Memoirs Of A Gaijin
Back in Tokyo we decided to go out for the night - this necessetated staying out *all* night as the hotel's curfew was set at twelve. Cue rapid and repeated slapping of forehead. Oh well, we amused ourselves by wandering around Roppongi, getting steadily blootered in rubbish hip hop clubs and failing to pull. Further larks were had on the 5:00am train back to Minami-Sendju by talking to an 80's Heavy Metal promoter, whose racist remarks on the country kept us in slack-jawed incredulity all the way home.
A big thank you to Iain (centre), Fiona and Darius (left) for putting us up in Inuyama - it was much appreciated and very generous. They are all currently working for Nova, a company that provides jobs for teaching English in Japan. Listening to their day to day experiences, and the setup that Nova provide you makes me think this would be something I'd be interested in pursuing in the future. Sunday evening was spent in La Cavalera, a fantastic bar owned by Kei (right), which also doubles as a tatoo parlour. They serve burritos and snake whiskey, oddly there's Belle & Sebastian on the stereo - good times. We were introduced to Ray, a friend of Iain's who also works as an English teacher, and an absoloute gent. He's lived an extremely interesting life so far, and has a wealth of knowledge about the local area - he showed us around Inuyama castle (built in 1537, the oldest standing in Japan) in the morning, and explained the customs of a recent yearly festival. Huge multi storey contraptions are pushed around by the men of each neighbourhood, whilst drinking lots of beer and smoking. The top storey of the cart usually houses a puppet show giving a rendition of traditional folk tales, and the whole thing has hundreds of candle-lit lanterns hanging off of it that could go up at any time. Precarious is one of several words that leap to mind.
Banzai ! Overexposed Sake ! We drank our fill of this and then went to the karaoke bar ...
GOLDEN SLUMBERS !! The serenity of Kyoto forever shattered. Yep, that's right they had every single track on Abbey Road. It occurs to me that this sums up the last ten years very well - two idiots, off their chumps on hooligan juice and bellowing their heads off with no regard for time signature, dynamics or melodic consonance. Dan kept banging a tambourine so hard that he had a massive bruise covering most of his leg for the following few days.
Only one of these people wanted to be in this photograph ... Morton-San plots his escape.
Nara was the capital of Japan from 710AD to 784 - this is one of the numerous cultivated gardens that are dotted about the town.
I chanced upon this quintet of loons whilst wandering around central Tokyo, in parts they sounded uncannily like the Cantina band in Star Wars.
Mount Fuji from the air.
A big thank you to Iain (centre), Fiona and Darius (left) for putting us up in Inuyama - it was much appreciated and very generous. They are all currently working for Nova, a company that provides jobs for teaching English in Japan. Listening to their day to day experiences, and the setup that Nova provide you makes me think this would be something I'd be interested in pursuing in the future. Sunday evening was spent in La Cavalera, a fantastic bar owned by Kei (right), which also doubles as a tatoo parlour. They serve burritos and snake whiskey, oddly there's Belle & Sebastian on the stereo - good times. We were introduced to Ray, a friend of Iain's who also works as an English teacher, and an absoloute gent. He's lived an extremely interesting life so far, and has a wealth of knowledge about the local area - he showed us around Inuyama castle (built in 1537, the oldest standing in Japan) in the morning, and explained the customs of a recent yearly festival. Huge multi storey contraptions are pushed around by the men of each neighbourhood, whilst drinking lots of beer and smoking. The top storey of the cart usually houses a puppet show giving a rendition of traditional folk tales, and the whole thing has hundreds of candle-lit lanterns hanging off of it that could go up at any time. Precarious is one of several words that leap to mind.
Banzai ! Overexposed Sake ! We drank our fill of this and then went to the karaoke bar ...
GOLDEN SLUMBERS !! The serenity of Kyoto forever shattered. Yep, that's right they had every single track on Abbey Road. It occurs to me that this sums up the last ten years very well - two idiots, off their chumps on hooligan juice and bellowing their heads off with no regard for time signature, dynamics or melodic consonance. Dan kept banging a tambourine so hard that he had a massive bruise covering most of his leg for the following few days.
Only one of these people wanted to be in this photograph ... Morton-San plots his escape.
Nara was the capital of Japan from 710AD to 784 - this is one of the numerous cultivated gardens that are dotted about the town.
I chanced upon this quintet of loons whilst wandering around central Tokyo, in parts they sounded uncannily like the Cantina band in Star Wars.
Mount Fuji from the air.
posted by James at
3:03 AM
1 Comments:
My liver will perpetually be more pickled than your brother's, because he has at least a modicum of common sense.
By
Dan, at 11:26 PM
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