Saturday afternoon, Japan time (whatever the date says.. bleh)
Saturday afternoon, Japan time (whatever the date says.. bleh)
a couple things i forgot to put in yesterday’s post.. One, the website for the drumcircle was http://www.drumcircle.jp/jonathan.html Yes, it’s in Japanese, but babelfish.altavista.com translates most of it. And you gotta check the link towards the bottom for Banana Sambura, check the pic of the women’s African drumming group. Another thing I saw in Chinatown that made me laugh.. saw some kids trying on these knit hats that had fake dreads coming out of the top. The folks here are so conformist, I can’t imagine anyone actually developing real dreads.. let alone the fact that their hair is so straight. As I mentioned, we’d been using an open wireless connection in dalton’s residence hall (“bachlor enlisted residence”) but yesterday Dalton saw fit to mention that there was internet access at the bowling alley/restaurant/pool hall across the parking lot. As luck would have it, it was completely open.. better than the alternative provided in the hotel, which Michelle discovered this morning. Turns out that the hotel access is set up to require a username/password that costs $20 for the week. Lucky for me that I was able to get that access yesterday because it allowed me to just drag laptop over there, get access and get the drumcirlcle.jp website to find what time the circle was. Because of this recent discovery of internet plentitude, I didn’t feel like we needed to go over to the barracks, so Dalton went over there by himself to get a shower, etc and we were able to stay at the hotel. Michelle and I have actually had very little time alone this week, for what it’s worth. By this time, it was nearly lunch time, and I found myself craving some pizza. We decided to go over there, check mail, post LJ, etc and leave Dalton a note. Just about the time i went to walk over there, he was telling us that one of his friends was having a BBQ, so we decided that that was the way to go. The guy who was throwing the bbq was named Jessie, and he’s just about to get out of the Navy. His parents were out here visiting this week, too, and we’d met in passing a couple times (visiting the residence hall and all), but we hadn’t had a chance to really talk. We had a bottle of mead left that we’d brought, and had no interstin in bringing it home, so it became part of the bbq, along with the bottle of merlot I bought the first night out here, Joe & Monique (the other parents) brought out a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, so it was a well-equipped party. The entertainment was provided by an apple laptop playing Itunes through desktop speakers, and later by a live tag team wrestling contest on the lawn. Funny thing of this lawn is that it has this ground cover that is like a really short evergreen. I accidentally stepped in it earlier in the week, and the best way to describe it was “micro goatheads”.. I spent a minute or so pulling them out of my foot. Dalton was all rashed out by the end of the day. Michelle gave him some arnica, which turned it from itching to burning.. not much of an improvement, apparently. Our mead was quite a hit, enjoyed by all, and i wished we hadn’t opened the other bottle earlier in the week. Oh well, we will have no leftover alcohol as there is one beer, and I intend to drink it in the morning. I had to explain several times how mead is made.. it was the celebrity moment i had anticipated last night but didn’t really happen. (which is not to say that we were unnoticed at the drumcircle. At the beginning of the event, Kaoru was talking to the room via a wireless mic, and at the point where she told everyone that there were visitors from the States, she said that in English, and we were applauded. A few people wanted to talk to us afterwards, in paritcular a couple of expats, one woman who’d been here for 20 years, and a guy who had been here 18. The woman said that she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else because the people here were so “gentle”. I couldn’t help having a different opinion.. my impression was a certain deference, or subservience, that I really have a hard time with. Whenever possible, people have stood aside to make way for me. It’s nearly embarassing, and I could easily imagine getting used to it, but not in a good way.) Michelle was able to get a little tipsy for the first time (damned mountain blood) and I got pretty drunk myself. As the afternoon wound down, we left the party to buy some last minute souvenirs at a “home center” which was basically a department store with a big knicknack section. After we got what we needed, we decided to go out on one more foray into Japan because Michelle wanted to visit the beach. It was late enough in the afternoon that we weren’t going to get there before sunset, but undeterred (and with some personal reasons to want to do so ;) we headed out. We finally got to the beach about 8:00, and walked along it barefoot for a ways. I got my shoes salty and wet. After this, we took trains back, but rather than jump a cab back to the base, we decided to get some Mexican food at a local eatery. The mexican place was clearly very popular with the Navy guys, the menu was in english, the drink specials were all in english, as well as a note asking that people only use the 5 spots available to the restaurant. While we were there, there was one table that was all Japanese, otherwise everyone we saw there was english speaking navy folks. (this one girl was going off about how the hamstring machine made her cervix clench up, and she liked that.. at the end, she was asking her companions not to tell anyone about it.. yup secret’s safe with me) Afterwards we decided to stop into the pachinko parlor across the street because Michelle wanted to see what it was about… basically the same as slot machines.. As Michelle says, might as well just mail them the money for all the enjoyment or skill to be had from it. Before we got the cab, i decided to go over to the convenience store to get some Hentai porn. Not that interesting, especialy since i can’t read it, but the lamest is that they pixellated it just like they do in a lot of photographic asian porn. shrug worth checking out, even if just once. We got back to the hotel, Michelle packed the suitcases while I went down to the front lobby to check on the internet, that’s when i found out that a username/password was needed (lame). Came back to the room and wrote up this.. We’re supposed to be getting a free shuttle from the lodge (space available) that leaves at 9 or 10.. tomorrow we’ll be leaving here about 5:00 PM local time, and will arrive about 5:30 denver time.. conversely to the other trip, it’ll be a really short night rather than a really long day.. stil a lot of daylight, so sleep on the plane might be problematic. After that, I’ll be going in to work. Whee!!