Holy Spirits

They drink, they smoke, they rarely get out of bed before 3 p.m. And they have cool hairdos. Hiroki Ueno, 23, and Yoshinobu Fujioka, 27, are not your typical Shinto-Buddhist monks, and their bar Vowz, tel: (81-3) 3353 1032, is not your average Buddhist enterprise either. Located in a former geisha precinct of Tokyo's Shinjuku ward, the bar is known not so much for spreading the good word as for its killer cocktails, liqueurs and sake.

Vowz presents an opportunity for Tokyo's youth to "wind down and enjoy a drink in religious surroundings," explains Fujioka, who is a member of the Jodo Shin sect. Like Ueno, he studied for four years to qualify for the monkhood, but now seems to have found his mission amid Vowz's barstools and cocktail shakers. There's plenty in the venue to remind him of a monastery, from a miniature butsudan shrine in the corner to Nepalese mandalas on the ceiling, the ever-present haze of incense and a powerful Bose woofer system playing the synthesizer-backed chants of Tibetan Lama Gyurme. Drinks cost up to $7 each and last orders are at 4:30 a.m. It may be a sinfully late hour, but it's also just in time for morning prayers.