Oct
19
Singing Mountain
Filed Under Newspost
Dilemma: not writing about interesting things right at the end of the same day they happen creates a vicious circle that prevents me from posting new entries that I’ve finished writing because I have yet to publish older ones that I could not care less about at this point in time. I am now neck deep in that shit. Here’s the synopsis of a random weekend.
Strike!
As usual I hadn’t planned anything special for Friday evening but Visa called me saying he’s going bowling with some Japanese students and asked if I wanted to join. Considering the previous sentence where I stated I hadn’t planned anything, I naturally agreed to go with them. We met at Makino station around 9 and went bowling for a few hours. Now that I think about it, there is nothing specifically interesting to write about bowling, but since I decided to finish the post about this weekend long ago, I’ll follow through with the plan. I’ll be brief: We bowled. Sometimes the ball hit the pins, some other times it did not. End of captivating story. The only Japanese thing I could find was that even the renting of bowling shoes was done by a machine. That, and instead of having a bar counter next to the bowling lanes as you would be bound to find back home, there was an arcade and purikura booths.
Visa goes for the spare
After a few hours of bowling we moved to Jankara at Hirakata-station for some karaoke. By some karaoke I mean that we actually sang until five in the morning, and no alcohol was involved. This is not a joke, it’s something we actually did. I won’t comment much on my own singing, but I didn’t notice anyone’s ears starting to bleed so I guess I’m improving. On the other side of the singing spectrum were a few of our Japanese acquaintances. I was really surprised by the sheer skill and enthusiasm some of them singing with. You had to be there, though.
Jankara at night
Nani ga nandemo, yakiniku!
The Japanese love the idea of all you can eat and all you can drink. A 90 to 120 minute time limit for going on a binge is usually heavily in the favor of the restaurant, when no gaijins are involved. However, I am here to eat such places into bankruptcy. On Saturday evening, we went to have dinner at a Korean tabehodai barbecue with Visa, my speaking partner Satomi, and her best friend Yukari. In order to avoid filling our stomachs too fast, we didn’t touch the highly abundant white rice they probably would have wanted to provide us. Instead, we just kept ordering more delicious strips of meat at an increasing pace until we ran out of time.
Ame ga futtemo, yakiniku!
It must be specified that Japanese tabehodai offers are very different from standard western buffet meals where you can eat anything you find on the buffet table and be happy forever. In a Japanese tabehodai, a) there is a strict time limit and b) you order stuff as you go depending on what you want, and nothing is as lousily prepared as something you might find at a cheap buffet. As a bonus I personally liked a lot, if you order more than you can manage to eat, you have to pay extra for the leftovers. A personal pet peeve of mine, but I think anyone who leaves food on their plate should pay their monthly salary for being a fucking idiot and not being able to know how much their stomach can contain. Enough with the venting, we ate our share during the 90 minute lapse of time the restaurant accorded us, after which we walked to a nearby bar to have a drink. I guess walking home in a T-shirt on a relatively chilly night is what made me catch the cold I had during the exam week.
-Antti