Bored at School - The Sequel!

Goddamn it I'm bored.

It's the first week of the school year. My half-days are over. But I have no classes. So I've been bringing my computer to school and beginning the fruitless Portland job search; chatting with Kayvohn on MSN; checking my email and myspace and other people's blogs obsessively; and further burning out my retinas. I'm one second away from taking/posting the results from those stupid "what your underwear says about you"/"which 80's heartthrob is for you?" quizzes. Ugh.

In other words, I'm the embodiment of Grassroots Internationalisation at it's finest.

So now, I'm going to post a few positive/funny/interesting tidbits from the past month or so. The purpose of this is twofold - 1. to kill some time (I have approximately 5.5 hours till I can go home) and 2. to make me feel like my life in Japan hasn't been reduced to hours upon hours of internet-surfing at school then zombie-walking back to my apartment (which in a state of disarray...again/still) only to sit on the floor in front of my computer until I retire to bed.

First, it is worth mentioning that the weather today is absolutely stunning. And I have the most amazing view of the mountains from my desk.

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Two weeks ago, I went to an enkai with the Board of Education. It was a sayonara/welcome combination party for the leaving/coming Kacho (big boss dude). The BOE parties are pretty small affairs now that we've become part of the huge conglomeration of tiny towns that is now called Niigata City. Where we used to have huge parties with everyone from the town office, the departments now keep their business and their parties separate. So, I went to go get drunk with 7 Japanese folks - all over the age of 40, at a tiny little sushi place down the street from my apartment. I'd passed this place about a thousand times, but never managed to venture in so I was quite curious to see what it was like.

We sat down on the tatami to the usual lavish and sometimes curious-looking spread of enkai food. Let me elaborate on enkai food for a moment. I have this running theory (that has yet to be proved wrong), that the more expensive and lavish a meal in Japan is, the less palatable it is to a foreigner. In fact, I can't imagine that this food is appetizing even to the Japanese, but seeing the way my co-workers feast at these parties apparently it is, so I digress. That night's food consisted of a selection of sashimi, a couple tiny porcelain cups of unidentified fish-product goo, an entire fish (head, eyes and tail attached and it's mouth wide open in a shocked yet sad frown) skewered on a plate, a cup of egg-custard stuff, and some kind of salad. Luckily I have a pretty strong stomach and the beer was flowing. I tried everything, mainly to appease my co-workers but man, it was rough.

In the last half hour, Maruyama-san suggested we order some sushi. Now, I love sushi, but I was pretty dubious about it, considering what else might flop down onto the table in front of me, so I didn't really say anything either way. Everyone else was keen though, so she ordered and soon enough, the sushi chef came in with two beautiful spreads of sushi. Oh, it was glorious. In addition to the usual array Japanese-style sushi, I noticed that they had included American-style sushi in the spead. My co-workers were all perplexed at this strange, backwards-rolled sushi. The chef just looked at me and smiled. After he placed the food on the table, he finally got up courage to let his curiosity get the best of him, and asked me where I'm from and if I like sushi. I told him that I'm from New York (kakkoii ne!) and that yes, I certainly do like sushi. Then he asked me what my favorite was, so I said maguro; he smiled and left. 5 minutes later, he returned with a plate just for me, of two pieces of the most luscious, melt-in-your-mouth toro tuna I have ever had. Oh man. Being the white girl definitely pays off sometimes!

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Last Friday night, Kayvohn and I decided we were going to go out in Niigata. Niigata is usually D-E-A-D on Friday nights, but we had heard that Grace and Steph were out celebrating their birthdays, so we figured we'd run into them along the way. Before we went out, we watched a zombie movie at his place while we had some pre-game beers then caught the last train into the city. Our first stop was Shame where we ran into Grace, Steph and the other birthday revellers. We sat around and chatted and drank. We ran into Mustafah and Aki (not together) - two people who we haven't seen in ages.

Eventually the group moved onto this club, Praha, which I've heard about but have never been to. We blew by the dorks outside who were collecting the 1500yen cover charge (no thank you!) and into what was by far, one of the lamest places I've ever been in my life! The place was packed, which is strange for a Friday night in Niigata, but god, it was bad. The music was that hideous raggae-hip hop fusion crap which sucks enough as it is, but what made it worse was the fact that the DJ felt the need to keep screaming into the microphone. No lie. Like every 10 seconds he'd be like "welcome to Praha!" "Please enjoy" etc etc. So Kayvohn and I went to the bar thinking it'd help. However, this was one of those places where you have to buy 2 drink tickets for 1000yen. So basically, you want one drink and you end up with two (way to encourage alcoholism!). About mid-way through our first drinks we realized we needed to get out of there pronto, so we chugged our first (and second) drinks and left.

Next we hopped into a taxi and asked him to take us up to Furumachi. We were both absolutely bleached at this point, so when we got to Hot Spot, Kayvohn passed out on the table and I spent the last hour and a half having a conversation with that creepy white middle-aged bartender. It was annoying and when my alarm went off at 4:30am to go for the first train home, I was relieved.

Here's where it gets funny. We walked out of Hot Spot, where normally there are a few cabs waiting - but they were nowhere to be found. So we ran into the rain towards the main street hoping we'd find one. Luckily we found one and just barely managed to make the train. Kayvohn passed out right away and as usual, I set my alarm for 10 minutes before my stop and attempted to fall asleep myself. However, everytime I closed my eyes, I'd get that spinning feeling - never good. So I struggled to stay awake and focused on a fixed point. Somewhere along the line I fell asleep. And somehow, I didn't notice my cell phone vibrating in my hand. Kayvohn and I were woken up by the train conductor in Yoshida (the last stop on the line), asking us where we were going. Shit! Wait, it gets worse.

So we told him we were going to Maki and Echigo Sone. He told us we had to get on another train. So we got up and zombie-walked across the platform and into the first train we saw. The doors closed and the train started moving... in the wrong direction! Now, I did this once in my first few months in Japan. Only I was sober. And the next stop after Yoshida is the smallest, most pathetic station on earth. It's basically a tin shack. So, realizing we were going the wrong way, we got out at the next stop (the pathetic one) and looked at the schedule. The next train was not for another 45 minutes, so we decided we'd walk, find a 7-11 (thank god they're ubiqutious in this country) and shell out the big bones for a taxi home. As luck would have it, there was a 7-11 within a 5 minute walk. We staggered in, bought some snacks and asked the cashier to call us a cab.

The cab came in about 20 minutes and by 7am I was in my bed preparing for the coming hangover day ahead.

Phew!

See, my life isn't that boring!