Today was a busy day at school. Mr. Hayashi told me that one of his best friends from childhood died the night before. Apparently he was riding along on his bike and he had an aneurysm and that was it. Mr. Hayashi said that he was always a guy that was under a lot of self-induced stress, so that’s probably what did it. Mr. Hayashi was remarkably cavalier about it, and he wasn’t letting it ruin his day.
I asked and received permission to sneak out a little early from work, and used that time to get on the train and head to Takarazuka, Antoine’s home town. He met me at the station, and showed me around town. He has a nice house, not an apartment like I have. The place was a decent size, and he had a nice giant refrigerator, which is ironic because he doesn’t cook. We didn’t spend much time looking at his place.
After seeing his digs we went to a yakitori that he used to frequent every Wednesday. We sat down and I let Antoine do all the ordering and talking, in loud English. He did a good job of getting his point across, and the master and his assistant looked amused as they took our orders. We ate lots of food, quite a bit of it fried, but it was delicious.
Antoine asked the master of that yakitori about one of the other regulars, a doctor that would come in to chat with Antoine in English. The master gave the doctor a call, and within a few minutes, he was hanging out with us. He brought a huge bottle of shou-chu to drink, and even gave us a couple of glasses. It was very good, it actually had some flavor.
Moving down the street from the yakitori we stopped at another bar that was billed as “American Style”. They served Miller beer, had lots of Americana hanging on the walls, and a dark wooden interior. It was called “Rag Shack”. I had a Negra Modelo and a Guinness, and we sat around and talked about Antoine and his new girlfriend.
Finally, around ten o’clock I decided it was time to hit the road, and I was home by midnight. It was fun to finally see the town where Antoine is from, and to meet some of the folks he hangs out with. Nice people.
