Travel Journal, Japan, November 14th
I almost felt like I’d started to adjust to Japanese time when I woke up at 10AM. Tonight was to be the first night of several drunken outings as Yuki was taking us out to a Japanese bar. I was going to rest for the morning and catch up on my email and journal, but Hisa instead took me walking along the river and to the Sake Brewery. A lover of both alcohol and brewing, this was a treat. Hisa, generous as always, bought a nice bottle of plum sake for me to bring to Ai when I went back to Osaka.
After the sake brewery I was to follow the crudely drawn map and directions Will had left for me to try to find my way to his college. Thank goodness that the Japanese no longer want to confuse Gai-jin with their transportation as they did with their addressing system because Will wrote several wrong directions for me. When I did make it to the school, I sat in the courtyard doing a little reading and waited. By this point I think the furtive glances and packs of laughing Japanese that passed me had almost become background noise.
When his class was over, Will took me over to the dorm where his friends all hung out. I met Bob, Kyle, Dylan, Jeffery, and Aki again and we all had lunch. Will and the others headed off for a Kanji test and I hung around chatting with Aki while she ditched her class. Maybe I’m a curmudgeon but these kids sure make me feel old. A nutritious college student’s kitchen is 20 parts hard alcohol and zero parts edible food.
Everyone came back from the test and we hung out for a few hours playing Donkey Kong Country and talking. We listened as Dylan tried desperately to explain the French occupation of the Ivory Coast to a Japanese girl who had possibly never heard a French word in her life.
Time for dinner and drinks rolled around and we met up with Yuki and her friend Mai near the neighborhood I’d arrived in on Tuesday with Ai. The food at dinner was surprisingly good. True to promises, Yuki could really put away the beers. I managed to keep up with her fairly steadily, but 5 beers and a plum “whiskey” had to go by before we left the restaurant. Afterwards, we headed over to the “gai-jin bar” which was basically just an irish pub with Japanese workers and loud music. I had seven more beers either of my own or finishing those of others before the night ended. I had been lead to believe by Will that Yuki might have asked us to come drinking to spend more time with me and so I’d spent the night doing everything I could to be funny and charming. It all seemed to be going great, as she sat closer and closer, leaned into our conversations and laughed freely. Much to my disappointment, none of this was what I thought, and apparently Japanese women are the complete opposite of other women. We walked nearly an hour back to Will’s apartment. Disappointment and staggering belligerence gained on me every step of the way.
