I went in to Tokyo today to meet up with Chris and Yasuko. They had a friend coming from Yokohama too so we all met up at Shibuya Station. I got to see the busiest intersection in the world. I believe it. On a Sunday afternoon there were literally hundreds and hundreds of people all going places. I can’t even imagine what it must be like on a Friday or Saturday night. Yasuko said that those nights it’s totally packed…I thought today was totally packed. We started by having some lunch. We laughed a lot. The place had like this silver sliding door, it kind of reminded us of the subway doors. It was Chinese food, not Western Chinese, no sweet and sour pork here. I had shrimp dumpling soup and an assortment of other things on the tray which Chris dubbed as coagulated white blood cells, maggots and the fluid that surrounds the brain that we couldn’t remember the name for at the time. The best was the brain fluid cause it was this light brown jelly-ish substance that wouldn’t stay on the spoon. It ended up being grape jelly, but real white grapes, not purple Jell-o. Then we went and played some Ping Pong for a while. Chris and I were the least talented. Yasuko decided after a while we should play boys against girls. That was interesting. The boys would play nicely for a while and then they just couldn’t take it any longer and they would slam it, usually hitting at least one of us. I suggested they needed to find a hobby to take out their pent up aggression as their engineering jobs obviously weren’t an outlet them. They said Ping Pong was their outlet. We then tried to go downstairs to play some pool but it was way crowded. It ended up being a really good thing because Yasuko looked up on her keitai another pool possibility in the area. It was great. As soon as we walked in I was like, yeah, this is the kind of place you play pool. The other place was like a youth centre feel to it. Fine for ping pong, but pool deserves a certain environment. It was dark and smokey and you had to order a drink, to which I replied that there should be no other way to play pool, you should always have a drink in your hand. We had a great time. Yasuko and Cletus (I have no idea how to spell his name and that’s the closest I can guess at) had just learned to play so it was fun. They picked up really quick. After a round of Guiness and 3 games of pool, the total for the one portion of the day was 8400 yen. That’s 2100 each. That’s about 21 bucks US each. It was totally worth it. I’m sure that everywhere we went we were quite a site. 3 gaijin (two crazy white people and a short Indian guy who laughed constantly) and a Japanese woman all making far too much noise...well okay so the 3 gaijin were making the noise and Yasuko was quietly laughing along with.
The mix of people around has been interesting to see. Guys like our age and younger walking around on a Sunday afternoon in the most impressive suits I’ve seen since I was in London. I’ve decided that North American men really need to start taking some hints from the rest of the world on how to dress because the men from London and Tokyo are some mighty fine GQ specimens. The women are stunning too. Most really know how to dress, and they’re into the shoes. I find it interesting (have I mentioned this before) that for a culture that never seems to keep their shoes on, they are all about the shoes. Out where I am it’s a bit of a different story. I’m in suburbia land so I’m more prone to see the Mama-chariots with a couple of kids and a trendy little mum in jeans, tshirt and tenneys. Mama-chariots are the bicycles, they usually have a kid carrier in the back and either a huge basket or another kid carrier on the front.
It was really nice to have a day off. And although I accomplished very little around here, I had a most excellent refreshing and laughing time.
The wind around here is vicious. When I go to another school it’s rarely windy, but around here it’s always blowing away. The way my house moves and creaks it sounds like the beginning of an earthquake. I’m sure it will be nice in the summer when it’s beads-of-sweat-down-the-butt-crack hot, but I've heard that it isn't windy then, just now.
