Hi guys, sorry I’ve been a little behind on my blogging. It’s been a little bit of a nonstop week with last week being Halloween, my trip to Saga on Tuesday, Wednesday-Friday working on my architecture project, Saturday presenting in Tsuyazaki and Hilde’s birthday, and waking up on Sunday at 5 pm and still being tired. But don’t worry I will catch you guys up as always and start another burst fire of blog posts starting with:
Cheap Gaijin Toilet Paper Ninja Headbands and One Japanese Rabbi
Group Picture of New Friends from Fukuoka Now at Hawaiian Restaurant
Fun Characters
Gaijin Rider Group Picture After a 40 minute Bike Ride Home Through Torrential Rains (SOAKED) + 1 Jacked Jack-o-lantern
Halloween
Partying for Halloween started Friday night and was a today-day event. We rode our bikes into Tenjin to meet up with Mio-chan and Ayumi-chan at a club called Indigo Club. Along the way we saw a guy dressed in a giant pink fish costume, a girl in a wedding dress etc. Actually not all that bizarre since I had tried to prepare myself mentally for what Halloween in Japan might be like. Not that it was a letdown, but it just wasn’t as crazy as I thought it would be. The night was decent, there were a lot of people most of whom were nice and fun. But things really picked up once Baptiste and Ayumi started making out on the dance floor. (Back-story: Baptiste is my good friend who lives across the hall from me and with whom I have all my architecture classes with and Ayumi is a girl in my lab. Baptiste is just a fun-loving guy looking to have a good time in Japan. Ayumi is our new friend who likes Baptiste and is looking for a serious relationship. …conflict soon to come.) Keep in mind this is not a large club and contrary to popular belief, Japan is actually more conservative in a lot of ways than America at least in public scenes. People in the club are really not used to touching other people and freaking and grinding almost never happens. People have a bubble of personal space and most people respect that space and dance appropriately. So, it was quite a scene when Baptiste (a blonde haired blue eyed [I’m not really sure what color is eyes are]) Frenchman gaijin starts making out with this Japanese girl. A lot of people stopped dancing, stared, watched, a lot of the girls giggled and pointed, and the whole place had a good time enjoying the spectacle. Both of them turned out to be pretty drunk, the night progressed into him picking her up, spinning her in his arms, people laughing, clapping and pointing in approval and it only spurred them on more. Later we had some dancing circles, Baptiste tells me he vaguely remembers trying to do a handstand and a cartwheel. I remember both and yes he at least tried. I think dancing a lot has really given me a lot of time to practice dancing. Hopefully I can learn to actually pop soon, but 3-hour long techno songs and strobe lights make my amateur moves look pretty awesome. I had fun trying to pop and it’s a pretty good workout dancing for 6 hours. We went home trying to beat the sunrise. Half of us got split up and I think Baptiste and some others remained in Tenjin for a while afterwards because they were too drunk to ride home. He showed up sometime the next day with a bandaged hand, apparently he fell off his bike somewhere and injured it. It’s healing up just fine. All in all it was a pretty legendary night and probably more eventful than actual Halloween day.
Day 2
Of course we had to go out again on the actual day of Halloween, except this time it was just a little harder getting everyone going. People weren’t fully recovered by the next night but we went out anyway because we weren’t about to miss Halloween in Japan. By the time we rode our bikes into Tenjin and met up this time with Ai-chan and Kim-san it was 12:30 AM already. [Back-story: Kim is a supporter who lives on my floor. He’s from Seoul, South Korea and has been here 6 months. He speaks fluent Japanese because he’s studied it before he came and he’s been a great help for me here. He’s a nice guy and he’s always been willing to help me when I ask him how much 500 ml of water is or how to use the washing machine. [Even though the first time he helped me do laundry my clothes ended up sitting in a pool of undrained water]. Still, nice guy. Anyways, this was his first night out [IN JAPAN since he’s been here] and I felt like I owed it to him to show him a good time.) So we have about 10 people or so it’s beginning to be a problem going out with so many people now because everyone has a preference on where to go. We went to club # 1, too expensive, club #2 too few people, club #3 someone doesn’t like hip hop music, club #4 (actually the same club we went to the night before, it was more expensive and there were fewer people), club #5 still too expensive, and finally settled at club #6, The Dark Room. This was actually the first club I’ve been to here in Japan so it was familiar and nice. We met up with a few more people, Erika-chan told me how she loves Dark Angel and Jessica Alba and I laughed cause she wonders why nobody knows it in Japan. I tell her people barely know it in LA where it was filmed, it takes place and where it aired. It was alright, about 10 years ago. Anyways, after drinking a drink we went downstairs to dance, and one girl was very crazy who danced with Jacob by circling his body like a snake. She slivered around him and I could tell he didn’t really know what to do but to stand still, but he didn’t seem to mind either. Kim danced a lot and despite the night’s slow and rather terrible start, I could tell he really enjoyed himself. I was glad and now he seems to be a regular when we go out. So maybe we’ve created a (party) monster but at least he’s enjoying himself more. When we leave at about 6 AM, it begins to rain hard. Baptiste grabs a giant inflatable pumpkin off the street and uses it to cover his head. The rest of us: Tibor, Hilde, Jacob and Erika try our best to cover our heads. I had nothing but my jacket without a hood, no help there. We get to McDonalds (about the halfway mark home after 15 minutes of light-medium rain and decide to make a pit stop cause a night of dancing usually works up an appetite. For the whole meal after we’ve ordered and eaten it, we don’t know where Baptiste has gone. He comes in soaked a few minutes later and says he thought we were going home to eat, woops. Erika-chan whips up an origami crane out of a napkin after we finish our meal and we procrastinate on riding home because the rain has gotten ten times worse in the time that it took us to eat McDonalds. We decide the rain did not look like it would let up for a long time and just to fight our way through the rain. I wrap my cell phone in saran wrap (thanks Tibor for the idea) and make a break for it into the calamitous void. This is the hardest rain I can ever remember travelling through. At some point, I was basically swimming through the air with my bike. I couldn’t really see anything and when I opened my mouth to breath air I would have to spit water out. About 5 minutes before we get home, I can feel there’s something up with my bike. It starts to get bumpy and harder and harder to ride. I’ve gotten a flat but I don’t care. You tend not to care about things like that when you’re swimming home. So I push through, riding on my rim and slip and slide my way home. We get home safe and sound, totally drenched, jeans weigh about 10 lbs (or 4.5 kg in metric) and having the time of our lives. Excellent adventure accomplished.
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