Back in 1998, I was working for a big Eikaiwa chain school in Nagoya, Japan. In my free time, however, like most of the English teachers at that time, I was also teaching students privately on the side.

I had a Japanese friend that everyone called Bamboo, and he introduced me to this delightful little underground coffee shop in Nagoya's Osu district. It was run in the daytime by Mama-san, and at night, her son used it as a small nightclub.

Mama-san's - our name for the coffee shop - was filled with relaxing jazz music, the walls were covered in torn English newspapers, and the place smelled of coffee, cigarettes and Mama-san's delicious "hayashi" rice.

In those days, the Internet was just a curiosity, and so to find students for my English lessons, I would advertise on a noticeboard at the Nagoya International Center. 

Of course, I invited my students to take lessons at Mama-san's, and Mama-san appreciated the extra business that myself and other teachers brought to her coffee shop.

I've been back to Osu a few times since then, but Mama-san's isn't there anymore. I often wonder what happened to her. Nevertheless, they were good times, and I still remember them fondly now.