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The very next day was another busy one.
We stopped by the international center in town and as it turned out, the ladies there had made me a delicious delicious turkey and squash sandwich on 7 grain bread from Costco as a welcome present. I was in heaven after going 2 weeks without getting anything 100% Western! My only regret is that I can’t practice Japanese with them because they meet during the work day :( :(
Also, that day we kept seeing all these foreign kids around and it started to weird us out. There are decent numbers of foreigners in town, but we know them all, and there were a good 10 extra youths in town. To this day I don’t know what that was all about.
We’d planned on going to our neighborhood matsuri and our upstairs neighbor promised to take us out for Genghis Khan, a famous Hokkaido dish (that has it’s own RIDICULOUS song, bwhaha) but as it turned out I couldn’t go because I had an info meeting for the Jazz Crew. I was very disappointed that I didn’t get another shot at wearing my yukata. Especially when our upstairs neighbor dressed up The Pred and her husband, doing their yukata properly, and she told me I could borrow a not-instant one any time I liked! This lady and The Pred are very close, so I'd have liked to get to know her better, and she even got her high school daughter to wear a yukata and come along. I wanted to go :(
The meeting was ok, Chica-san, the woman who’d enlisted my help, picked me up. Upon arrival I was cornered by a small, scary, man wearing a dish towel around his neck and artsy glasses and a baseball cap - and I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Suddenly, everyone up and parted ways leaving me in a wake of confusion. Eventually after piecing together all the things people had said at once during the encounter, I realized I’d been in his restaurant a few nights earlier with all of the local foreigners, but I hadn’t met him and I didn’t know the name of the restaurant, and I didn’t know it was his. Also, he talks like an old mumbly man, though he’s probably only about 60. Apparently he’s something of a local celebrity and this is not the last you’ll hear of this eccentric character, so we will name him Ichi-san.
The rest of the meeting was long but everyone spoke quickly so I didn’t understand much more than in my encounter with Ichi-san. I did notice there were some young people there, though the age range of the volunteers was pretty diverse and that was cool. Later Nao-san texted me saying she’d seen me there, and I felt bad for not seeing her. This was kind of weird though, because I could definitely pick her out of a crowd, so I must have just been so nervous that I didn't look around much. Anyway, I left not really knowing what to expect at all from this shindig, except that I might have to help with some translation of sorts, even with my sub-fluent Japanese.
When I got home I was sad to see I wouldn’t even have time to meet up with The Pred et. al. even in plain clothes at the matsuri. Shortly after, The Pred gifted me her karaoke winnings from the festival, since she was leaving town that night for a few days vay-cay down in the neighboring prefecture and soon to be leaving Japan altogether. I can’t believe I didn’t talk about this Japanese concept yet, but I couldn’t find it in the archives, so here I go...
In Japan, when you win something, especially something geared toward adults, the prize is almost always 1) fruit, or 2) an assortment of pre-package curries, plastic wrap, baggies, laundry detergent, and dish soap. The latter package is, in fact, what I received lol Additionally, I don’t think there’s a bottle of soap in this house we’ve had to pay for and there are several different bottles of each type of soap. It’s very practical, right? Short of giving money, what could be more useful than household goods? At first I found it hilarious, and then I was excited. Between this gifting concept and the 2 shopping bags full of disposable razors, soaps, toothbrushes, and q-tips The Pred left behind (taken from the complimentary baskets in the hotels she’s visited!) – I won’t have to buy anything that pertains to hygiene. No really, I was almost disgusted by the amount of hoarded disposable products in this apartment as I dug through the closets.
There’d been an after-party for the meeting at Ichi-san’s restaurant (another Japanese concept in which any kind of meeting is immediately followed by heavy drinking at a bar). It’s a good way to bond and clear the air, especially in a culture that values holding your tongue in professional settings. Chica-san couldn’t go, so I also kind of decided not to. As it turned out, The Pred was meeting friends there, so she said I should come and try to get in on the Jazz party.
Upon our arrival, The Pred went straight up to the two people I’d picked out from the Jazz Crew as the people I wanted to get to know. They’d been in her adult conversation class! I was a little embarrassed, because although I’d gotten my wish to talk to them, their English was pretty weak and it was too loud and I was too tired to make sense in Japanese or to understand theirs. I worried a little that they would be uncomfortable because they'd think I didn't speak Japanese, but in the end we exchanged phone numbers and hopefully we’ll have a conversation group in the future!
We had such a good time we didn’t even get to The Pred’s friends she’d gone to meet.
We stopped by the international center in town and as it turned out, the ladies there had made me a delicious delicious turkey and squash sandwich on 7 grain bread from Costco as a welcome present. I was in heaven after going 2 weeks without getting anything 100% Western! My only regret is that I can’t practice Japanese with them because they meet during the work day :( :(
Also, that day we kept seeing all these foreign kids around and it started to weird us out. There are decent numbers of foreigners in town, but we know them all, and there were a good 10 extra youths in town. To this day I don’t know what that was all about.
We’d planned on going to our neighborhood matsuri and our upstairs neighbor promised to take us out for Genghis Khan, a famous Hokkaido dish (that has it’s own RIDICULOUS song, bwhaha) but as it turned out I couldn’t go because I had an info meeting for the Jazz Crew. I was very disappointed that I didn’t get another shot at wearing my yukata. Especially when our upstairs neighbor dressed up The Pred and her husband, doing their yukata properly, and she told me I could borrow a not-instant one any time I liked! This lady and The Pred are very close, so I'd have liked to get to know her better, and she even got her high school daughter to wear a yukata and come along. I wanted to go :(
The meeting was ok, Chica-san, the woman who’d enlisted my help, picked me up. Upon arrival I was cornered by a small, scary, man wearing a dish towel around his neck and artsy glasses and a baseball cap - and I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Suddenly, everyone up and parted ways leaving me in a wake of confusion. Eventually after piecing together all the things people had said at once during the encounter, I realized I’d been in his restaurant a few nights earlier with all of the local foreigners, but I hadn’t met him and I didn’t know the name of the restaurant, and I didn’t know it was his. Also, he talks like an old mumbly man, though he’s probably only about 60. Apparently he’s something of a local celebrity and this is not the last you’ll hear of this eccentric character, so we will name him Ichi-san.
The rest of the meeting was long but everyone spoke quickly so I didn’t understand much more than in my encounter with Ichi-san. I did notice there were some young people there, though the age range of the volunteers was pretty diverse and that was cool. Later Nao-san texted me saying she’d seen me there, and I felt bad for not seeing her. This was kind of weird though, because I could definitely pick her out of a crowd, so I must have just been so nervous that I didn't look around much. Anyway, I left not really knowing what to expect at all from this shindig, except that I might have to help with some translation of sorts, even with my sub-fluent Japanese.
When I got home I was sad to see I wouldn’t even have time to meet up with The Pred et. al. even in plain clothes at the matsuri. Shortly after, The Pred gifted me her karaoke winnings from the festival, since she was leaving town that night for a few days vay-cay down in the neighboring prefecture and soon to be leaving Japan altogether. I can’t believe I didn’t talk about this Japanese concept yet, but I couldn’t find it in the archives, so here I go...
In Japan, when you win something, especially something geared toward adults, the prize is almost always 1) fruit, or 2) an assortment of pre-package curries, plastic wrap, baggies, laundry detergent, and dish soap. The latter package is, in fact, what I received lol Additionally, I don’t think there’s a bottle of soap in this house we’ve had to pay for and there are several different bottles of each type of soap. It’s very practical, right? Short of giving money, what could be more useful than household goods? At first I found it hilarious, and then I was excited. Between this gifting concept and the 2 shopping bags full of disposable razors, soaps, toothbrushes, and q-tips The Pred left behind (taken from the complimentary baskets in the hotels she’s visited!) – I won’t have to buy anything that pertains to hygiene. No really, I was almost disgusted by the amount of hoarded disposable products in this apartment as I dug through the closets.
There’d been an after-party for the meeting at Ichi-san’s restaurant (another Japanese concept in which any kind of meeting is immediately followed by heavy drinking at a bar). It’s a good way to bond and clear the air, especially in a culture that values holding your tongue in professional settings. Chica-san couldn’t go, so I also kind of decided not to. As it turned out, The Pred was meeting friends there, so she said I should come and try to get in on the Jazz party.
Upon our arrival, The Pred went straight up to the two people I’d picked out from the Jazz Crew as the people I wanted to get to know. They’d been in her adult conversation class! I was a little embarrassed, because although I’d gotten my wish to talk to them, their English was pretty weak and it was too loud and I was too tired to make sense in Japanese or to understand theirs. I worried a little that they would be uncomfortable because they'd think I didn't speak Japanese, but in the end we exchanged phone numbers and hopefully we’ll have a conversation group in the future!
We had such a good time we didn’t even get to The Pred’s friends she’d gone to meet.
