One Crazy Night

Welcome Party

Friday night was the Ijiri International House welcome party. This consisted of a boring presentation, some soda and food, and a meet and greet afterwards. I enjoyed meeting everyone very much and found that everyone here brought something interesting to the table. For example, I met a doctorate student named Nima from Iran who's a Plasmic Physicist. He explained to me the four stages of matter and how if he can help figure out how to store the plasma energy then essentially he could possibly help provide a solution for cheap, clean alternative energy. I wished him luck on his endeavors to save the world and met another guy named Dion from Holland. He is a very pale, somewhat scrawny looking blonde haired boy. He was shy but friendly after some time. I found out that he prides himself on living a completely pure life and doesn't drink, smoke and is a vegetarian. This provides a unique challenge in Japan not knowing the language. He tells me how most of his meals is a guessing game to see what has meat and what doesn't. He is also apparently a very accomplished break dancer and locker. He's earned quite a reputation in the international house as "the dancer" and I'm excited to see and maybe learn a few things from him. I met like a dozen other people, Helena from Germany, Chen, Wang... and a lot of other Chinese students, just to name a few.

After Party in Tenjin

Still bustling with the excitement and energy of meeting so many new people, a group of us decide to go out to Tenjin and see what a Friday night on the town is like. Tenjin is the major downtown district of Fukuoka, so in short all the really good and the really bad stuff happens there. We are a ragtag group of foreigners, Batiste, Margaux and Axel from France, Jacob originally from Poland but who lives in Cologne, Germany, Tibor and Florian who are from Munich and other parts of Germany, Hilda from Holland, Olivia and Adam from Australia, Kim from China and me representing the USA. So 11 of us representing 6 completely different parts of the world wandering around Japan is pretty interesting. We get a lot of attention from everybody and most of the Japanese stare in disblief. Jacob or as it's pronounced in Poland "ya-coob" is a bald white guy, axel is about 6'4 with 3' of dreadlocked hair, Batiste is dressed in what I can best describe it as cowboy french clothes a very fair skinned totally natural bleach blonde hair, and Adam the Aussie who is an exact Jesus lookalike.

The Dark Room

So we go to an American bar known as the Dark Room. The owner named Moses is from San Diego and has now lived in Fukuoka for 18 years. He's a buff American looking guy who takes an immediate liking to us. He buys us all a shot of Kamikazi which is now my new favorite shot, it's quite delicious and goes down very smooth. Anyway, we tell him we should get going at 11:30 and apparently that is the time for the last train back home. So instead we stay awhile and decide to play the night by ear. Our choices is to call for a cab and split the price or wait till 5:30 AM for the first train back. I meet a friendly guy from the UK named James at the bar. He explains to me how safe and nice Fukuoka is and I'm a little more comforted to be living here for a year. He tells me how he's seen a guy piss drunk on the subway in Tokyo with his cell phone, wallet and money strewn across the floor and people just kick it back towards him. Most people here are very honest. The bar also played great music, it's nice to hear some English once in a while.

Rhythm

Bar 2 was another international bar called Rhythm owned by a guy named Harvey, a husky Canadian with long blonde hair. He likes us almost immediately as well and really warms up to all of us. He also decides to buy us all free shots again, and again it just happens to be another kamikaze, i'm not complaining. So after about 4-5 beer and 2 shots, i am sufficiently buzzed, everyone is feeling pretty loose and people are dancing, talking, eating and generally having a good time. We meet this 20 something looking Japanese lady who is a frequent customer of the bar named Rui. She seems very nice and friendly until out of nowhere she pulls out a length of rope, handcuffs and a leather (flogging) whip. YES, no joke, this really happened. She ties up Jacob and then Batiste and begins to bend them over a stool and whip them. She's definitely done this before because as she's tying them up, she was concentrating very hard and there was a definite form to her S&M. This was all done in good fun and the guys laughed the whole time and played along, but it was still one of the craziest things i've ever seen. Afterwards Rui let Batiste do a free body shot off of her chest as compensation. Salt on her boob, a shot of tequila and a mouth to mouth lime. This is a woman we had met only that night. JAPAN IS CRAZY!

We walk back to train station and wait 20 minutes for the gates to open. Some people get Mcdonalds breakfasts. Batiste is drunk and yelling in the restaurant, its entertaining for us, but i'm sure he shocked a decent amount of Japanese people eating their breakfasts. There's a great band playing downstairs and Axel joins in on the fun.

What's That Smell?

A frail old lady walks by us on the train. We are seated 5 and 5 on opposite seats. Nobody helps her as she hobbles slowly past us so i get up and take her hand and walk her to a seat. I sit down and out of nowhere, there is this overwhelming stench that fills the car. We all look at each other and realize the lady who just walked by is homeless and a truly foul odor is coming from her. We hold our breaths, hold scarves to our faces and try hard not to laugh. I can take a decent amount of punishment, but the smell was just one of the worst things I have ever smelled. Maybe a mix of being trapped in a tipped over portapotty and roadkill. Every stop, we were relieved to have the doors open. Eventually (it was honestly the longest 4 stops ever) we get home around 6 AM. Thus ends the first of many adventures here in Japan.