Last night I stayed out with Struan late. We went to a yakitori, to the underground sushi restaurant, to Donkey, and finally to the spooky Indian restaurant. At the yakitori one of the waiters was really talkative and enjoyed chatting with us. We tried a variety of yakitori things – they were pretty good.
At the sushi place we had a small plate of sashimi and a couple beers, apologizing to the master that we couldn’t eat very much. It was pretty quiet in there, so he didn’t mind. From there we went to Donkey, and there was a whole squad of foreigners there playing darts. Struan and I played for a little bit, and I was throwing darts better than I think I’ve ever thrown in my life. Lots of bull’s-eyes, and it got the attention of the other people in the bar. A couple of Japanese girls cheered my name every time I threw the darts, and then when Struan stepped up they didn’t say anything.
It was getting late, and I was starting to worry about the last train. Struan convinced me to stop in at Bombay, the Indian restaurant in Akashi. Apparently the owner is in jail, so a friend of his opens it up at night and sells drinks to pay the bills. The restaurant part is closed, apparently.
There were a lot of foreigners there, too, and so we sat and stared at our drinks for a while and waited for something fun to happen. Kuniko gave me a call and was wondering where I was – I hadn’t expected to be out late tonight, so she was worried. I decided it was probably time to get going, so I scrambled to the station and missed the second to last train out of town. I had to sit on the platform for 15 minutes until the last train came, and then I finally got home around 1 in the morning.
I spent my whole day at school reading “Holes”, and ended up leaving around 1:30. The vice-principal came by as I was leaving and asked me to check in with him before I leave next time. He wants to know where I am, and so even though I’ve been on a routine lately of leaving in the afternoon, I think he’s still worried what other people might think when they see me walking around when I should be at work.
When I got home Kuniko had already left to take one of her international students to the airport. I went right to sleep, and slept for a few hours in the air conditioned bedroom while the heat blazed away outside.
I had promised to cook dinner for Kuniko, so when she got home in the evening we had pan fried steaks with garlic sauce, mushrooms, a small Caesar salad, and a tiny Japanese sized baked potato. We also had a bottle of Hang Time Pinot Noir that went pretty well with the red meat. It turned out to be a pretty good dinner.
This weekend Kuniko had a psych exam as part of her teacher’s test, and we’re going to go over to her parent’s house to celebrate her mom’s birthday with sushi and possibly, gyoza.
