Cook the Chicken, Please

There’s been a whole lot going on, but with my lack of internet to directly post, I keep forgetting to type up little entries for my blog detailing my experiences. Oh well, I’ll just do my best.

Last night we went out for Suzie’s birthday with a bunch of her friends, which proved to be very interesting. First we went to a bar/restaurant for food and drinks, which was called Forms: Food Place. I found it amusing. The meal consisted of a variety of different plates brought out, intended for sharing. For the most part, I had no idea what I was eating, but the one dish that I knew what it was, I would not try, mainly because I am not all about eating raw chicken. Apparently, that’s a bit of a delicacy, and the natives were mocking Ray, Suzie, James (this British friend of Suzie’s, he teaches at a private school in Uji) and I for fearing the raw chicken. I’ll try a lot of things, but I don’t think I can extinguish certain sensibilities.

As usual when I meet new people here, they are immediately amazed by my size, and must constantly talk about how big I am. Then there’s the touching. I was warned this might happen, but last night was the first time. It was almost as if they could not believe their eyes, that such a person as I existed, so they had to touch me to convince themselves. Sometimes, it would be a bit awkward, but I got used to it. Then they all tried to see if anyone could get their hands around my arm (none could) and comparing my arm to various body parts on them. One guy is convinced that my arm is thicker than his girlfriend’s waste. Normally, if people would feel the need to constantly discuss my size, I’d feel offended, but here there’s such a culture of open honesty that it’s almost… refreshing.

Well, drinks were had, games were played (one game involving putting keys into the slots of this crazy… I dunno how to describe it, see picture, and then if you put the wrong key in the wrong hole the cat on top shoots out. Crazy) and massive amounts of food was consumed. I kept drinking and drinking, but unfortunately was unable to get drunk last night. However, the other folks tried their best to keep up with me, and let’s just say they failed. At one point I accidentally ordered both a beer and a whiskey at the same time, and several folks were so impressed, cause they never saw anyone double fist it before. When it comes to drinking, I am a god here.

When settling the tab in Japan, you don’t calculate how much you personally consumed. Rather, all drinks and food items are added up, and then divided evenly amongst the group. Normally, this works well for me since I can run up a hefty bar tab, but this place was rather expensive and I wasn’t the only one drinking hard, so each person ended up owing about 10,000 yen. That’s about a $100. It was an expensive night. The bar tab total was a little over $1,000.

So, after the bar we hit up a karaoke place where I played the crazy stupid fat foreigner card, and thus amused everyone. Thankfully, someone else took most of the pictures that featured me acting like a damn fool, so I won’t be able to share those with you. Anyway, karaoke is quite the obsession (you wouldn’t believe how nice these booths are) and I didn’t get back until around 2:30. Much to my sadness, I found that the trains stop running in Japan at midnight, and that Japanese taxis can be very expensive.

It was a good night overall, and I made some friends who can barely speak English. However, I’ve learned that it is very much possible to communicate without language abilities, and often leads to amusing misunderstandings. Good times though.