November 7, 2004
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Takamatsu with 4 japanese girls!
so first ill recap,
FRIDAY: the second and final night of english class (eikaiwa) with christine and brian. it was kind of fun again. mostly housewives and a couple of kids at my table. the wives were cute and actually they were a ball. they re into korean drama, of course, and they like YON-SAMA or course. cute. then christine’s principal took us out to eat as planned. we went to a chinese food chain and we got sooo much food. he was treating so i think he wanted to impress us. one of christine s JTEs came. she was a bit A-type personality, but her english was awesome and the principal’s was not so it was good to have her there. apparently she tried to bow out and didnt want to come. and she kind of hates the principal, but once again IM FOOLED BY THE JAPANESE. they rarely say what s really on their mind. i could be pissing scores of ppl off right now, but really, i d never know. this works in my favor as well tho. i can pretty much do whatever i want. the thing is DO NOT ASK for permission. this usually ends up with the answer NO, because they dont want to change things or do anything extra. so DONT ASK, JUST DO!! that dinner went fairly late, so i was tired and didnt really feel like trudging into the city for the farewell party for queen vics. i was on the fence.
WOUNDED MASHI: then when i got home, mashi came inside and had a cut on her ear and was somewhat bleeding. i decided to stay home and check out the wound. i cleaned her off, she was quite calm, and it wasnt too bad. she probably got in a fight with another animal. so that crisis was averted.
SATURDAY: in anticipation of SUNDAYs trip, i didnt do anything. i ran some errands and rode my bike. i found how to drive to that HIDDEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL by checking it out on bike first. it was damn complicated too. i missed it about 3 times. the construction workers must have thought i was loony driving around in circles and back and forth around the neighborhood.
SUNDAY: TAKAMATSU: we left early, around 930. AKIKO came to pick me up. she was much cheerier and speaking more english. especially since she was the only one in the car. we had to go pick up some other ppl. so we picked up JUNKO and two other girls, ERI and MASAKO. theyve been friends since kindergarten and im just glad they all had different names. none of them spoke much english. so friday night dinner was 4 english speakers, one bilingual and one japanese speaker. i was in the majority. on sunday it was 3 japanese, 1 bilingual and me (english). those tables were turned indeed. it was still fun tho. i tried my japanese a bit, they tried their english. junko helped the whole situation. they re all about 25. i felt pretty comfortable, they were totally sweet girls. we went to a big mall and walked around. we had some UDON. YUM! mine was with no soup, and soy sauce and yuuzu (orange-y) sauce. it was good. then we went to check out the festival. im not sure what it was for, but it was kind of international. i met up with lily at the AJET table, but being our first outing and not speaking much japanese didnt help the sitch, so we concluded i could just hang out with lily when i go to takamatsu again to visit her. we went to a RAMEN MUSEUM, which turned out to be a bunch of ramen restos that have ramen from different areas of japan. we had the HOKKAIDO style and it was yummy. i was the SLOWEST EATER BY FAR. they blame it on my lack of ZURU ZURU noises of noodle slurping. i was trying to ZURUZURU i swear!! who wants noodles in their lungs tho? really? we also had some festival food like takoyaki, and i tried SOY SAUCE AND BEAN ICE CREAM. it was mild and delicious! there was also thai food like dumplings and some weird rice-y porridge-y stuff with raisins that was not sweet enough to be dessert. we tasted, but tossed that one. then there was a little girl running around crying and lost. she wasnt japanese but she didnt answer english either. there was no information booth so we were standing there talking to her and trying to decide what to do when her mom showed up and said WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? so she was just scared. glad that worked out. there was a huge dragon and some taiko drums and dancing. then there was some dancing with KLACKETY wooden toy things. this dance was even less organized then the AWA ODORI, it was just jumping up and down and klacking the toys to the music. it was cool tho, they were wearing outfits. we signed a petition for 007 james bond to make a movie in KAGAWA-KEN, where takamatsu is. that guy took our picture and then we left.
ON THE WAY HOME: we were talking about food and cooking and AKIKO offered to take me to the supermarket to show me “delicious foods and cheap foods” very nice. i have already discovered the evening discount on bentos, sushi and hot foods, but it was still nice. then we stopped at a supermarket. ARE WE SHOPPING NOW? i was kind of beat. akiko was just picking up some things for herself, my shopping lesson must be in the future. coming back into my town, they showed me some good places to eat OKONOMIYAKI and UDON and i tried to give AKIKO some money for gas and parking, but even when i ran away, they gave it back to me. nice girls. i hope they ll take me out again. ill be away for christmas, but a NABE PARTY was mentioned. and a group date. NABE is a pot where lots of foods warm and then you just eat a lot i suppose. the group date is called something like KON-PA. im sure this is katakana and it must be short for something. cool! find me someone with some english!
HIP-HOP (aka HIPPU-HOPPU): i called TOPIA to get someone to get details for me about a dance class. turns out that the studio that i saw, AFTER BEAT, is in the phonebook which i can barely read. i looked under DANSU (dance) and another ALT used to take classes there. she might still. so theyre in the city and have had a foreigner before. maybe i can get a weeknight class or something. sweet. its like the boston class i never took.
