I continued to have more classes with my new teachers and students. Today Mr. Maeda and I taught together for the first time. He has transferred from another school, and he was pretty nervous, too. He brought in some props like I have to introduce himself and his family. The best part was when he was describing his hobbies – he said that he likes fishing a lot. Then he pulled out a monthly fishing magazine and he was on the cover. Nice! The kids were not so impressed.
After school I had arranged to leave early to head over to the concert. Unfortunately, today was the registration day for clubs. I wasn’t holding out much hope for ESS, but Satomi and Ms. Tsutsumi said that they would handle it for me. I hope we get some new folks!
I dashed home and changed my clothes, and then met Yasu out in front of the apartment complex. We walked together to the train station and then Yasu led me to a discount ticket shop in Akashi. We saved about 600 yen by buying discount tickets – that’s about $6. I’d like to think that I could go there and be able to order the tickets from the lady myself, but it sounded pretty complex. Afterwards Yasu admitted that even he didn’t understand what the lady was talking about.
We wanted to catch something quick to eat, and Yasu had mentioned a place that he knew in the area. We walked across the street and along the shops in front facing the station, and then suddenly Yasu turned down an alley – it is one of those alleys in Japan that are filled with tiny shops. We stepped over wet broken pavement and passed by many doors and windows with plastic food inside to entice customers. Yasu found the place he wanted and we ducked in. Three old women were in there reading a fashion magazine, and they sat us across from them so they could keep an eye on us. The place was tiny, and Yasu ordered up some akashiyaki and okonomiyaki. This was one of the places where you cook your own okonomiyaki, so Yasu had a go and it turned out great. It’s an interesting experience.
After dinner we caught the train and started making our way to the show. We did lots of transfers, and Yasu knew some shortcuts. I memorized the station names and the subway lines so that I could come back on my own someday.
As we got closer to the station, we bumped into more and more foreigners. At one point Yasu and I were crammed into a tram car with about eight foreigners that teach for Nova. It sounded like there were some Americans, some Australians, and some British folks in the group. It was strange to stand in a train car and be able to understand what people were saying.
I’m starting to show some signs of “going native”, which is supposedly normal after living in a foreign country for a certain amount of time. The group of foreigners were loud and exclaiming with big arm motions, and as I looked at the Japanese people on the train they were looking away, almost embarrassed. I’ve heard that it’s rude to speak loudly on a train, and these guys just didn’t care. They were talking about the show and some were drinking beer and belching loudly. I probably wouldn’t look twice at a group like this if I was in the U.S., but here they stood out. By standing next to them on the train I was automatically included in the “rude group” by most of the Japanese people there – it was weird, but it bothered me a little bit.
Anyway, once we got to the arena we produced our tickets and went inside. There weren’t seats so much as zones that we were allowed to enter. We had the front zone, so we got fairly close and just waited for the show. Shows in Japan start and finish early so people can catch the trains home. This show started promptly at 7 p.m., without an opening band.
I’ve never seen Radiohead live before, and they put on an excellent show. I recognized almost all the songs, and they had put a lot of money into the design of the stage and the lights. In between songs the place became so quiet – I’ve never been in a room with so many people being that quiet. People just patiently waited for the next song, except for the odd screams or yells which likely came from the foreigners in the crowd.
The played a two hour set with two encores, and then the lights went up. Yasu and I were both happy about the show – the played all the songs we wanted to hear. We crammed ourselves back in the trains and headed home. As the first train pulled out I noticed that the parking lot for the event was about the size of a grocery store parking lot back home. Most people just don’t drive around here.
We were hungry and thirsty after the show so we stopped in for some noodles and beer at a little ramen shop near Umeda station. That really hit the spot and made the long train trip home much easier to deal with. After standing at the concert for two hours, we had to stand on the train for the hour trip home. We pulled in Futami around midnight, and I went right to sleep… tomorrow is a work day – yikes!
