Feeling relaxed and at home in a living-room-turned pub

MINAMI-SANRIKU, Miyagi Prefecture -- As a regional correspondent, I'm required to be on call around the clock for when news breaks.

That means I cannot imbibe alcohol unless I hail a taxi, as driving under the influence is a crime. Until recently, I had not been, nor could I have gone, for a drink at a local pub.

All the taxi companies in my town were swept away by the March 11 tsunami.

Thankfully, one taxi company has finally resumed service. I used the opportunity to visit a local "izakaya" Japanese-style pub, one of the few in town.

It looked like an ordinary private home.

Opening the sliding door and removing my shoes at the "genkan" entrance, I entered the "pub," apparently the living room of a private house, with a television blaring away in one corner.

"Welcome back," said store manager Shin Sasaki, 39, from the kitchen as I sat down on a "zabuton" cushion.

The pub's name, "Shokutsu Satomi" (Gourmets' pub Satomi), derives from the establishment that Sasaki's 70-year-old mother, Satomi, had operated in the center of town before the disaster.

In an instant, the pub she had run for 30 years was gone. She decided that was it. But her regular customers pleaded with her to reopen the watering hole.

One of them said, "We cannot drink or make complaints at the evacuation center," according to the son. "Would you reopen your pub, where we can talk about anything honestly?"

Sasaki decided to quit his welfare-related job to reopen his mother's pub.

He started at the home of his in-laws, which is in the same town but was not damaged by the disaster.

"I thought a pub where people can voice their agony after the disaster and difficulties in rebuilding their lives might help," Sasaki said quietly. "I thought I could be of some help to some people. I believe all the people caught up in this disaster share my feelings."

As I sipped sake and tasted Sasaki's dishes for the first time in months, my heart warmed.