23 05 2004Sun, 23 May 2004
Attention
I was taking some photos today, so I was wandering around the streets
more than usual. A record attention tally today.
Things like a primary school kid on a passing bus waving to me. Or two
guys who were acting like idiots trying to impress a pair of high
school girls. One of them ushered at me as I walked past and said
"uiuishi" - which apparently means "unsophisticated" or "innocent".
Strange.
Then there were the two business men who were playing with what
sounded like a board game near me. I sensed they were pretty close,
but at first I assumed it was a mere coincidence. When I stopped at
the lights waiting to cross the road, they came and stood next to me
and continued to play with their game. I think they were hoping to get
my attention but I continued to stare off into space, not really
enthused at the thought of being approached by some weird game
wielding people. Eventually they started pushing the game into my
field of vision until I turned to them.
The men were pretty young, and dressed in nice suits. They looked
pretty respectible. They were smiling happily and their faces were
painted in an almost child-like enthusiasm - a look akin to "just wait
until you see this!"
In their hands they held a plastic dart game, with a cartoon picture
of a naked lady on it. Each of her breasts was in the form of a dart
board, and when one of the "boards" was struck, a feminine voice
uttered such insightful expressions as "ouch. that hurt" or "do it
again, big boy".
Doing my best to avoid visibly rolling my eyes at this discovery, I
looked at them. They asked me in Japanese what it meant, since the
lady spoke in English. Not possesing the linguistic prowess to
politely tell them what I thought of the game, I opted for the path of
least resistance and uttered "itai", which is "ouch" in Japanese. They
laughed. The second one I had no idea how to translate. They laughed
again and thanked me, and I walked off.
On the way back across the road, I heard a hello. I looked up and
there were three Japanese girls walking in the opposite direction and
looking at me. I gave them a semi forced smile and one of them crowed
with delight (or perhaps it was fright).
Normally I'm not terribly peturbed by the above - it's something I was
prepared for before I came over. After having a really good time last
night, however, today was a bit mediocre, on account of the small
amount of sleep I got, and the fact that last night served as a heavy
contrast to my usual study-or-explore-by-myself affair. I'd happily
welcome some company, but not if it's only because my services are
required to help translate silly toys.
But not to worry - I just need some sleep. And before I go to bed, I'm
going to finish the last 2 Japanese lessons of this series I'm on.
I've got 90 30-minute audio Japanese lessons, and once I finish these
two, I'll have finished the first 60. A good milestone to reach!
[this entry]
10 times
My nextdoor neighbour's alarm just went off for about the 10th time -
I can hear it get slightly louder as he picks it up, yawns, and
presses the snooze button. It's about 4pm. Must've been a big night
out.
[this entry]
Woah
I just felt my first earthquake. That or I need a cup of coffee. The
more I think about it, the more it seems like it could only be my
imagination. It was very light. I was leaning against the wall and I
got moved back and forth a little. Woah.
[this entry]
Kumamoto nightlife
After a tentative plan to go to see "Troy" (the movie) fell through,
the other teacher and I began meandering home from work. He suggested
we go visit the bar his friend works at, which wouldn't be open yet,
but at least I'd know where it was in the future. The friend in
question happened to be downstairs at another bar and we ran into him
as we were walking down the street. After a beer and a chat we
wandered up to the other bar, played a brief bout of darts and had a
seat.
After a little while other people started showing up. The bar is in a
tiny room, so it didn't take long for the place to fill up. There
were lots of foreigners there, and a fair number of Japanese people
who could speak varying degrees of English, too. It's a known
foreigner bar and some of the people come there for that reason.
I had a chat with an old Japanese man at one point (probably in his
late 50s - 60s), but I was conscious he probably just wanted free
English practice, rather than had any specific desire to hear what I
had to say. After a little while I was happy to let the conversation
trail off.
Met some interesting people in that bar, including a Kiwi who had been
in Japan for 3 years but couldn't speak much Japanese at all - but
then, she'd never had the ambition to, either. She was quite the footy
fan and when I left the bar she was not in the best spirits because
the Brumbies (Australian team) were beating the NZ team they were
playing against.
There was also a nearly-bald british guy who was talkative and had
adventures to tell of all the various countries he'd visited. And a
person who owned their own language school and had been working in
Japan for 19 years.
At one point a group of about 7 girls walked in, transforming the
room from pretty full to very full. They struck up a conversation
with the other teacher and I chatted to the British guy for a while.
The girls ended up suggesting we go to another bar - one where the
other teacher knows the owner. It was only a few minutes up the road,
and sounded like a good idea.
The bar/club was interesting. It had a dirt floor (this was on the
8th floor of a building - the dirt floor would have required work to
set up!), and was also about the size of a shoe-box. There was a DJ
in the corner playing R&B music, and a few people sitting down or
dancing. We drank and danced and whiled the night away for a while.
The only downsides are the smoking and the dirt. A huge number of
people in Japan smoke and thus clubs like that are like a dutch oven.
The dirt on the floor, while perhaps a novel touch, resulted in
really dirty shoes by the time we left.
Eventually the other teacher decided to go home as it was quite late
by then. I wasn't quite exhausted enough to want to go home, and we
went to yet another night club which was playing tunes like the
chemical brothers, fat boy slim, etc. Good music, but we were all
exhausted by then and they had the treble up too high. We sat down on
some couches in one corner of the room and wound down for a while.
Most of the members of our party looked exhausted by then and before
long we decided to go our separate ways, with the promise of meeting
up again some time.
[this entry]