A Man Of Many Languages

Kuniko and I slept in late on Saturday morning, and then we hit the road for Tsuchiyama station so that Kuniko could pick up her car. She came back with it after lunch and together we went to catch a movie in Okubo.

The movie was Collateral. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’ve really enjoyed other movies (and TV shows) directed by Michael Mann. This was stylish and well done, but some of the characters were just too hard to buy – I wasn’t impressed. There was a lot more shooting than I expected – less thriller and more killer.

One good thing I took out of there was a great soundtrack. Good stuff mixed in there, some original songs for the movie were really catchy.

We left the movie place and went over to Carrefour so I could do a little shopping for the Halloween party at my school later in the week. After that we made a trip to Kakogawa to meet up with a former ALT from Kuniko’s former school in Kakogawa.

Kuniko had said that he was a strange guy, but she wasn’t too specific. She said that occasionally his behavior was childish, but that was all I could get out of her. When we picked up Colin at the station he jumped in the car and we took off. After some quick introductions partially in English and partially in Japanese, he spoke to us in Japanese most of the time after that. He speaks Chinese and English as well, and he uses mainly Chinese and Japanese now for his job at a Japanese company in Hong Kong.

At first I had trouble catching what he was saying – his Japanese was rapidfire and hard to catch. Soon I got used to the rhythm of it, and I could understand what was going on. We spoke a little in English, but Colin confessed that his English was pretty rusty, so we stuck to Japanese the rest of the night.

We ate at a restaurant that I had seen a couple of times and always wanted to visit – “Bikkuri Donkey”. It’s a hamburger place, aimed at a younger crowd. In Japan, they serve hamburgers in a big size, call them Hamburg, and there is no bun. Just a fried patty with various things on top. Kuniko had one with cheese and onions on top, Colin had one with mushrooms, and I had one with a fried egg. They were great tasting, but the puddle of grease on the bottom of your plate is pretty alarming when you see it. Colin finished his entire plate in about a minute and a half, before we had even really gotten started. Then he just kind of fooled around with the stuff at the table while talking. Later Kuniko pointed to that as a good example of acting like a child – wolfing everything down instead of eating with us.

While we were eating I noticed two girls at the next table checking me out, and I did a double-take… one of them was one of my students. She waved to me from her table and then madly started to gab with her friend. This was the first time that I had been publicly spotted with Kuniko, and we were both sure that we would be the talk of my school on Monday.

Kuniko offered to drive Colin to his next destination, Murphy’s Irish Pub in Akashi. I went along for the ride and we had a long quiet ride to Akashi. Colin wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and preferred to kind of space out. To be fair, he was at the end of a long, busy trip, so it must have been nice for him to relax.

He invited us to join him at Murphy’s, but Kuniko and I made our regrets and said our goodbyes. Since we were in Akashi we went down to the waterfront near the Akashi bridge and walked along enjoying the lights on the bridge as they changed colors. The weather is starting to cool off, and we had to stay close to each other to keep warm. The last time we were out here it was our first date, almost a year ago.

Kuniko dropped me off at my place, and she went home to be with her family. Her father goes in for surgery on Tuesday, so she wants to spend some time with them before she goes back to Osaka on Sunday night. As for me, tomorrow is the Futami matsuri.


Leave a Reply