Never a dull day?
Tonight after work I got to hang out with ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the2belo again on what was probably his last visit to Tokyo for quite a while. This time we met up at a more central point for both of us, namely Tokyo station. The only problem is, there's nothing open near Tokyo station at 11pm, since it's all big fancy-schmancy office buildings and imperial palaces and stuff like that. We eventually found the "late-night food floor" of the Marunouchi building, but even that turned out to be a big bunch of yuppie bars and whatnot, and we settled on an Okinawa food place, where we both had Okinawa soba, since Jeff didn't have his classes and couldn't read the menu for me, and I couldn't understand what half the things were.
We exchanged Chunichimas gifts; okay, well, I gave him a Japan Series 2007 program and he gave me a 日本一おめでとう！ flag from the Dragons victory parade in Nagoya last weekend. Cool.
I rode the Keihin-Tohoku train home as usual. Somewhere around Ueno I noticed there were people speaking in English behind me. This wouldn't be so weird except that one of them was ALSO speaking French, so I turned around to look and it was these three musicians, two guys and a girl, all holding large cases for stringed instruments. I chatted with them a bit and they said they were from the London Ensemble, playing a few concerts in Japan. I vaguely tried to be helpful and tell them some useful things about how to get to where they were going (for whatever reason they were staying in Minami Urawa), but really spent most of the time just staring at my cellphone trying to read webpages and all.
It wouldn't have been that notable except that people were saying things about "that big group of foreigners over there with the instruments" and I realized they were grouping me in with them. Around Jujo these semi-drunk middle-aged blue-collar guys got on and one of them was trying really hard to be cool and say things in English but he sort of halfway failed. Like he said to the one musician something like "Sorry ni steppu de kono baggage." Then he'd talk loudly to his other friend in Japanese like "Aren't I so cool, I rule at English", so I said to him in Japanese, "You're very good at English, very cool" and he said to me in that same awkward accented English, "Thank you very much!" On his way off the train at Nishi-Kawaguchi, the one guy was like "See you!" to the musicians, and to me, and then literally to EVERYONE on the train, like "look at me I am saying goodbye in English, SEE YOU!!!!" It was pretty weird.
I get off the train at Warabi and wish good luck to the musicians on finding their place.
I'm walking out of the station and I hear from behind me, "Hello there," in reasonably good but obviously Japanese English. I do my normal "Konbanwa," then turn around, and it's a Japanese guy, probably about my age, wearing glasses. He talked to me for two blocks of walking from the station, but then I turned towards my bike garage and he was heading the other way. Funny thing is that the last thing I said was "I'm an English teacher," and he replied in Japanese, "Sugoi, ne?" and I thought about it for a second, and as we were parting, said "...betsu ni."
He was actually kind of cute. I wish I hadn't been so dazed from being uncomfortably packed onto the train for 35 minutes or I would have thought quicker and just walked down the other block with him for a while. I don't usually get chatted up by strangers, or at least not by non-freaky ones.
There IS this group of foreign guys -- not Americans, I think they're middle eastern of some variety -- who I see every few days loitering by the pachinko parlor or the 7-11 near Warabi station, and I always have to walk by them to get home. When I walk by they all stare at me (before it was coat season they'd stare at my chest). They don't SAY anything, but if they're talking, they all shut up when I walk by. It really makes me uncomfortable, but I pretend to just ignore them.
I don't know what else to say about today, really. It'd all be school-related. We had a Sprint lesson today about families, actually -- and I had to teach words like "stepfather" and "sister-in-law" and "half brother" and "divorce" and "remarry" and "grow up" and "raise" and the funniest part is that I actually could just draw my OWN family tree and ALL of the random bizarre family words were applicable (my brother is married, my mother is remarried, and even my dad's mother had remarried when my dad was really young, so my uncles are really my dad's half brothers). My student was duly impressed. He said that families like that simply don't happen in Japan. I have to teach this particular chapter again on Friday; I'm not sure whether I'll bring up my family again or not.
Yawn. I stayed up way too late working on Baystars fan fest pictures last night... I should have gone to sleep earlier tonight, but alas, I got back so late. Argh.
the2belo again on what was probably his last visit to Tokyo for quite a while. This time we met up at a more central point for both of us, namely Tokyo station. The only problem is, there's nothing open near Tokyo station at 11pm, since it's all big fancy-schmancy office buildings and imperial palaces and stuff like that. We eventually found the "late-night food floor" of the Marunouchi building, but even that turned out to be a big bunch of yuppie bars and whatnot, and we settled on an Okinawa food place, where we both had Okinawa soba, since Jeff didn't have his classes and couldn't read the menu for me, and I couldn't understand what half the things were.We exchanged Chunichimas gifts; okay, well, I gave him a Japan Series 2007 program and he gave me a 日本一おめでとう！ flag from the Dragons victory parade in Nagoya last weekend. Cool.
I rode the Keihin-Tohoku train home as usual. Somewhere around Ueno I noticed there were people speaking in English behind me. This wouldn't be so weird except that one of them was ALSO speaking French, so I turned around to look and it was these three musicians, two guys and a girl, all holding large cases for stringed instruments. I chatted with them a bit and they said they were from the London Ensemble, playing a few concerts in Japan. I vaguely tried to be helpful and tell them some useful things about how to get to where they were going (for whatever reason they were staying in Minami Urawa), but really spent most of the time just staring at my cellphone trying to read webpages and all.
It wouldn't have been that notable except that people were saying things about "that big group of foreigners over there with the instruments" and I realized they were grouping me in with them. Around Jujo these semi-drunk middle-aged blue-collar guys got on and one of them was trying really hard to be cool and say things in English but he sort of halfway failed. Like he said to the one musician something like "Sorry ni steppu de kono baggage." Then he'd talk loudly to his other friend in Japanese like "Aren't I so cool, I rule at English", so I said to him in Japanese, "You're very good at English, very cool" and he said to me in that same awkward accented English, "Thank you very much!" On his way off the train at Nishi-Kawaguchi, the one guy was like "See you!" to the musicians, and to me, and then literally to EVERYONE on the train, like "look at me I am saying goodbye in English, SEE YOU!!!!" It was pretty weird.
I get off the train at Warabi and wish good luck to the musicians on finding their place.
I'm walking out of the station and I hear from behind me, "Hello there," in reasonably good but obviously Japanese English. I do my normal "Konbanwa," then turn around, and it's a Japanese guy, probably about my age, wearing glasses. He talked to me for two blocks of walking from the station, but then I turned towards my bike garage and he was heading the other way. Funny thing is that the last thing I said was "I'm an English teacher," and he replied in Japanese, "Sugoi, ne?" and I thought about it for a second, and as we were parting, said "...betsu ni."
He was actually kind of cute. I wish I hadn't been so dazed from being uncomfortably packed onto the train for 35 minutes or I would have thought quicker and just walked down the other block with him for a while. I don't usually get chatted up by strangers, or at least not by non-freaky ones.
There IS this group of foreign guys -- not Americans, I think they're middle eastern of some variety -- who I see every few days loitering by the pachinko parlor or the 7-11 near Warabi station, and I always have to walk by them to get home. When I walk by they all stare at me (before it was coat season they'd stare at my chest). They don't SAY anything, but if they're talking, they all shut up when I walk by. It really makes me uncomfortable, but I pretend to just ignore them.
I don't know what else to say about today, really. It'd all be school-related. We had a Sprint lesson today about families, actually -- and I had to teach words like "stepfather" and "sister-in-law" and "half brother" and "divorce" and "remarry" and "grow up" and "raise" and the funniest part is that I actually could just draw my OWN family tree and ALL of the random bizarre family words were applicable (my brother is married, my mother is remarried, and even my dad's mother had remarried when my dad was really young, so my uncles are really my dad's half brothers). My student was duly impressed. He said that families like that simply don't happen in Japan. I have to teach this particular chapter again on Friday; I'm not sure whether I'll bring up my family again or not.
Yawn. I stayed up way too late working on Baystars fan fest pictures last night... I should have gone to sleep earlier tonight, but alas, I got back so late. Argh.
Family Words in English
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Yeah, so I couldn't teach my eyes how to see. :D
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And don't worry about those foreigners near the pachinko place. I'm sure if they're bad guys the new fingerprint system'll pick them right up!