24 05 2004

Mon, 24 May 2004

Photos!

Some photos that I took on Sunday - the order to the text isn't the same as on the photos, but you should be able to figure it out.

• The view from a road very close to my house.

• A central street in between two shopping arcades (x 2). In one of the photos, the center area is covered in construction work. That's Kumamoto castle. It's hundreds of years old, and they're currently fixing it up.

• The biggest shopping arcade in Kumamoto, Shimotoori. At the end of where you can see, it curves left and continues on. My school is further down.

• Up one of the side streets, "naughties", a pachinko parlor, next to a "family mart". Gambling is illegal here, but pachinko, a sort of cross between pinball and the pokies, is legal, because you get "prizes" - which you can then exchange for cash at another place.

• Another part of the road between the two arcades - called "densha doori" - "tram street".
• A Kumamoto tram. Like Melbourne they have some old ones and some new ones running.

• The end of Shimotoori. The trees in the middle are a street called "showa street" - because it's not covered, so it rains there.

• Looking back up Shimotoori. My school is the little unreadable sign on the right, near the middle of the picture.

• The mountains visible from my apartment. The road I was standing on is the road adjacent to my apartment's road.

• An unbelievably small parking space. While hard to see, the car is right up against one of the walls. The other side, where the driver's seat is, barely has enough room for the driver to open the door.

• Sunset on a road a few streets away from my apartment. More hills visible behind the communication tower.

Let's karaoke

After finishing the last two Japanese lessons in the series (only 1/3rd left to go now), my spirits were lifted a bit. That and I'd had some coffee.

At about 11:30 I decided I was not yet ready to go to bed, and I felt like going for a wander. There's a yakitori bar two streets down from my apartment (very close), and I decided to see if it was still open. I haven't explored any proper restraunts by myself before, partly on account of them costing a lot of money and partly because it's slightly scary walking into a place by yourself when everyone looks up to check out who's just walked in.

Alas, the nearby yakitori was closed. I kept walking, trying to decide what I was going to do.

First I swung right, destination: 7-11. I had no real reason to go to the 7-11, but I wasn't sure where else to go. While heading there, I pondered visiting a yakitori in the city - the place where the kind bartender had showed me basashi and natto. Yeah, why not. Let's give it a go. I swung left, avoiding the 7-11, and headed into the city.

When I got to the road I thought the yakitori was on, it looked like it was closed. Bugger. I kept walking and hung a right at the end of the street, on the chance the place was the next street up (my memory of the first time is a little hazy now). As luck would have it, it did happen to be on the next street up. I peaked in as I walked past and saw a bunch of people in there, and almost continued walking. I pondered for a minute and decided to brave the entry, complete with stares from all the other customers.

The friendly bartender remembered me and ushered me to a seat, introducing me to the other customers - a few women in their early 30s, and their male friend. The usual questions followed - where are you from, how old are you - gosh, so young! I chatted to the bartender and one of the ladies in broken Japanese, occasionally assisted by the bartender (who knows enough English to help things along). He got me a beer and insisted he'd pay because he's "very rich", and he suggested "itsumo ok" - come any time.

The lady who I'd been chatting to - who'd gotten out of her seat and come over to sit next to me - tried to have a conversation, but it was pretty difficult. She knew almost zero english, and kept using vocabulary that I didn't know, then apologising over and over. She was constantly enquiring whether I was sleepy or bored. I think the questions were multi-faceted - both out concern but also because I think she was, in a bumbling way, trying to hit on me.

A little later, one of the other ladies asked if I'd ever been to karaoke. I said I hadn't and their eyes lit up - let's take him to karaoke! The bartender joined in the convince-Damien-to-go-to-karaoke campaign. I told them "demo .. uta ga dekinai" - but, song .. can't do. They said this wasn't a problem and I agreed to come along, curious about what it'd be like.

A karaoke bar was a few minutes walk from the yakitori bar. It was a huge place by Japanese standards, with many rooms. Each room was themed - one room I saw had benches supported by chains, like in a jail. The room we were in had big red couches and was themed like a shower, with a shower head sticking out of one wall. Curious.

We ordered some beers and food - ranging from cheese and crackers to pizza with tobasco and a salad. Pizzas are about 2-3 times as expensive in Japan as in Australia, for something not quite as big. Tobasco is a popular condiment with them.

They handed me the "foreign song list" - a fairly massive book akin to the white pages back home, but with bigger print. I was a little peturbed about being the first one to sing, as I had no idea what to expect - and I also had no idea what to sing. There were plenty of songs in the booklet which I recognised, but very few that I could probably sing. After being told to "hurry, hurry!" by the girl who was hitting on me and "take your time" by the others, I eventually opted for "radio head - creep" in desperation, a song I'd sung along to back in early high school.

The microphones are wireless and your voice is digitally filtered so it sounds considerably more impressive than it otherwise would. At first when I started singing I didn't recognise my own voice and assumed it was some generic backing singer!

My companions, being somewhat limited in the English department, had no idea what the song meant, and while shooting me encouraging smiles they also looked like they were thinking "what the..?"

After the song finished, they asked me what it meant, and I attempted an explanation with a few choice words from my vocabulary and lots of miming.

Next up was the girl who'd originally suggested karaoke. She was a really good singer, and the song she opted for is a pretty popular song in Japan right now - I've heard it playing in shops and stuff before. Her voice (combined with the digital enhancement) was very close to the original song. Impressive.

While walking from the yakitori bar to the karaoke place, we'd bumped into a Japanese guy who knew the girls I was with, and he'd come along with us. He was younger than the rest of them, and full of energy. He sang next.

At one point they chucked on a song which had a bunch of "English" interspersed with the Japanese. Such as:

"oly oly oly oh. yeli yeli yeli yeah. the up-town tokyo swinging night"

and

"won't be long ... won't be long".

(not tokyo, but I forget the original place)

Both the enthusiastic guy and the karaoke suggester joined in on this song, duoing the singing (there were two mikes). They got up and were dancing, too. They were really getting into it.

They asked me what the "won't be long" bit meant, after the song, and after bumbling about for a bit I was able to explain it to them. It turns out the Japanese words that follow the English mirror the English anyway!

When we eventually decided to wrap up, it was going on 3am. The lady who'd been sitting suggestively close to me apparently had to work at 6am that day. Ouch.

The other two people who worked at the yakitori bar had come and joined us shortly before we decided to finish, and they'd chucked on "dead or alive - you spin me right round". After a pretty decent rendition of the song by one of the new arrivals, we headed downstairs.

One of the yakitori workers informed me that the friendly bartender had given him money, in order that he could pay for my share of karaoke! I managed to slip a bit of money to the girl who was getting all the money together, but it probably wasn't enough.

The friendly bartender has now either directly or indirectly been involved in my first karaoke, raw horse meat and fermented soy bean experiencies. I think I'm going to pick him up a little present to say thank you before I go to the bar next time.

[this entry]