Under the weather

Been feeling a bit sick lately. Weather turning cooler, raining all the time, and me walking around in it all day last Sunday is not a good combination.

But, I am feeling a bit better now, so let me tell you about what I did last weekend. I went up to Sabae, another small city near Tsuruga, about a 45 minute train ride away. A fellow Geos teacher invited me to see "a Japanese opera" a couple of weeks prior, then that week said, correction, it is a Japanese version of "West Side Story." Ok, cool. Sounds good to me. I have seen West Side Story and enjoyed it. I think I might have worked sound production on it in high school, but maybe not. I can't remember what plays I worked sound for, but I definitely remember seeing West Side Story at some point in my life on stage.

So, last Sunday I head up to Sabae a little after 3 pm. It had been raining steady all day long and was chilly. Good day. The play wasn't until about 6, so we walked around Sabae a little bit, they were having a small festival, perhaps a children's festival when we were going through there, maybe a bit more adult at night, hard to tell. Anyway, we went into the Japanese Language center where this teacher takes Japanese lessons because I had to use the bathroom. The bathroom was scary, no lights, just the ambiant light from outside, and since it was all gray and rainy that day, very dark bathroom. Luckily it was Eastern style which means hole in the floor, so no missing really. When I got back the other teacher was looking at pictures of stuff that had gone on at the school recently, including a cooking night. And we saw a black guy in the pictures! Exciting stuff! That is the first black person I have seen in Japan. Steven, the other teacher, was lamenting that he didn't get know there was a cooking night and decided that he was definitely going to the next one.

We then bought some Sake, Black Dragon brand Sake (cuz it is manly sounding!), and went back to his apartment to have a few drinks before the play. He also lives in a Leopalace apt, because, well, he works at Geos and that is how we live. His apartment was the exact same as mine except it was about two feet narrower. Man, I have never been so happy for two feet in my life. (And that's what she said) It makes such a big difference in the feel of the apartment. Plus, in his bathroom, his shower and bathtub are seperate, like the hose from his shower goes over the floor instead of into the bathtub.


My bathroom, notice the shower head and hose in the bathtub, his would be going to the right, away from the tub.


I guess this is more traditional for the Japanese, because they don't really shower, they shower and wash off outside of the tub on the floor of the bathroom, hence the entire room being a wet room, and then get into the bathtub to take a bath. Well, that isn't how I roll, so I am glad my bathroom isn't set up like that.

Anyway, so we drink half the bottle of sake and then head to the play. And outside of the theatre, who do we see, the black guy from the pictures! We got to talking to him and his friends, and the four of them were teachers at another English Language School in Sabae. And turns out, their seats were the row in front of ours. We must have been in the gaigin section of the theater.

West Side Story in Japanese. First off, it was a community theater production, obvious because there was a massive amount of people on stage at one time, including tiny little toddlers for some portions. However, the entire thing was in Japanese so I couldn't tell you if the acting was bad or not.

Yes, the entire three hour musical was in Japanese. But they used the same music for the songs, just sang the lyrics in Japanese. So, I recognized the story, recognized the music, and couldn't understand a damn thing anybody said. I felt like I had a stroke and was just remembering bits of stuff I used to know. Actually, that is kind of how I feel in Japan all of the time.

Also, if you don't know, West Side Story is about gangs. Okay, who doesn't know the story of West Side Story? Even if you have never seen it, it is so pop culture pervasive everyone must know. Romeo and Juliet set in 50's street gang NYC. Anyway, so gangs, gangs of young men fighting one another. Except, it seems like the performing arts aren't really that high on the list of priorities for the Japanese, especially men, so half of the male gang members were women dressed up in drag. And the gangs had people that looked like middle aged adults all the way down to pre-teens. Yeah, it was as strange as it sounds. However, entertaining as all hell to watch and wonder about.

And during big song and dance scenes, little toddlers would parade to the front of the stage in their little sailor outfits and either clap or ring bells, or, in the case of the taunting scene, shout Jets! and then parade off the stage again. It was adorable. And one little boy was walking out and lost his shoe, and he wanted to stop to pick up his shoe so bad, but the little girls behind him were shuffling him forward, the entire time he kept trying to go back and get his little shoe. He was so worried about it. The next time they came out, he was in sock feet.

All in all, it was a hell of an experience. I suggest getting drunk and going to see a comunity theater play in a foreign language, good times.

Afterwards we went out with the quartet of other teachers to Ashiyoshi (I think that is what it was called). It is a grill place where all the food comes on skewers. It was great. Six English speakers packed into a booth order massive amounts of food and drinking heavily. The way food is served in Japan is much different from America. First off, they bring stuff out as soon as it is ready. So if you order five things, you basically get five courses. And this place has oders of 6 skewers of meat, or two rice balls (grilled rice balls, so delicious), or four cucumbers, etc. So you get little orders and order two or three of each thing and they just keep bringing you food. And when you are done you put your skewer in a little cup in front of you, and when you fill that cup that means you are a man! We sat there for two or three hours gorging ourselves on delicious grilled meats, and some not so delicious (Tongue, really, what is the point, not as tasty as regular beef and too chewy. Fortunately, it didn't look like tongue, looked like a little meat flag instead. I think I would have needed much more booze to eat a tonge looking tongue). I have no idea how the Japanese are so thin, there was a ton of food consumed that night. or maybe we are just gluttonous Americans and the Japanese only order two or three courses instead of 15 or 20 like we did.

And then I came home.

Oh, and I peed on the street. It is legal here, and I had to go between the train station and my apt, that is about a mile walk, in the rain, and I had quit a bit to drink that night, so I just let it fly on the street. It was awesome.



Mom, I am so sorry.