokyo Sam”. I had no idea who he was talking about, but he wanted to stop and talk to Tokyo Sam. We ended up going to HUB with him and his friends. It was so boring and there was nothing to talk about since I had no idea who these people were and wasn’t trying to meet new people that day

31. Ended up at a HUB after a nomihoudai one of my first years here. An American dude here on business and absolutely plastered zeroed in on me and tried to woo me with the line “You know, you look just like Sasha Gray.” He continued to hang around our group just very drunk vibing and creepily looking at me all night. Some of my friends tried to get him to go away, but he was a big ex-football player type dude in his 40s and we were all in our early 20s so they couldn’t really properly tell him to fuck off. At one point he opened up his wallet and showed me all the platinum cards, and basically asked if I would be his sugar baby whenever he came to the city on business 🤢. This was after he told me about his wife and kids. I kindly declined the offer.

32. A Japanese couple there chatted me up and quickly grew quite flirtatious. The woman started touching my arm, hand, and chest. The man then suggested we could drink somewhere more quiet, like a hotel room. I was almost down for it until he started stroking my arm as well. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I’m more into the F of MFM than the M. I hope they were lucky enough to find someone more adventurous after I declined and left.

33. Never been, not sure I will.

    Thanks for the stories though.

34. I love the HUB. Still have my gold card. It’s over priced as fuck but nothing like a good HUB run with the boys when I’m feeling it. The Hobgoblin is another good one.

    We’re all fucking weird so no worries there.

35. Went to the HUB once for an International Meet Up back when those were a thing.

    A nice guy from Afghanistan who had been living in Japan for over twenty years ordered me a Belgian beer after I’d already had one–I got a bit tispy.

    He told me I was his best friend, even though we had only met a few minutes earlier–he was pretty wasted. Despite being married, he started hitting on the girls there.

    I figured that was a pretty standard experience for the HUB. I haven’t been back, I hope my best friend is doing well.

36. I was once an Australian backpacker living and working at a pub in Marylebone, London in the late 2000’s, The Hub was a lot like that pub, except people can still smoke inside

    Also, when I was in Tokyo three years ago, hanging out with some Poms (Australian slang for English people) I met at a hostel in Shinjuku, they wanted to watch a cricket match, you’d think of all places in Japan you could watch cricket, it would be at a British pub, but no dice, none of them were showing it

    And a lot of Brazilians drink there for some reason

37. I went to the hub with my girlfriend, I went to the restroom and when I came back two guys were chatting her up. Like bloody hyenas honestly .

38. Don’t know man. Last time I visited the Shibuya and Shinjuku HUBs (within the last two months) they were both packed with normal Japanese dudes and super domestic Japanese girls (yup, not the Hanako types) so the only extreme thing that happened was the super skinny and wasted Japanese guy who threw up on his table.

39. Been to twice in Akiba branch because not much other drinking places around.
    Nothing special happened. More Japanese than foreigners.

40. Nothing has ever happened at hub for me lol. Just a chill place to order drinks with friends once in a while.

    Super easy to pay per drink instead of having to get a tab as a group and spilt things up at the end.

41. Seen a guy going around desperately trying to make conversation with just about anyone, saying he’d been taking improv comedy classes for years and was really good at it. Gave the exact same spiel, word for word, to every group he tried with no improv whatsoever. It ran dry after a couple of minutes each time, at which stage he went and chanced another group.

    That’s the one and only time I’ve ever been to Hub.