If you go to Japan, go to a place where your menu is served by monks and taste the flavours of teachings, spirituality, and cocktails.
Who says booze and religion don’t mix? That’s certainly not the case at Vowz, a unique Tokyo bar run by two Buddhist monks who serve customers delicious cocktails, religious chants, and sermons.
The happening city of Tokyo is brimming with happening, people and also has more than over 10,000 bars in the city. But you will never forget the atmosphere and ambiance of this bar – welcome to the Vowz! You will find in the city’s Yotsuya neighborhood.
So one fine day, the Japanese Buddhist monk Yoshinobu Fujioka decided to launch this offbeat beautiful bar, called Vowz. “In the old days, people would go to Buddhist temples to socialize and have a drink, but times have changed, so we have given this place where people could come in and listen to Buddhist sermons and homilies without feeling constrained in any way. “At the temple, folks are always well-behaved and attentive, no matter how long or boring the sermon is,” head monk Gugan Taguchi says. “Here at the bar, they don’t like my sermons — they walk out.” But thanks to the friendly atmosphere and the tasty cocktails prepared by the monks themselves, that hardly ever happens.
But as strange friendly and peaceful atmosphere and the tasty cocktails prepared by the monks themselves, that ensures that people come here again and again.
And looks like the monk is right. For the last thirteen years, the place is packed to the hilt with people from all the places including people from his congregation s well.
Soul-cleansing soiree
The soul-cleansing chants and sermons performed by the bartenders/monks are played at the bar. Not the house band, jazz, karaoke or hit numbers there. Some people come here to get in touch with their spiritual side and ask the monks for advice with their problems, while some prefer to be left alone with their spiritual music and cocktails.And the drinks have got religion-inspired names also, like “Burning Hell”, “Perfect Bliss” or “Enslavery to Love and Lust” etc etc.they always manage to get a good conversation going Every day, my heart gets tainted by dirt in the secular world, so I come here to repurify it over some drinks and fun,” says 42-year-old Noriko Urai, a regular at
“I always manage to get the good conversation there almost every ti me, I go there. My soul which gets impaired in the secular world, gets a fresh breeze of life” says Honorito, a regular at Vowz.
