Lang Prosperity

When we walked around Asakusa temple area we couldn’t find one open bar anywhere. Until we found a weird hole in the wall with an abandon staircase and a sign, which maybe could be a bar. Shall we dare to check it? Of course! While the others waited outside, I walked up the stairs and found a suspicious door. Opened, and a long bor narrow bar with red lightening appeared like revelation for thirsty Scandinavians.
«Come up, they have beer here!»
At the very far back of the bar there was the only guest. A young man who looked like he’ve grown in the chair. Or really likes the beautiful bartenders. They couldn’t any english, but well enough to take an order. This man in the corner did, so we talked to him for quite some time. A local, who has found his favourite place, and finish most of his evenings here.
So we found out this seems like a quiet bar, some good music, nice bartenders, nice prices, and every now and then some weirdos (this night we) stumble in and enriches the place. A place where I can imagining you can meet some weird and fun people. If you’re thirsty in the neighbourhood, check this out.

LANG = P r o s p e r i t y 浅草 ショットバー
(ラング プロスペリティ) is obviously a well guarded secret treasure bar like none other. LANG = P r o s p e r i t y really is operating on a whole other level; a world of wealth, warmth and choice libations shall manifest before you.
After visiting the Kaminarimon Gate and the Sensō-​ji Temple, I decided to wonder aimlessly (this usually serves me well and this penchant for blowing hither and thither with the wind served me well yet again on this fortuitous and auspicious evening) I wondered and wondered some more about the small back lane-​ways of the lovely and historic neighbourhood of Asakusa in Taitō with the other tourists surveying the markets and many Buddhist and Shinto shrines, temples and monuments along the way — the last thought to cross my mind would be that I was about to stumble across a sublime and cavernous little shot bar called LANG = P r o s p e r i t y showcasing the most interesting, hospitable and curious cast of players I’ve ever had the pleasure of getting to know in Tokyo. I lived there for five hours yet fell in love with Japan forever.
Five hours earlier, from the narrow street below, I entered an unassuming building, upon a whim, through an unassuming door, out of sheer curiosity, with a small nondescript sign that said
LANG = P r o s p e r i t y. I went up the staircase to further inquire. As I entered this bar I also emerged from the womb of the mundane into the realm of otherworldly and esoteric Tokyo. Friends, Lang really does equal Prosperity. Seek and you shall find all to be revealed.
There is an extensive Scotch and Whisky selection. Japanese Whisky is excellent and there is a plethora of choice bottles to ogle. They’ve also got countless other spirits and liqueurs to choose from. Of course, beer on tap as well.
LANG = P r o s p e r i t y and all of her inhabitants are bathed in an inviting and sultry dark red light. Their choice of old Blues and Rock & Roll lends a 1950s parallel universe sort of ambiance which harkens back to an epoch long past yet here we are with our nostalgia. In this place Elvis is a Japanese industrialist and George W. Bush is Shinzo Abe’s merkin. Alien nostalgia is quick to be invoked. This bar is small; very small, just small enough to make you wonder if you really are travelling past galaxies and through time in a Japanese spaceship. This makes it a very cosy and comfortable place to blissfully drink and smoke and talk away a few hours until you land at Tokyo Narita Intergalactic Aeroport.
Talk to your compatriots and revel in the beauty of communicating with another with whom you do not share a common language. The important things are never lost in translation. Right just on over here at
LANG = P r o s p e r i t y conversation may range anywhere from geopolitical current affairs to the ancient Japanese use of hemp and marihuana and the relatively recent prohibition thereof. Talks of fashion dreadlocks (fashion dread; no Rasta) in Jamaica in the 1990s and Canadian snow and blustery winters in Prince Edward Island; crossing the Confederation Bridge with a Japanese-​Canadian girlfriend from Montréal back in the 1970s. Then the American use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is examined, the terms of surrender, the aftermath and consequences. A physicist/​psychologist nicknamed ‘Reefer’ discusses Murphy’s Law and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and I’m assured that if I was Japanese in a past life that I’m here again and that it is of the utmost importance and concurrently is inconsequential. Dust to dust; yet before the wind blows me away … we’ll smoke another Peace, drink another Rebecca and find one another without the need for translation.
Cheers and
乾杯 and どうもありがとうございました
to you all at LANG = P r o s p e r i t y on that serendipitous midsummer evening in Tokyo. With love from Notre-​Dame-​de-​Grâce in Canada to you in Asakusa in Japan. Many thanks for the memories and the drinks.