Friends come to visit

I don't remember this, but apparently a guy I met through English Club actually met me in Canada a year or so earlier. At that time I was very involved on campus doing stuff like interpretation for groups of students on month-long programmes, and I guess he was among one of those groups. Flash forward, and unbeknownst to me, he's spent the last several months living near Seattle, attending an ESL finishing school type deal. He has a month off, so he's swinging through for old times' sake.

“I don't think you went to America to eat Japanese food,” I tell him, “but there's a Japanese restaurant here I think you might find a little interesting.”

Like everybody, he likes my new ancient sports car, which will be getting its own post in due course (it's Japanese; don't worry, this blog hasn't entirely lost all focus). I take him to a Japanese-style burger joint. So like, there's teriyaki burgers, but then there's like burgers with yakisoba on them, shit like that. He's hand-rolling a cigarette with Turkish tobacco before we've even paid.

He wants to take a spin through the downtown area, after which I direct us through a green, sedate park on the river. All the way I'm monitoring his fatigue and levels of interest, mentally planning alternate routes and trying to get the timing right, and yeah now we're basically on a date. As we walk he remembers snatches of places he's been, intersections, storefronts. Phaedrus Moments, you might call them.

I ask him about his school, whose student body he says is predominantly Asian. We start to speak, as you do, of the future. His plan is to go back to Japan when he's done his Seattle thing and finally enter working life.

For me it's a little more up in the air, as we know. I've basically been working at securing Japanese employment for two years with no actual progress. President has long since departed for Koube, where she is teaching English. The distance, in the end, has only confirmed that I really, truly, want to be with this woman. He prods me, so, you think you'll marry her? Well, nobody knows the future. I mean I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it.

He's startled and even a little angry to learn that there are Japanese people who tell me that, as a foreigner, I will never understand Japan, or learn to speak Japanese. (I wrote a post about this, but can't find it.)

“But you already speak Japanese!” he fumes. “You practically are Japanese!”

When President jettisoned nearly all her physical belongings in preparation for Koube, I ended up with some items of clothing. When I accidentally moved in with her, I didn't really bring much, so I frequently wound up picking through her laundry for T-shirts and jeans to wear. (Lockup thinks this is hilarious.) I developed some favourites, including a pink Sailor Moon T-shirt, a not-pink Sailor Moon t-shirt, and a black one that simply says 「日本」 (“JAPAN”).

I'm wearing the 日本 t-shirt today, and when my friend saw me sitting there, wearing that shirt, in a Japanese restaurant, drinking a bottle of Oi Ocha, the sight struck him as so absurdly Japanese he burst out laughing and couldn't help but snap a photo.

Three weeks later, I'm strolling past the burger joint when I see my friend who works there, and stop in to say hi. She's a bit of an interesting story. She's going to my Canadian university, now, and her long-term plan is Canada. And of course, if you graduate from a Canadian university, that's a quick ticket to permanent residency. Her problem right now is money, because tuition for international students is exorbitant. I know another guy, a tourism student, whose dream is to do tourism stuff in Hawaii. It makes a lot of sense, if you know a bit about Japan and Hawaii. There's a lot of parallels between our respective dreams, a lot of commiseration – and mutual support – to be had.

Talking with the girl from the burger joint, it turns out a Japanese girl who lived here back in fall 2011 is in town for a visit. She was with a group all from the same university who were here for a semester each. Kinda weird how that worked out, but it was nice. I had them, I had Japanese Club, I had President – we were still just friends back then – and I was taking six classes (the standard being four), so I never wanted for companionship, entertainment, or purpose. And all the while of course, I was prepping for my ryuugaku the following year, so everything I did, every hour of laying groundwork or studying Japanese, took on added weight in my own mind.

My friend told me our guest wanted to see me if she could. I told her it probably made more sense for her to tell me so rather than wait for a random encounter, she promised she'd tell her so, I looked forward to hearing from her, and then completely forgot about it until two days later, when we actually did meet in a random encounter. She's doing well. Since I last saw her, she's graduated university and become a systems engineer at a decent company in central Toukyou. But, she wonders, will she be able to keep working there when she gets married and has children?

Lately it's hard not to feel like everyone I know is both younger and more successful than me. It's discouraging. Even most of the people from English Club are now getting job offers from desirable companies. Anyone my age who is still in school has moved on to graduate studies and will be well-positioned indeed once they wrap that up. Meanwhile I've spent approximately nine decades working on a degree that will be mostly worthless when I finally complete it, at which point I will have virtually no marketable skills or experience. Painfully, President is at this very moment living the life I've always wanted, without me. I'm not jealous – really. We're a team, we share in our successes. But I want so badly to be there doing it with her.

But I have tangible, achievable goals. For the first time in a while, I can almost see things coming together. And it was invigorating to see my old friends. You take whatever victories you can seize.

Showbiz!

Stay in Japan long enough, and eventually you will be asked to appear on TV. It's practically a given. You might be approached at a festival, to be seen basking in the local culture, or perhaps cornered in the street and solicited for a reaction on some current event of which you have no knowledge; there are many paths to glory. There's just something newsworthy about a foreign face, regardless of how irrelevant the person may be to the actual topic at hand. Some have even managed to parley a handful of bit parts into moderately successful careers. I, unfortunately, did not.

(So far!)

But I did get the opportunity to dance like a twat. The director of the International Office sent out a mass e-mail letting us know that they'd been contacted by a television company in Oosaka, and did anybody want to appear on TV? An initial meeting was set for whoever wanted to go, and a couple of weeks later we met with two AD's in the dormitory lobby. Each was in his mid-20's, but were otherwise polar opposites; one was well-dressed, straight-laced, and clean-cut, while his partner, who seemed to be the more dominant of the two, arrived wearing a leather jacket, with several days' growth on his face, and spoke in a nonstop stream of inappropriate comments. They could have been in a buddy comedy. You could make a TV show about these guys making TV shows.

They each sat down in the tatami room and we went in for pre-interviews one-on-one, except for Anarchy in the UK and his little gang, who went in together. They refused my offer to interpret with an air of deep indignation, perhaps momentarily forgetting that none of them spoke Japanese. Whatever. Do whatever you want. 

As my own interview progressed, a theme quickly became apparent. These guys were clearly not looking for swooning and adulation. They didn't want to hear about what a wonderful country we'd stumbled upon and how orgasmic our everyday lives were. They asked questions like: What problems have you faced here? What negative stereotypes have you faced from Japanese people? What do you find the weirdest or most troubling about Japan? That, and a disturbing number of uncomfortably detailed questions about my previous relationships with Japanese girls. When I translated for a grateful Australzealand (who actually does speak Japanese somewhat passably), as soon as the guy found out she has a Japanese fiancee, he took that ball and raaaaan with it. All in all, I wasn't surprised.

If you are unfamiliar with the country, you might reasonably assume that we as foreigners were consulted in order to purvey a unique viewpoint, to share an outside perspective and thus cast our surroundings in a new light for those who had grown up with them. In this case you would be mistaken. If you're from Hate Japan, you will no doubt contend that its inhabitants have long since secretly acknowledged its backwardness and inferiority, and are desperately hoping to have their shortcomings revealed by a knowledgeable and benevolently dictatorial Westerner. In this case you need to open your eyes, and perhaps also never speak ever again. On the other hand, if you imagine that foreigners in the media are used primarily for comedy purposes and absurdity value, you are hitting a little closer to the truth.

With all this in mind, let us add one more wrinkle: They were trying to make a show. Smiles and happy days are all well and good but they don't make for good TV. They needed a little tension. Something to resolve, or at least reflect on. I didn't like it, but I understood, so I gave them some of my misgivings – I think most of it hinged on my being constantly “othered” by the Japanese, even those who know me. One quote that the inappropriate guy quite liked, and asked me to use for the recording, was a very energetic, wild-eyed, “I'm not weird because I'm foreign, I'm weird because I'm me!” (「変なのは外人じゃなくて俺や！」).  We got word soon after that we had been selected as one of four participating schools. Another couple of weeks later, the segments were decided upon.

*Australzealand would visit her fiancee's parents up in Aomori or wherever the hell it was, somewhere up north anyway.

*Anarchy in the UK had confessed he couldn't slurp noodles, so the Korean guy and the Spanish guy would teach him.

*Taiwan and the French girl would cosplay.

*Everyone would also do a talking segment.

Take a hard look at this list and tell me you can't figure out what's going on here. In one, we've got a Japanese guy marrying an older foreign woman. In another, we've got silly foreigners who can't comprehend our Japanese ways. And in the other, we've got hot young foreign girls dressing up. Good TV? You bet!

I was among those who made the final cut and would do the talking segment, at least, and on the day of shooting I came home after school to find the lobby now ensconced by solid temporary barriers, presumably for acoustic and lighting reasons. A crew of at least thirty PD's, AD's, set directors, costume designers, those people who stand around with clipboards looking busy while not appearing to do any actual work, and sound technicians buzzed around making final preparations. The rough AD from before caught sight of me and sent me to wait upstairs, where the Korean guy was already hanging out.

Correctly predicting that we would probably not start until at least ten or fifteen minutes after we were scheduled to, I suggested that we talk about something, anything, to warm up. He was remarkably indifferent to the whole process, but I wanted to make sure I got my Japanese up to speed, so that if I couldn't be eloquent I at least wouldn't go on television sounding shittier than I actually was. Eventually more of us floated in, and finally, they started calling us downstairs to have at it. I was first up.

AD: Ok, when I give you this signal, I want you to walk down the hallway, go in from the side, and you'll see...something there. So go up and you can start. Just answer the questions, and try to talk about the stuff we went over before. Wanting to be accepted by the Japanese, those things.

Rude Boy: I'm guessing the interviewer is going to lead me through it pretty well, anyway.

AD: That's right.

Rude Boy: Sounds good.

AD: You don't seem nervous.

Rude Boy: I've been on TV before in Canada.

After another five minutes or so, everything went deathly quiet. The AD gave me the signal, and, trying to pretend I was not surrounded by a massive crowd, I walked into the lobby, expecting to find somebody seated at one of the tables, and...was disappointed, as I seemed to have walked into an empty room. Then I noticed a big rokujizou set up against the far wall, so, trying not to appear overly confused, started to approagahhh there's a guy in there.

Oh geez, now he's talking to me.

He's awfully loud.

As I later learned, this old man was a fairly famous comedian from Oosaka, but as that's not a scene I am particularly given to follow I was not familiar with him. My friends oohed at his name, though. Anyway, harshly aware of the fact that I was holding on a conversation with an anthropomorphic rock, I gave one of the more embarrassing performances of my life, which is to say, I danced to AKB. While singing. Well, what could I do? We were discussing karaoke as a good way to break cultural barriers, he asked what I could sing, and I happened to know the dance. And I did it for a broadcast audience of 23 million.

I was also in my socks, and so slipped and fell after like five seconds. The clean-cut AD laughed audibly.

In actual fact, this entire venture was scripted, a result of me and the AD discussing different gimmicks I could bust out. The conversation didn't go exactly as planned, but I tried to weave my most important talking points in. There was a slight problem in that he used the funny voice popular with that brand of Oosaka comics, making it hard for me to understand him, and his ears were covered by his helmet, making it hard for him to understand me. We managed to work all my major points in, though. Of course there was no way to know, in the moment, whether it was going to be funny or not. There is the problem of not being able to see how it will look once edited, but there was also the fact that everybody else in the room was doing their best to remain absolutely silent, so I had no feedback. The rough AD assured with me a laugh that it had been funny, though. I certainly hoped so. I do have my pride and dignity but I'd far, far rather be ridiculous than boring.

Everybody gathered in that same lobby when the time came to watch the broadcast, but I was a little too embarrassed, so I did something else. Which turned out to be just as well, because the planned forty-minute full episode had been cannibalized into a series of ten-minute segments. The first was the main one, however. And yet nearly all of it had been cut. “But I got on,” Anarchy in the UK assured us without irony, as though we would be genuinely relieved by this news, “so that's the important part.”

So can you guess which part ended up being the focus of the programme? Come on, guess.

It was Taiwan and the French girl's cosplay thing. Of course it was. They dressed them in junior high school uniforms. You can't not use that. Over the course of the next few weeks they re-aired those parts along with chopped-up versions of the others.

Did I ever appear? I have no idea. But none of my friends mentioned seeing me, so perhaps not.

Things I missed

I imagine I've made it pretty clear that not only would I rather be in Japan right now, I'd rather have never left. In fact I hardly ever shut up about it, on this blog or anywhere else. But there's nothing to be gained from idle negativity, so as long as I'm here, I might as well avail myself of the Canadian experience. Here are a few things I missed while I was in Japan and am now enjoying again, in no particular order. Well, they are in a particular order. They're in the order I thought of them. It's just that the order is meaningless.

Jugs

Living abroad ain't what it used to be. Nowadays Facebook and Skype effortlessly keep us connected with the people we love. Before my time, it was a more trying affair. Ten years ago, there was the less dynamic but still reliable method of e-mail, although you had to be sitting at an actual computer in order to use it. Prior to that it was all expensive long-distance phone calls, snail mail, and desperate hopes. Go back far enough and moving to another country was a months-long journey that you might not even survive, and undertaking it meant you'd never see your friends and family ever again.

Really, I'm grateful that I was able to chat with Jugs on an almost daily basis through the Miracle of the Internet, but now I get to see her face-to-face at least weekly. I've met great people in Japan, both Japanese and non-Japanese, and I hope that never ends, but Jugs and I, and my other Canadian friends, have a long history, and we know each other back to front, and that's hard to beat. She's interested in Japan, too, so I hope to one day show her a bit of it.

Tim Horton's

Have you ever tried Tim Horton's hot chocolate? According to my page statistics, if you're reading this blog you're most likely American, so probably not, in which case you're missing out. Actually I hear there's Tim Horton'ses in like Vermont now or something, so maybe some enterprising businessperson will open a franchise in Oosaka. They also make good sandwiches. Speaking of which...

Subway

Japanese Subway is good, but it just doesn't measure up to what they've got over here, where the bread is softer and has more options, the pricing model isn't idiotic, and they have bottomless fountain drinks. And the subs are just tastier.

Real cheese

Oh my God, have you tried to buy cheese in Japan? Again, statistically, you haven't. Well it's not fun. Because there isn't any. At least none that's good. You might be able to find something at an organic grocer or a co-op but that's always a pain and what you can find still isn't that great. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though, cheese doesn't exactly figure heavily into Japanese cuisine, and me complaining about it is like a Japanese person complaining about the difficulty of finding decent seaweed in Canada. Though come to think of it, that is a very legitimate complaint. Ah, but now we're getting into a totally different post.

Christmas

This one startled me. I mean there were things I anticipated missing (Jugs), and things I didn't (cheese), but I outright hate the Christmas season and the way it's shoved down our throats for two months straight. I'm just grateful that Halloween is a thing because it forms a hard barrier against the increasingly early starting gun, but even that is starting to crumble. In the future, the entire year will be Christmas season, and that will be a glorious time because it will have finally lost all meaning and we can all stop caring about it. It's such a saccharine, stupid holiday anyway. Not the birth of Christ, that part's cool and all. But all this stupidity about “the true meaning of Christmas” and “come on, it's Christmas” and all of that can go straight to hell. Guh.

As I mentioned around this time last year, though, I kind of ended up forlorn at the complete lack of Christmas cheer in Kyouto. Setting aside that it's a completely different holiday in Japan (couples rather than families), there was just nothing. A few lights and stuff, yeah, but no music, no real sense of anticipation, no atmosphere whatsoever. Yet oddly, though I was happy to be free of it, I was sad for its absence. That whole block ended up feeling so empty, even though it was quite as exciting as any other month in Japan, just because I was used to expecting something extra. Also, for some weird reason I have a strange fondness for bad Christmas movies, so lately I've been getting my fill of those on TV.

All of that said, with December now underway I have little doubt that my seething rage will soon reassert itself.

Snow

Of course this is integral for a good Christmas atmosphere, but snow is also great just on its own terms. You can roll around in the snow and make snow angels, or roll snow around in other snow and make snowmen, or go around smashing other people's snowmen, or construct complex snow forts from which to wage snowball fights and then get pissed off when you start losing and start facewashing everybody and dumping snow down their backs and so on. Those are rites of passage for every young Canadian. Good luck doing any of that south of Hokkaidou, though. A couple centimetres may accumulate overnight, but the ensuing sun will melt it all within hours.

News

Sure, you can seek stuff out on the Internet and stay informed about what's going on wherever you came from. Thing is, I get all my news passively, by listening to the people around me. This is also generally how I find out about assignment due dates and impending exams so it is quite a useful skill. Still, having little to no idea what was going on over in Canada made me feel disconcertingly disconnected, despite the fact that I had no desire to even be connected.

Paper towels

Japanese public bathrooms often don't have anything to dry your hands with. Weird, eh?

Skateboarders

Ok, this is actually just one I remembered from my high school days, which of course is when skateboarders were an everyday sight because the hardcore kids skateboarded around during every moment, and then years later the best of them all got sponsorships and appeared in movies and made all their parents and teachers feel awfully stupid. Skate culture is very different in Japan; although you have a few who might try to emulate the Western style, those are mainly the people who are already on the fringes of polite society anyway. Instead it's a more “legitimate” kind of thing, with most of the action occurring in large indoor skate parks rather than the streets. This affects the image of skateboarding and skaters themselves, so there's not quite the same view of skaters as rebels. Consequently, there aren't so many rebels who are inspired to take up skateboarding, which then means that skateboarding doesn't take on the same rebellious overtones, and you see how this starts to loop. I don't know if that's a good thing or not (my inner child screams conformity but my inner corporate drone shrugs legitimacy), but it was always nice to just be walking down the sidewalk and spot some kid kickflipping over a cinder block.

Poutine

For the Canadian impaired, poutine is a Quebecois dish of French fries buried in a mountain of gravy and cheese curds. For some reason, it hasn't caught on in Japan yet.

Peanut butter cups

You can find almost any American candy bar in Japan, but not Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, my favourite. Why that should be, I have no idea. Maybe peanut butter is still a bit of a foreign concept to the Japanese? That wouldn't surprise me. It is a strange idea if you think about it.

Driving

I love driving. Loooooove driving. Top five favourite things to do, easy. I read about driving. I daydream in class about driving. I play video games that involve driving. I research techniques for driving. First time I got behind the wheel of a car I was like aw yeah this feels so riiiiight. I really don't know how I went without for a year. Fortunately next time I should not be under any constraints as to operating motor vehicles – which the university condescendingly claimed was for “safety” but which was obviously actually about their insurance – so I should be good to go as long as I pass the road test. Oh, I'll blog about it. Never fear.

Things being easy

This, then, is the one that ties everything else together. To be honest, I didn't even notice that this was something I missed until I was back in Canada, because everything I did having some extra layer of complication had just become my normal. Ordering at a restaurant? Better get a headstart on perusing the menu, and possibly ask what some stuff is. Filling out a simple document? We're gonna need somebody to look it over for mistakes and also maybe read it to us. Need to ask directions because we're lost? Well, are we sure we're lost? If we keep going this way just a couple more blocks do you think we might figure it out? Ok, well should we ask that guy over there? Let's ask that—ok, well, he obviously was in a rush, what about this grandmother? Oh God, what dialect is that? But it is Japanese, right? How can we end this conversation as quickly as possible? If we just thank her and walk away will she stop? How far do we have to go to keep her from realising we don't know what she said?

In Canada, everything is so damn simple. I can skim whole pages at a glance, out of the corner of my eye, from across the room. I already have a mental map detailing the location of every shop, landmark and shortcut I could ever need. In any given group I'm usually the strongest speaker of the lingua franca, not the weakest – unless, that is, I'm with my Japanese friends, in which case I'm still the most knowledgeable and am to be relied on for interpretation. But most significantly, things just make sense in a way that they don't quite do in Japan. They're set up according to a system of heuristics and algorithms I was raised on, to the point that I can navigate my day-to-day affairs mostly on reflex. An easy life isn't necessarily a good life or even a happy one, but for the moment, it's one in which I'm willing to indulge.

Lonesome Road

As soon as Udon sees me off, I'm alone. From here on out, it's all strangers and solitude. I'm riding to Umeda, but instead of the excitement I would normally feel at a day or night of fun ahead, I just feel drained. Fuck it. Here we go. I really am leaving Japan. Well. Fuck.

I get hung up at Umeda because I fail to realise that I need to make my transfer at Oosaka, and spend over an hour wandering around like an idiot, but it's so hot and I am so goddamn tired, I just kind of go with it. Important point is, at no time do I feel nervous. Concerned, yes, but it's all purely intellectual. I've grown.

I'm riding the express but do not realise that there's an additional cost associated with this until a guy comes around to check my ticket. He addresses me in Japanese and does not bat an eye when I speak it back to him, I pay the difference and he gives me a ticket, and I slump back against the wall, not at all embarrassed about having made a mistake. The train pauses for a while for seemingly no reason; the old ladies near me speculate that it's either regular maintenance or a suicide. One of the two. I reach my station and disembark. I have to say, it has been my experience that carting luggage around the major transit centres is no big thing, but as you wind away into the local stations it becomes increasingly burdensome, in this case requiring a series of confused elevator rides just to reach the opposite platform.

Easily locating my hotel, I have a lengthy and detailed conversation with the guy at the front, and not once does he remark on the unprecedented multitasking of my speaking Japanese while being foreign. I appreciate the compliments, I really do – but from time to time it's nice to have my ability to communicate in the language of the country I live in not be pointed out like it's a fucking UFO sighting. I head to 7-11 to print off my electronic ticket, which seems to contradict the whole “electronic” idea, but I accomplish the deed while barely paying attention. I am so in control.

It's late and the train ride took hours. But I've arrived! At least now I can relax. Well, I've misplaced my fucking cell phone charger, but nothing I can do for the moment. Fortunately, Jugs is online, so my final sad, lonely evening doesn't devolve into a totally self-congratulatory emo wankfest. But then...

[5:56:13 AM] Rude Boy: OH WOULD YOU FUCK RIGHT OFF. the documents i printed at 7-11 i now cant fucking find

[5:56:46 AM] Rude Boy: WHAT

[5:56:47 AM] Rude Boy: THE FUCK

[5:57:57 AM] Jugs: :c

[5:58:29 AM] Rude Boy: im leaving japan

[5:58:34 AM] Rude Boy: im leaving a lot of things

[5:58:47 AM] Jugs: bb, i can' even imagine how hard this is for you

[5:58:53 AM] Rude Boy: i am so. incredibly. fucking. tired.

[5:59:07 AM] Jugs: but i can promise you lots of hugs in canada

[5:59:27 AM] Rude Boy: it is SO MOTHERUFCKING HOT JUST FUCK RIGHT THE FUCK OFF THREE MONTHS LAREADY SERIOUSLY FUCK. OFF. JUST FUCK. OFF. no more plz. no more of this fucking heat. i am so fucking tired

[5:59:46 AM] Rude Boy: i cant even

[5:59:48 AM] Rude Boy: i cant do this.

[5:59:57 AM] Rude Boy: i am actually just

[6:00:02 AM] Rude Boy: WHJERE THE FUCK ARE MY DOCUMENTs

[6:00:47 AM] Jugs: you totally can do this

[6:01:18 AM] Rude Boy: i actually am almost breaking down right now

[6:01:33 AM] Jugs: you not being able to do it isn't even an option in anyway

[6:02:05 AM] Rude Boy: it is so fucking hot

[6:02:07 AM] Rude Boy: where are my documents?

[6:02:11 AM] Rude Boy: where?

[6:02:13 AM] Rude Boy: where? :(

[6:02:17 AM] Rude Boy: where are my fucking documents? :(

So far I've concealed my emotions, but that one little thing has made me snap. Thankfully, Jugs is an awesome person and stays online to talk me through it even though it's already morning in Canada. And I do eventually find the fucking things, thank fuck. Unfortunately, I can't reply to the message that Udon has almost certainly sent. I feel pretty bad about that.

In the morning, I catch the shuttle to Kankuu. From this point forward, the idea that I might speak anything other than English does not occur to anyone for the rest of my life. At Immigration, an old man punches a hole through my gaijin card, but then he gives it back, an unexpected souvenir.

I'm staring down the barrel of 25 hours of continuous travel; a duo of pointlessly long stopovers have conspired to try and make me kill myself. More than anything else right now, I wish for a companion. Not even to help me work out my complicated transfers and baggage dickings-around; it's cool, I will do all of the thinking, I will make all of the decisions. I will be the grizzled world traveller. It's only that it's going to be fucking boring. I want someone to bullshit with. Seriously, I'll take almost anybody. I'd even take a particularly calm and astute child at this point. Well, maybe not Insufferable Dumbass. I'd leave him at home. It defeats the purpose to bring someone who will make the trip feel even longer.

At Incheon, I find that I'm actually remembering many of the areas I passed through the first time around. Is this what it's like to be a capable, experienced international plane person? I'm sorely tempted by the “Experience Korea” souvenirs, but decide that it's a little tacky to buy something from an airport gift shop without ever having actually seen the country. Maybe if Korea still sparkled...

An Indian guy about to begin studying in Canada gets cornered by one of the dumbest people I have ever heard words slough out of. He asks how long he's lived in Korea (five hours), and why he didn't go visit the ocean if he had so much time between flights (are you...really?). He then inquires as to why he didn't just take a flight directly from Mumbai to Vancouver, all at once demonstrating that he knows absolutely nothing about international travel, or geography, or humanity, or the laws of physics. I try to bury myself in the book that I started reading at YVR a year ago – The Sun Also Rises, turns out it's pretty great – but his exuberance bores itself straight into my brain. Oh hey! Looks like I did bring Insufferable Dumbass with me! I am finally saved when he convinces the Indian guy to go line up for the plane shortly after it arrives at the airport. Eventually I follow in their wake. Some guy has tried to take my window seat. Haha, no.

I watch Iron Man 3. It's bad.

Setting right my mistake of nearly a year ago, I order the bibimbap. The flight attendant asks if I've ever “tried” it before, which seems a little condescending, but how is she to know that I'm not a moron. Good luck I didn't pick JAL. I'd Kansai-ben their ears off and then we'd ALL feel awkward. Still though, you take everything they give you and mix it together, it's not fucking hard. The meal is quite tasty. In my experience, Asian food survives the transition to “airplane food” most intact out of any cuisine.

I watch a Chinese movie called “Finding Mr. Right.” It's surprisingly good! It's about a young Chinese woman who goes to America to have her sugar daddy's baby so that the government doesn't force her to abort it, but then she meets people there and plot ensues. You should watch it. Also the main girl is gorgeous.

All the Korean movies are action movies and supernatural thrillers. Why can't I just watch a silly romanticomedy? I want to learn “You had me at hello,” not “Make him an offer he can't refuse.” The only Japanese movie heavily involves dogs, so that's out, too. Luckily I'm tired. My strategy was to stay awake as long as possible in order to sleep as deeply as possible, because I know that once I fully wake I'll pretty much stay that way. Time to make out with the cabin!

I stir from my slumber and crack the window. Still dark outside the plane. The moon is reflected against the wing, and I crane my neck to peer up at it. This high in the atmosphere, there's little between us but space. Crazy.

When I wake again, the people beside me are eating breakfast. A small sign has been attached to the seat in front of me: “While you were resting, we were unable to serve you. Please let our service staff know your preference.” It earns points for saying “resting” rather than sleeping, but then immediately loses them all by making it sound like I'm causing problems for them. How about “It is our policy not to disturb passengers while they are resting. Our staff would be happy to serve you at your convenience.” See, I could totally be in marketing. A guy comes by and asks me for my choice, with an attitude suggesting that his job would be so much easier if it weren't for all these fucking people trying to fly to places. His pronunciation is frankly terrible and the only option I understand is “omelette” so I take that even though I know it will be an abomination. I can't finish it.

Then I'm in Canada again, somehow. White people everywhere. Negotiating yet another labyrinth of signage, and then Immigration – I don't like the bullpen style of YVR. Kansai and Incheon are a little clearer and more streamlined. They've installed a new “electronic border guard” system since I was last here. Did you guys know about this? You scan your passport and then your paperwork, greatly speeding up the process and, presumably, lowering the airport's overhead (no pun intended). An automated female voice even warns me that border services will have some questions for me.

A young, blonde woman frowns at my customs paperwork and, not unkindly, asks, “You have unaccompanied baggage with you?”

Well, no, ma'am. If I had it with me, it would be accompanied baggage.

Anyway, I end up getting a customs receipt so that I won't have to pay tax at the post office (as what I'm importing is within my exemption), so it turns out that it pays not to lie to the government. Very, very occasionally.

At Tim Horton's, I fumble with the coins, barely recognizing them.

Third wheel

I've got to be brutally honest here, we've had some fun times, but hanging out with Cologne so much lately has really reminded me why I don't normally do that. So, I was pretty stoked to finally be having a night out that didn't include him. See, I got to talking with the girl we met at the udon shop, and we agreed to meet up, and since for various reasons people who want to see me again usually want Cologne to come as well (either to be polite, or they want to recreate the magic, or they think the two of us come as a fucking set), I suggested inviting him as well. To which her reaction was basically, “Yeah...about that.”

But Cologne, oh Cologne! He still wanted to go out that night, and unfortunately, I'd already mentioned to him that Udon and I were thinking of hanging out. So I spent literally one entire day of having him nag me about “our” plans, and being really flaky about not knowing what was going on or even if I wanted to go out at all tonight because I am just so tired, and blah blah blah would you just leave now please. Eventually he did, I rushed to get ready, and met up with Udon. Success!

So we started skipping happily down the street together and what the fuck it's Cologne. Walking straight toward us.

You've gotta...are you fucking......really?

I really have to stress the truly catastrophic luck required for that coincidence. If we'd walked by a minute earlier, if he'd walked by a minute later, if for any reason he hadn't been walking down that side of that exact street at that exact moment, we'd have been golden. What the actual fuck.

So he latches onto us as we head for the train station, trying to shake him off, and we're standing in front of the elevator waiting to go down and I say, well, we're going to Oosaka, what are you going to do. Are you going to go to the udon shop again? Maybe spend some time at Ing? Trying to communicate, with my eyes and my tone of voice, that he should really, really maybe think about doing those things. And he assures me that no, it's no problem, he'd be happy to go to Oosaka tonight! And he turns away for a moment and Udon shoots me a look like she maybe wants to stab someone in the kidney, and I try to apologize with my face.

Obviously it would have been a lot better if Cologne hadn't been there, but the night wasn't a total loss. She took us to an awesome Italian restaurant, like with actual Italian Italian food, and then to another Hub location. And as things went on, Udon and I started drifting closer and closer together, until we were practically sitting in each other's laps, and Cologne is watching all this and still trying to flirt with her, because Jesus fucking Christ, he is the motherfucking picture of KY if ever there was one. At one point she was comparing the colours of our eyes (mine blue and intriguing, his brown and boring) and Mr Don Juan Wannabe thought it would be a great idea to use that as an excuse to get his face as close to hers as possible. She jerked her head away in alarm and smacked him, startled, which I'm sure he took to be a positive, flirtatious response. She didn't seem to mind my face being too close, though. Just saying.

She kind of started rubbing my leg underneath the table while we talked, and at karaoke she turned the lights off and we sort of half-cuddled together, but couldn't really do anything more interesting because Cologne wouldn't give us any space. So, in summary, holy fuck, Cologne. Learn to read. It definitely would have been a better night without him, but Udon and I might meet again before my visit to Canada, so we'll see what happens. I'm assuming nothing, but we'll see what happens.

On the way home, I tried to stop Cologne from getting into the women-only carriage, which is signified by abundant signage and being bright fucking neon pink. A devout contrarian, he refused to believe me. When we arrived, he confirmed that he had indeed been the only man aboard (giving me his trademark creepy grin as he said this), and that he had gotten some dirty looks...but still claimed that I was wrong.

Three Nights of Beer

Good news, boys and girls. I am fresh off a three-day drinking spree, something I don't often get a chance at. Each sessions, we went out early in the evening and stayed until the first train, immediately falling asleep only to wake up and do it all again, so that finally everything just seemed to melt into one long night out. It was a hell of a lot of fun, and in this post, I'm going to tell you why. Well not so much tell you why as tell you what happened, in the hopes that the why will be self-evident.

We started, as you do, at Zaza. Of all people, Jason Biggs came swaggering in, trailing behind a few guys from our school. Naturally, I waved them over, and there we were. Jason Biggs, being Jason Biggs, didn't look too pleased about this, presumably because he didn't want to sit with me. We're in the middle of a feud because he thinks I stole his computer mouse, which first of all, why would I even, and second, it turned up on another desk, meaning it was probably moved by the cleaners. Fuck him. I doubt this would occur to him, but it's not like I'm exactly his biggest fan either. Chotchy prick.

Some Australian tourist girls joined us, and Jason Biggs had right at it. Even though he has a Japanese girlfriend, who, in turn, has another, Mexican boyfriend who doesn't know about Jason Biggs. And supposedly he also has a fiancee back in Italy? Attractive people are fucked up.

When Cologne finished his shisya, we left them to their devices and moved on to Ing. Ha, look at me, writing in past tense and referencing bars by name, I'm fucking Dating in Korea over here. Except a younger, male, Canadian version, and much less romantically successful, and a student rather than a teacher, and in Japan rather than Korea. Actually, I'm nothing like Dating in Korea, am I.

A group of young kids came in and we asked to sit with them. See, you kind of can't do that shit when you're alone. Then you're just the creepy loner trying to make friends. The main guy, pretty clearly the leader of the group, was half-Japanese and half-American, though he looked fully American to me. The two Japanese girls and Venezuelan girl were pretty cool too, but unfortunately they all left before they'd even finished one drink. Hopefully we didn't scare them off with our extreme loserishness.

Rude Boy: Is it just me, or did that guy look kind of like Justin Bieber.

Cologne: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. But the eyes are different.

Rude Boy: No way, he's basically a mirror image.

Cologne: I guess there's some resemblance.

Rude Boy: He looks more like Justin Bieber than does Justin Bieber himself.

No sooner had we finished our first beer, though, than the Australians from before drifted back into our lives, now absent Jason Biggs, and we all had to cuddle up to fit everybody. Cologne went over to hit on a couple of jukujo and I got thrown into a conversation with some Pennsylvanian tourists. Fucking tourists, everywhere. Get the hell out of Kiyamachi. Fortunately these guys were relatively cool, but the American guy who we were stuck with afterwards was not. When Cologne's ladies left, this guy spent the lifespan of Polaris trying to coach Cologne on the subtleties of picking up Japanese women. Mostly this manifested itself as an improbable list of his own conquests, backed up with semi-relevant boasting. “I've been here ten years! I've studied the culture! I speak Japanese! I've been learning since I was in high school!” At this point, I quietly coughed.

We finished out with another round of shisya, after which Cologne instantly collapsed outside the store, his legs too weak to support his body. Probably not so much from the alcohol, as I've seen him down much more than that without problems, but rather from the double-dose of flavoured smoke, and the attendant dehydration and respiratory atrophy. I managed to move him across the street and lie him down, and the girl came out and brought us a glass of water. I sat with him in silence for two hours, as passing pedestrian occasionally shot us looks, until he sort of woke up and was ready to slowly make his way to the train station.

Cologne had so much fun he wanted to do all of the same things again the second night, including going to the udon shop, and then going to the udon shop again later the same night, this time just for beer. I worry that we've been wearing out our welcome, but it seems that for the moment we're still able to provide the owner with some degree of entertainment. More importantly, we ran into some people there, including a shady-looking but genuinely cool old guy and a 26-year-old girl, who, thanks entirely to my conversational skills (though that's not how Cologne will make it sound when he tells the story), offered to take us to the next place. It turned out to be just one floor above Ing, and had one of those deals where there's a karaoke system set up behind the bar, to boot.

Karaoke with Cologne, if I haven't mentioned this before, is fucking painful. He believes himself to be an incredibly talented singer, putting on a show as though everyone present has excitedly gathered specifically to hear him perform, though the result is more of an overproduced, self-absorbed wail. He gets pissed off if someone joins him, too, though he won't hesitate to jump into somebody else's song. It's all very arrogant, but fuck it, it's karaoke, if somebody genuinely talented (like Hyeong) steps up it can be very enjoyable to listen to, but nobody's gonna give you hell if you aren't up to standard. Well, I shouldn't say that. Cologne will. Cologne will totally give you hell if he thinks you're not up to his standards.

The real problem, though, is that he has absolutely no understanding of karaoke etiquette. None. The polite practice is to put your song in, sing it, and then pick another one. That shouldn't even have to be explained. That's just common fucking sense. Cologne, however, slots in three or four at a time, to the increasing boredom of everyone quietly waiting for their turn, as he repeatedly says, genuinely surprised but quite pleased, “Oh, it's me again!” If called out, he retorts that the real problem is that everyone else needs to put their songs in too slow. Not when you're Bogarting one of two remotes, you graceless twit. One time I actually saw him trying to put another song in while still singing.

Anyway, at this point Cologne tried to jack the girl, whom I'd been talking to continuously for the last half hour, but I was like “lolno” and left him to his ear-melting solos. I managed to get her LINE, at least.

Our third and final evening of adventure started out at Hub and moved to Zaza, both of which failed to turn up anything more than a soccer match at the former and overly loud foreigners at the latter. So we stepped outside.

Rude Boy: Oh look, who's that!

It was Justin Bieber and Mother Russia, milling around in front of Zaza with a German girl and a Brazilian girl. I tried to chat with Mother Russia, and everyone felt awkward for a bit. I asked the German girl if thatwas a parrot on her shoulder. She said that it was not.

To my eyes, it was pretty clear that Justin Bieber was gunning for Mother Russia. And really, all I could do was grit my teeth, because he was of course well within his rights. But it wasn't fun to watch.

We left them to their devices, but we were soon back. Zaza on a Saturday night is an ok crowd. We milled around upstairs for a bit, the two of them went down to get some space, Cologne tried to cockblock a Japanese guy and girl, a different Japanese guy tried to get me to teach him German. Justin Bieber and Mother Russia went back to hanging outside the front.

Random European guy to Mother Russia: Man, you're the first Japanese girl I've met who spoke good English!

Ultimately it was back to Ing once again. There was a German guy and some old Japanese guy in there already. Very nondescript, kind of quiet. Later on he came up in an unrelated conversation with unrelated people, who showed me a picture. I was warned that he was a huge playboy, and also bisexual, and that I should watch myself. Haha, dive bars!

Then it was back to the udon shop, and then back to Zaza, which had closed, and so Cologne wanted to go back to Ing again. After basically 72 hours of all Cologne, all the time, and now probably a bunch of people thinking we hang out together on the regular, I begged off, and went to see if I could find Justin Bieber's regular group down at Sanjou Oohashi. There was no sign of them, so I wandered back to Kiyamachi.

I finally found Mother Russia outside Zaza, talking to some French guy. So we all started talking, I was mistaken for a Belgian, we started gossiping about some of the other lowlifes who frequent this area, and there we go, finally we were just having a normal conversation again. We shared laughs. She let me hold onto her purse for balance. It was great. I felt like maybe we could be close again. And that, you guys, is an excellent feeling.

Sweets Paradise

I've long wanted to pay a visit, but never really had the opportunity. There are many things in Kyouto that I can seek out and try on my own, but Sweets Paradise is not one of them. Just imagine what they'll say! “Look at that foreign guy sitting in the corner. Is he...is he here by himself?” Fortunately, I finally got my chance, enlisting along with Tiny Korean Girl, one of the Taiwanese girls I took Japanese with last semester, and two of the dormitory assistants. Flawless camouflage!

We all bought a ticket, of which there was only one option, that was then immediately taken away by our waitress, which seems to defeat the purpose just a little. It makes sense when it prevents the people making the food from having to handle cash, but here it seems to serve little to no useful purpose, besides keeping the staff from learning to count money. Anyway, the decor was overwhelmingly red and yellow, perhaps not the smartest move for a tabehoudai place, since those are the colours that make you want to eat more. There was, for some reason, a single giant table in the middle of the room, lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and pinwheels and paper chains attached to the walls.

Though the primary (and, really, only) reason to go there is the sweets, Sweets Paradise provides a fairly robust range of normal food as well. It's all pretty standard salad bar-type fare: Spaghetti, coleslaw, raw vegetables, nothing especially spectacular or unusual but all of surprisingly good quality considering. When Cologne went, or rather was unable to weasel out of going, he described the strategy as first loading up on enough actual food to make you not feel like quite such a horrible, disgusting person, and then going to town on the cakes. The girls I was with, however, chose to alternate, that their tongues would not tire. All playstyles are accepted, it would seem.

Now you'll notice that I said “cakes.” The name of the restaurant would seem to suggest a wide array of sugared delights, but in actual fact the prospective masticator is greeted mainly with a wall of baked confections. To be sure, the variety is so vast as to paralyze one with indecision. Cheesecake, bunt cake, pound cake, roll cake, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, kiwis, creams, sauces, beverages. Do you take the lemon meringue cake, the cake with lemon baked right in, or the cake with the lemon veneer on top? At the very end of the shelf, there is a modest collection of yogurt, Jell-o, and the like, in case you want a little extra, but it comes off as an afterthought.

As for being the only guy, I needn't have worried. Indeed, the majority of the clientele were young females (three of them children having a birthday party), but there were a handful of couples scattered here and there as well, which must have been nice. But then the assistant pointed out a group of two, and then four guys who'd come here by themselves. “You're not weird,” she assured me. “You at least came with girls.”

On the way home, we stopped for an hour of karaoke, and right in the middle, it hit me again: one of those moments of “this is where I belong” that I sometimes feel here, that it all felt so natural and good, that I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. And that – well, it's not that the little moments are necessarily more important than the big ones, or more satisfying, but that the big moments are few and far between, so it's the little moments that you really have to learn to recognize and enjoy. And, of course, that good company makes everything worthwhile.

Raw and wrong

“Come on, let's sit down here.”

“Really? Just the two of us, sitting on the riverbank and drinking?”

“Yup.”

“Great, sounds romantic.”

“Of course! You know that I want to share all my love and affection for my very best roommate Rude Boy!”

“Wow, when did you turn into Insufferable Dumbass?”

Usually I turn Cologne down when he wants to hang out somewhere. I get lazy, and I hate hanging out with other foreigners. Plus, Cologne can be kind of annoying, and I have to spend enough time with him as it is. It doesn't help that he wants to be the King of Japanese Romance, either, and thinks that it is my express responsibility to attend to all of his translation and social lubrication needs therein. But he's lured me out with the promise of a new bar, so now we're pre-drinking amidst a gaggle of orange lanterns and a crowd of mostly ryuugakusei.

I have no idea what the lanterns are for, but they're clearly some attendant element of some kind of minor festival. A bunch of food stalls, nearly all selling identical udon, have been unfurled under Sanjou Oohashi, with entirely too many revelers packed into the narrow space remaining. It's like a small, fairly unimpressive festival. “I heard it's like a children's festival,” says Cologne, “but I don't see what this has to do with children.” Mother Russia and 18 should be somewhere in the area, the latter distinguishable by her eye-catching red hair, but we don't see them, and it's not like we're going to hang out anyway. Our interest quickly drains and we sit down to enjoy our beer.

We continue to mock Insufferable Dumbass for quite some time. Mercifully, he's left the dormitory several days before, and the ambient volume has plummeted. Cologne asserts the impossibility of a long-distance relationship, predicting a breakup within two months of his returning to Hawaii, which I think is rather optimistic of him. Just the night before, Jason Biggs said that she'd told the other Chinese girls that she was only dating him because she wanted somebody to take care of her while she was in Kyouto.

We extricate ourselves from the piles of people milling about the area and head to this bar Cologne has heard so much about. Fortunately he already knows where it is and we find it without much difficulty, on the second floor of a nondescript building next to that shady-looking Turkish kebab place, two turns down a mildewed and decrepit hallway. The lighting is dark, classic rock paraphernalia adorns every available surface, and we're immediately greeted in English. We order beers.

Of the fifteen or so customers already in the place, every single one is foreign. None is under 30. Only two are women. All look very American, and very English teachery. But the atmosphere is convivial and the music is good, even if the service leaves something to be desired.

“I've never had a nama biiru take this long. You just fill the glass. Is he brewing it back there?”

“No, I think he's still harvesting the barley.”

Cologne calls out the owner to let him know that we're there on a regular's recommendation. He's kind of a combination of a host club owner, Murakami Haruki, and Heath Ledger's character from Lords of Dogtown. Later, Ace of Spades comes on and Cologne and I start to rock out and sing along, because we're buzzed and because fuck you, it's a fun song. The owner catches our eye and when I look over, he rolls out his tongue and throws up the horns. I decide in that moment that I'll definitely be making my way back here sometime.

When we leave, we have the brilliant idea of trying to get down the stairwell without touching the floor. Cologne gives up immediately but I try to parkour my way along the banisters and wall overhangs, ducking spiderwebs and finally falling when I stab the shit out of my hand on the most jagged stucco ceiling in the world. It bleeds on and off the rest of the night.

Cologne takes me to another bar, one he's already been to, and which there is no way in hell you'd ever find if you didn't already know it was there. In fact, he has to forage around for a bit himself. It ends up being halfway down one of those little hallways leading between Kiyamachi and Pontochou. “Ah, this is it!” he finally says, victoriously grasping the handle of a small, square door that comes up to my stomach. It looks like a wooden wall panel, with absolutely no signage to suggest that it might conceal anything more interesting than a water pressure valve. But indeed, it opens into a tiny bar, slightly smaller than our bathroom, about ten customers squashed inside. Sadly, there's only about ten chairs.

Luckily we're not out of ideas, as there's one more place Cologne wants to show me: A small udon shop right nearby, just as nameless and nearly as hidden as the bar. He peers through the glass and recoils. “Ok, so do you want to eat udon and see me get my heart broken, or do you want to go somewhere else?”

A few weeks ago, he went out to some bar and spent a few hours talking with a couple of Japanese girls, and now he thinks he's the smoothest operator in the land. He got his comeuppance, though, by thinking that he was getting somewhere with one of the girls, who dodged his attempts at getting a date before finally fessing up that she had an “important boyfriend.” Reacting entirely too badly to such a routine failure, he's now been treating her like the one that got away. I don't really feel like udon but I do want to see how this plays out, so I usher us inside.

The girl, who introduced Cologne to both these places, immediately waves to him when we sit down, but he pretends not to recognize her. Can't say she's my type, but the two staff are another story. According to Cologne, this shop is very popular with male patrons for its flirtatious bottle fairy of an owner, and I can see why. Total jukujo. Tooootal jukujo. And the girl, she's 25, and gyaaru-ish, and she's got that whole oneechan vibe going for her, and every inch of her face and body is just plain fuckable. No other word to describe her. Was that crass? I'm not even sorry.

They take to me instantly, as Japanese women tend to do (and then immediately get bored after like one meeting). As soon as they figure out how much Japanese I speak they're all over me, and then they pass it back and forth like a couple of pros. I can be pretty shy, but tonight I'm also drunk, and not only that, they are doing absolutely everything right to make me feel comfortable. Flirting constantly, poking fun at just the right moment in just the right ways, teasing personal details out of me to get me to relax. They've got a perfect older sister/younger sister mentor type vibe going. The owner comes around and sits with me for a while. Even though I know I'm being gamed, it's incredible to watch in action, and who gives a fuck anyway, I'm enjoying myself.

In the middle, I realise: There's something off about these two. Something raw and wrong. I've finally found the dirt in this city. I knew where it was – Kiyamachi – but I could never make any of it mine. Well, never give up.

“I'm so jealous of you right now,” Cologne whispers as they shower me with attention.

He complains idly of the heat, so the owner moves us to underneath the fan, and, incidentally, right next to the love of his life. Now he's forced to acknowledge her. She claims to be 32, though Cologne swears she told him she was 25. She definitely doesn't look 25. I tell her she does.

“Listen,” she says, “tell him I'm sorry about what happened.”

“I'm fine with it,” he shrugs. “I guess I just misunderstood some things and I ended up disappointed. So yeah, I'm kind of upset, but I'm not mad or anything. Don't translate that!”

“...kind of upset, but he's not mad or anything. Mm? Oh, too late.”

“I have a very important boyfriend,” she says.

“And how old is he?”

“29.” Pause. “I...I have a thing for younger men.”

I relay the information to Cologne, and through me they exchange a few more pleasantries before she and her female companion leave. I manage not to point out that Cologne is totally a younger man (with six years' difference rather than a paltry three); I've caused enough trouble for one night. And it was completely worth it.

We finish our udon and stay for one more round of beer. The two staff pay probably a little bit too much attention to us (me), but the other men seem to get a kick out of the show anyway. I don't know how much is salesmanship and how much is the two of them just having fun, but it's a great vibe in any case. One of the other customers, a grinning, kingpin-looking guy in his 30s, randomly wants to shake my hand as we leave.

Zaza's isn't my favourite place in the world, but Cologne wants to smoke some shisya. For whatever reason, he also badly wants me to try.

“I don't smoke.”

“That's not a very Japanese attitude. You have to try new things!”

“The Japanese do not try new things.”

“Sure they do. You explain shisya to them and then everyone wants to try.”

Beat.

“...can it give you cancer?”

“No.”

“Ugh, fine.”

I give it a few rounds but I don't see the point. Smoking cigarettes is sexy as all fuck, at least when a girl does it, but this is just stupid. Although admittedly, carrying a hookah around with you would be pretty badass.

A couple of girls are sitting at the table next to us, and Cologne wants to break the ice by asking what flavour of shisya they're partaking of. It's not a terrible opener, so I go grab another round, to give him time to work. We've done this a couple times before, and it usually works pretty well if he establishes the connection and I come in afterward to keep things moving smoothly. The girls turn out to actually be Chinese, but fortunately speak Japanese well enough to communicate. Cologne takes down a number that he will never make use of.

They leave, and I manage to strike up a conversation with the group next to us. The one girl out of the five of them there is pretty darn cute, but, predictably, taken, and has been for a solid two years. I can't even imagine being in a relationship for that long. Thought the same thing when I found out Chappy had been with her boyfriend for three years, too. She and Plumfield's girlfriend thought that was a pretty remarkable reaction. We invite them back to the little bar from which we had earlier been rejected.

Unfortunately, this is where my cognitive abilities have walked up to the alcoholic cliff and thrown themselves right the fuck off of it. I act on the impulse to pay for everybody in there. We don't cause any trouble, but by the time we leave, I can barely stand. We all head down to Sanjou Oohashi so I can convalesce.

Fortunately, when all I have in my system is beer I'm a pretty cooperative drunk. Unfortunately, I drop my cell phone in the Kamo River, destroying the screen. I will take it back to Yodobashi Camera, but they'll tell me that I can only keep my current account, SIM card, and memory if I upgrade to a newer, better phone. I can't just buy the same one again. Fuckers. So I'll eventually decide to just leave it in my room, plugged into the wall. It's a land line is what it is. Worse, this doesn't happen soon enough to prevent me from messaging Mother Russia: “<333333333,” perhaps the single worst thing I could possibly have said. On the bright side, I don't die.

Total damage: 90,000 yen.

Gaijin Tales! Mother Russia saying and doing things

Australzealand: Is that in Kansai? It takes about an hour to get from Kansai to Kyouto Station.

*

Australzealand: Then here in Kansai, everyone's like “homa ni” and “nan yan...”

*

Rude Boy: Going somewhere exciting?

Lithuania: Yeah!

(beat)

Rude Boy: Don't overwhelm me with detail.

Australzealand: Do you find your sarcasm sometimes lost on people here?

*

Insufferable Dumbass: Whatever, people are gonna talk behind my back. I'm used to it, even back home.

Big Finn: Have you ever tried to think about maybe why that is?

*

Rude Boy: i think my least favourite part was when i was complaining to one of my friends about how i often feel that i'm not being afforded the deference i would be were i japanese, and how i understand why it happens, but it's not about me needing to be the big man, it's about feeling disrespected

Rude Boy: and one of the other guys with us said "well, of COURSE you're not going to be respected. you just have to accept that this is japan."

Rude Boy: and i was like

Rude Boy: um

Rude Boy: no

Rude Boy: not an acceptable answer

Rude Boy: excuse me while i unfriend you in real life

*

Nara (turtle girl from before): She's mad.

Rude Boy: What, really? I didn't even notice.

Nara: Well, she is.

Rude Boy: What the hell did I do?

Nara: Probably nothing. But she's a girl.

*

Insufferable Dumbass: Emperor system and imperial system...are those the same thing?

*

Hot girl's shirt:

Want To Do You All

*LOVE GIRLS*

*

Rude Boy: I only have three beer.

Mother Russia: That's enough for you, right?

Rude Boy: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Mother Russia: :3

*

Mother Russia: I talked with the Russian girl today.

Rude Boy: In Russian?

Mother Russia: Yeah.

Rude Boy: And was she like, “Um, your pronunciation is perfect, but you speak like a small child...”

Mother Russia: Hahaha! No...but I could see it in her face.

*

Mother Russia: Good night, broken person!

*

Rude Boy: oh and because i was drunk and had been watching too much mad men i kept taking her lighter and lighting her cigarette for her last night loooooooooool

*

Mother Russia: It's supposed to look all relaxed...

Rude Boy: She doesn't look relaxed. Look at the position of her arms, she looks like she's masturbating.

Mother Russia: Well...that's pretty relaxing, right? :3

Rude Boy: Ha! Could be. But judging by her face she looks more into it than relaxed.

Mother Russia: Why do you keep saying 'she?'

Rude Boy: Who is it?

Mother Russia: Me!

Rude Boy: O...h!

*

(halfway through Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)

Mother Russia: Do you like it?

Rude Boy: Yes, although I have some questions.

Mother Russia: “What is this movie about?”

*

Insufferable Dumbass: In Germany, is it pretty popular with the Japanese food?

*

Rude Boy: [Name]-CHAN!!

1kkaisei: YES!!

Rude Boy: YO!!

1kkaisei: GOOD AFTERNOON!!

Rude Boy: She's really energetic...

Genmaichan: Are you trying to say “young?”

Rude Boy: Maybe I am.

*

Rude Boy: want some cheeseburger pizza

Mother Russia: a mix of both?xD

*

Lithuania: You going to have some coffee with those sandwiches?

Rude Boy: Um...no? What the fuck?

Lithuania: Oh, it's pretty popular in Lithuania. Coffee or tea with sandwiches.

Rude Boy: ...I guess I can't talk. My country's national cuisine is French fries with gravy and cheese curds.

*

The moment when you find yourself in a busy footpath, stealthily trailing after some high school girls in the hopes of stealing a glance at their socks, you begin to question your life choices.

I was trying to figure out if they went to my old high school.

*

Rude Boy: Piss...cocks...fuck...

Lithuania: I wish you could hear yourself.

*

Lithuania: I'm gonna start watching Game of Thrones.

Rude Boy: You might not like it. Apparently there's a lot of fucking.

Lithuania: Yeah, one of my friends said it was more like Game of...“P.”

Rude Boy: …“Piss?”

Lithuania: No! Other “P!”

Rude Boy: Game of...Penises?

Lithuania: No! P o...

Rude Boy: ...oh, “Porn!!”

Lithuania: Yes!!

Rude Boy: Now I'm curious about Game of Piss, though.

*

Rude Boy: I saw something horrifying today.

Lithuania: What was it?

Rude Boy: Do you know those giant spiky caterpillars? I saw one on the sidewalk on the way home, and a hornet was just stripping the fuzzy part off its body...

Lithuania: That's terrible!

Rude Boy: ...and it was thrashing around and trying to push it off like “No, stop!”

Lithuania: Oh, see! That's it, right? You have the right to defend yourself from the attacking caterpillar!

Rude Boy: Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure the caterpillar was just minding its own business and the wasp was like “Oh hey, food!”

Lithuania: Haha.

Rude Boy: Like if I had to kill to eat, I would obviously try to do it in such a way as to inflict as little pain as possible. But it didn't even kill the caterpillar, it was just like “I'm gonna start from the back,” and just started eating it alive.

Lithuania: That's intense!

Rude Boy: And I'm like, what's my responsibility here?

Lithuania: You should never interfere with nature.

Rude Boy: Right, and even if I did, what then? The same exact thing is going on in a forest somewhere right now. I can't be there every time it happens. It's not like I can just end all suffering. It really got me thinking about how nothing we do matters and we're all fucked...it was a very depressing existential moment.

Lithuania: So what did you do?

Rude Boy: Well, I just left it there.

Lithuania: What! Probably this was a test from God, and you faaaaaailed!

Rude Boy: Doubt it. Do you understand “Deism?” The idea that God exists, but doesn't interfere with the affairs of this world. Cause it's the old argument, either God is impotent, or He is wicked, or He doesn't exist.

Lithuania: This conversation got deep fast.

Rude Boy: I'll show you deep fast. Anyway that wasn't even the worst part. When I went back to school a couple of hours later, it was there in the same spot, only now being torn apart by a small army of ants. And it was still thrashing around like “Nooooo!”

Lithuania: Oh my God! You should have just stomped them allllll!

Rude Boy: Well, maybe I should have at least stepped on the caterpillar's head. Just to be merciful.

*

When I learn a new word, I often spend the next little while trying to insert it into conversation as often as possible, frequently employing it even in instances where I would normally say something else, or stitching together extremely tenuous excuses to try it out. I assume this is normal for most people learning a second language. Partly this is for practise, partly it's to check if I'm using it correctly, and partly it's just excitement. It's like getting a new toy toy to play with.

Part of studying a language formally means memorizing long lists of vocabulary that seems 99% useless. Like “constabulary” or “positron.” When in hell am I ever going to need a word like that? Even if I do, I'm better off looking it up when these specialized situations do crop up, and instead devoting my study time to more common words and phrases.

That said, when, in the course of your day, in some conversation or on some sign, you do encounter a word or kanji that you had to memorize for a test, the feeling is downright magical.

And you know what's even better? To struggle and struggle to grasp the nuance of a grammatical pattern, to hear it but not comprehend it, to come up with a half-dozen example sentences but not be sure if they're right...and then one day, unprecedented, have the spontaneous urge to use the construction in a sentence you're already in the middle of saying. These are the days when you've got this whole language-learning thing under control, you are worldly and educated and intelligent, you really are making progress, and have not been spending hundreds of hours of your life for nothing.

Then usually the next day you can't understand when the konbini clerk asks if you want a bag or not and you feel like the densest sack of shit who's ever walked this earth, which is why you sort of learn to savour the small victories.

*

Once when I was eating an ice cream cone, Mother Russia took it from me, ate the top part, and then gave it back with a huge groove in the surface of the ice cream, because she'd tried to rake it out with her teeth to avoid eating the cone.

Rude Boy: Um.

Mother Russia: Because of my diet, remember! I can't eat carbs!

Rude Boy: Uh-huh. Did you...need some help with this? >_>

Mother Russia: Yeah!!

Aaaaand so we started swapping, with me filing down the cone for her, and her eating as much of the revealed ice cream as she could before handing it back to me to continue my work. Then I pulled out a second one...which she stole, but this time got impatient, grabbed a spoon, and, after a few minutes, gave me back the empty cone.

Rude Boy: Oh, thank you so much. I'm so super excited to eat my, fucking...hard, dry bread.

Another time, she drank four coolers, I drank four beer, and then took down another half beer before she noticed that I was slowing down and just finished it off for me, without asking. Then she took my last beer, also without asking, and drank that too.

She can drink me under the table. It's awesome.

And finally, continuing with the theme of “Mother Russia ganking all my stuff,” she also sometimes takes my meat when I get a bentou, because she knows I don't really like it.

Rude Boy: Wow, you must really like having my meat in your mouth.

Mother Russia: I do!

Rude Boy: Hehe.

Australzealand: -.-

*

Japanese language teacher: What do you know about Liberia?

Chinese student: It's a very cold place, right?

Japanese language teacher: Isn't that...Siberia?

*

On the spur of the moment, I decided to go downtown. I realised partway there that I'd just made two transfers without paying any attention to what I was doing, my mind occupied by the more pressing concerns of essay topics and homework. After taking a stroll through some of my favourite areas, I decided I was hungry and stopped at Subway, where I noted that they'd hired a new girl. I dropped in at my local Round1 for a few rounds of Wang at Midnight before remembering that I needed to pick up Part 2 of 1Q84; considering the locations of nearby bookstores, I opted for Junkudou, in a spot I rarely visit but certainly not far out of my way. Finally I checked BookOff for any desirable new stock before heading home. A year ago I couldn't have found any of these places even if you'd given me a map.