It’s been a while since I’ve updated the site! I’ve been busy saying goodbye to people, and getting the last of the boxes unpacked at home while packing for the trip to Europe. Tomorrow we’re heading to the airport, and so I’m just trying to get everything ready around here so that things will be OK while we’re gone.
Kuniko has continued on her schedule from hell, and tonight around 7 she’ll be coming home and she’ll be able to enjoy our trip.
This weekend Kuniko has been away on a work trip – staying with her students at some kind of seminar house and teaching them effective ways to study English. I’ve been caught in a weird situation where I don’t want to buy groceries that will end up getting weird in the refrigerator while we’re gone, so Saturday night I went out with Struan for his last fling in Akashi.
Antoine was also able to show up, and so we joined Struan and two of his Japanese friends in touring all of Struan’s favorite drinking holes. His friends were funny – one guy looked like Carlos Santana. He didn’t speak very much English, so he just repeated the English that he did know – over and over. At first it was funny, but by the end of the night it was getting a little old.
His other friend was learning English and was pretty good – he acted as our interpreter for the evening. He had the odd habit of suddenly saying vulgar things in English very loud, maybe to get a reaction out of everyone. I’d give examples, but this is a family website. If you want the details, ask me. This behavior also was hysterically funny at first, but soon got old. The more he drank the more uninhibited he became.
We hit a couple of places – but I don’t usually go to either of them. They have this weird foreigner vibe – there is something shady about them. Antoine was picking up the same vibe, so with Struan leaving there’s no real reason to go to either of them again. Everybody was nice, but just something odd.
One of the owners was recently released for jail for a hit and run accident he did while under the influence of marijuana, so that gives you an idea of the crowd we were hanging with.
Antoine and I didn’t have a chance to eat dinner before, so we snuck out of went down the street to eat ramen noodles from the back of a truck that had parked on a street corner. The guy there was really nice, and we sat at the makeshift tables and eat hot steaming noodles while people walked by. It was one of those experiences I always wanted to do in Japan, and here it is three years into my stay and I finally get it done.
We walked back and met up with the gang again, and this time they had added a few girls to the group. One girl was (according to Struan) a very popular girl with many of the local foreigners. She was enjoying the attention hanging out with us. The other girl was wearing a yukata after visiting a local festival, and she had us pose for lots of pictures with her.
This is why I don’t like going to foreigner bars – the kind of people that go there are just interested in meeting foreign people, and so the whole experience is about that, rather than making any genuine friendships.
Anyway, by the time Antoine and I were ready to go it was long past the last train, so we took a taxi to Okubo. Carlos Santana covered our bar tab for the night, which was pretty significant, so with the financial windfall we could afford to split the cab fare. Antoine stayed at the apartment overnight, and the next morning we went out for McDonald’s for breakfast, and then caught a movie at the theater since we had some time to kill. Finally Antoine went home in the afternoon, so I went home and did some cleaning, packing and laundry.
For dinner I decided to try a local yakitori, so I went to one that looked interesting, but unfortunately it was closed. Then I walked back towards home and found another yakitori that looked good. I sat at the end of the bar of the pretty small place, and ordered up some food and beer. The beers came out in frozen mugs, the yakitori food was great, although not as good as Denya.
I drank about four beers and was about ready to leave when a guy came in and sat next to me and struck up a conversation. It turns out he is a regular and he owns a ramen shop in Akashi. We kept on talking and found out that his restaurant is in some kind of advertising partnership with the yakitori we were eating at in Okubo, and a third place – Denya yakitori in Futami. He showed me a poster advertising all three places – and I had seen the same poster in Denya back in Futami. It turns out that everybody knew everybody, and so it was almost like I was transferring my local status from Futami to here.
The guy Hayashi-san, bought me some drinks and we talked a lot. I had already had my fill of drinks before he came in, but it seemed rude to turn down his drinks. Finally I said my goodbyes and promised to come back. He was a really nice guy, and it was a good test of my Japanese – especially when I was drunk.
I made it home and went to bed totally drunk – what a night. Two of those in a row, and I’m tired out. Kuniko and I will both be tired for different reasons when we leave tomorrow.
Here’s the itinerary for the honeymoon trip, in case we disappear and never return. We’ll be flying to Bangkok tomorrow, and after a layover with arrive in Paris in the morning on Wednesday. We’ll spend the night in Paris on Wednesday the 9th, and then the next night we’ll take the train to Dijon and spend the night there. On the 11th we’ll take a night train to Venice, and spend the night of the 12th in Venice. We’ll stay in Florence the night of the 13th and 14th, and in Rome the night of the 15th and 16th. The night of the 17th we’ll take a night train back to Paris, and we’ll fly back on the 17th passing through Bangkok on our way home to Osaka.
Well, that’s it. Wish us luck on the trip and I’ll write lots more once we get home. I’m sure I’ll have tons of boring vacation pictures to post, too. See you then!
