Rambles

End of Tuesday here, just getting home from Aikido class- where I was totally spaced out and therefore kept messing up and landing wrong and so on and so forth. I can't tell if my fellow teachers are a little upset with me. Three weeks ago my first year school teachers, who I sit with in the staffroom, asked me if I could go to dinner with them on Friday. I was really excited about this, and so instantly agreed. Last Wednesday, the English teacher said we were all pitching in ichiman yen, or the rough equivalent of $100. Ergh, right. So, I thought about it for a while, and decided it was too much money to spend on an evening where I wouldn't understand anything being said, and sitting next to the nurse who always gives me a slight 'I don't like you' vibe, I decided to cancel. So now I hope they aren't mad at me.
Anyway, I had a nice weekend, cleaned my apartment, did my laundry, relaxed. Went to this really boring thing for aikido. went to a few bars- nothing really cool though. Oh wait! How could I forget! So, maybe it was a week ago, I was out with my friend Alexis, and we were looking for the cool bars where Japanese people our age go. There isn't really a guide book for Cool Bars where People in their Early Twenties Go, so we are left just trying out different places. So, we were out cruising the bar districe of Himeji on our bicycles, the only Gaijin in the area, dodging taxis and Japanese outside of the dozens of Snack Bars, when we saw our bar- The Twelve Apostles. At which point, we immediately start cracking up. So, having no idea what the place is like, we climb the stairs and walk in the door and onto the set of a bar in Frasier. It looks like it would be full of east coast snobs, but we sit down at the bar and glance over the menu. Now, bars in Japan aren't just sake and sapporo- most of the one's I've ventured into have a more extensive collection of American whiskeys and imported liquors of any bar I've seen in the states. So we both order a drink- about the same cost as any other bar in town, and just start talking. After our first drink, I start getting bored and am waiting for Lexi to finish up to head out, and another girl shows up to bartend. The original bartender comes over and tries to explain that he called up his friend, who studies English, to come in and work- to talk to us- because he doesn't speak English. Service? Yes, I believe so. But Lexi speaks Japanese, so then the evening turns into this great night of talking to the bartenders, them trying to speak English and us trying to speak Japanese. It was great. They even brought us a little plate of three different samples of different bar snacks carefully arranged on a napkin on a little square plate.
Then one of Lexi's Japanese friends showed up, turns out he was also hoping the Red Sox would win on Saturday (sadly, they didn't- my condolences Chris). Now I don't really know who to support- I mean, I can't go for the white sox, because the Cubs are my Chicago team, and I can't support the Yankees, 'cause come on- they're the Yankees. Sigh. Last Wednesday we went for a beer after Japanese lessons, and this Japanese guy who thought he was black kept trying to hit on me. I really wanted to tell him that he stood no chance, if only for the NY yankees hat he was wearing. But also because he kept crossing the bar, interupting my conversation with other people, to ask me to go dance at another bar with him, after being refused several times. There are a couple of bars in town that have a surplus of Japanese people who think they are African American. It's weird. They play all this unedited rap music in this city- they have no idea what the lyrics are- like, everywhere. Shopping malls, phone stores, not the grocery though. I think Kroger's back home is the only grocery where I've heard them play Morissey- and for Fishers I thought that was pretty bizarre.
There's this bar, Fab Space, that's full of Japanese only. One night I went there with Lexi, and they were projecting a biography of Bob Marley on the wall, and dj'd reggae and techno all night. It was a bit of a bizarre combination. We met all these cool Japanese dudes, at about 3 am, we;re sitting down, exhausted from dancing, and one guy tries to pass me something kind of cylindrical looking, and at first in the bad lighting I thought it was a joint. But then I realized he was eating it, sort of gnawing at the end, and I realized that it was some sort of dried, processed fish. Ahhh Japan. Just when I'm expecting illegal substances they break out the dried fish.