Week 36
Ah…vacation.
Not for me of course, for my co-worker, Kayoko. She was off for the first time in almost a year and a half beginning on Saturday of this week. The week itself mostly focused on me preparing for her departure and getting ready for the next couple of weeks. A hurried final preparation on Friday night and Kayoko was out of there!
Sunday saw me relaxing at home, attempting to do as little as possible. By this point my corrected shipment of games had arrived so I was busy making my first forays into them. I made pretty damn good choices if I do say so myself. That evening though I ended up going out to Shimokitazawa again for some more awesome Rock Band action. Afterwards we went out to a local Thai restaurant which is simply fantastic. The food tastes legitimately Thai, which is spectacularly awesome because it’s a rare occasion to find food that qualifies as spicy in Tokyo. I ended up home drunk, but happy and full of satisfyingly mouth-burning food.
Monday saw a trip down to Yokohama. Tuan had mentioned that there might be some festivities going on there for Chinese New Year’s. I met him in Hachioji and we took the long ride down the tracks to Yokohama. Me and Tuan are first and second respectively in the English Premier League soccer pool that a bunch of the teachers over here are in right now. It’s been a pretty tight race between the two of us lately, and we spent a good bit of the ride trading barbs about it.
Tuan and I met up with Melissa and a few of Tuan's acquaintances once we made it to Chinatown. Unfortunately the atmosphere ended up being a bit subdued. Apparently we were there on the wrong day to see the real celebration, which was a bit disappointing. We did run across multiple teams of lion dancers blessing shops along the streets for good luck in the next year. This also entailed a number of firecrackers…Lots of fun though. We spent some time waiting to get our first close view of a dance which ended up being at one of the larger temples in Chinatown. I always wanted to see one of these especially after having watched Once Upon a Time in China 3. I was more than satisfied.
Melissa and I didn’t stick around too long though. We ended up meeting Ben up at Yokohama station for a typically great dinner at TGI Fridays. I know, it sounds lame, but there’s something to be said for authentic(ish) food from back home and happy hour. I didn’t drink too much that night though, I try and limit it to one night of outright debauchery per week.
After dinner we found a pool hall and played for a little while. I absolutely suck at pool, although I always enjoy it when I play. I played no better that night, although I did win one game purely through keeping a low profile while Mel and Ben kicked the crap out of each other.
After that we played a few games at the game center (read: arcade) with free coupons that we got from the pool hall. The building really tackled a lot of different entertainments, each story holding something a bit different: darts, pool, bowling, arcade games. Pretty varied.
Made it back home, got ready for bed, and was set for another week! Slow week, huh?
Monotonously yours...
Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello
Photos: 1. Prepping for our first lion dance. Winny showed me an album of a photographer who takes some really fantastic shots of people, so I'm trying to better my own skills a bit. 2. There were MANY Chinese lanterns in evidence that day..., 3. These two gentlemen on the left acted as the standard bearers for the Lion Dancer team, 4. Getting ready to go, 5. Lunging, 6. Intimidate!, 7.Random street, 8. A police officer directing traffic. Note that this picture does a good job of illustrating Boken, a Japanese word meaning "desirable blur". Compare the background to the foreground. Nice huh?, 9. I sympathize with that guy, those firecrackers were freaking loud!, 10. Blessing a shop, 11. Lanterns at night, 12. Ben is the consummate professional...at pool.
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