Almost Missing Out

Events occur 7/31/08, written 8/3/08

Sadly I missed dinner on Thursday night with a couple of the English teachers, Lumarie (the other ALT who is on the way out on Wednesday, replaced when Sue Ann gets here), and some other teachers because I was out with Nagaishi-sensei trying to get my bank account, cell phone, registration, etc. Even though I missed dinner with Shimomura-sensei, who couldn’t go out drinking with us because she is expecting, I did get to go out and meet some of the other ALTs, some of whom were in Tokyo with me. We went out to an area of Sasebo called the “arcade” which is just a large strip-mall, heavily populated by Navy and other Americans along with some familiar businesses like Starbucks, Seattle’s Best Coffee, KFC, etc. It was night when we went to the arcade with this group of familiar strangers and I had been here earlier during the day when I was trying to open my bank account. It was eerily different at night. Unsettling in that awkward absence you feel in an area that is obviously designed to accommodate a lot of people yet is nearly empty. The warm summer air coming in off the nearby waterfront didn’t carry the salty hues I would have expected from being so close to the ocean, but it was instead heavy with moisture; glazing the inside of my throat and lungs with a warm, damp coating.

I was starving as was the other new ALT, and we all went to eat at a really great Japanese restaurant that was roughly the equivalent of a tapas restaurant. We all ordered some crazy stuff that looked good or we had never had, and it was awesome. I couldn’t tell you exactly what I ate, but nearly all of it was delicious. They just don’t make miso in the states like they do here. Dinner was shockingly reasonable for the quality of the food, so we all paid ¼ of the bill and left (I could totally get used to not tipping).

We turned down a narrow entry-way that lead into a small alley ending in an elevator that seemed distinctly out of place. Lumarie asked us if we liked rock and roll, specifically the Red Hot Chili Peppers, to which we all replied yes. For me of course, the answer was true, but I have a feeling I would have lied and said yes, even if I had never heard of them. We walked inside to find the Japanese version of a dart bar. It had all the markings of the kind you see at home and in movies… mainly darts, and a bar. But there was also a small stage in the back. After ordering my beer with one of the other new ALTs that had come in from Tokyo with me the bar staff starting making their way to the stage. For the next hour and a half, we were treated to covers of the Goo Goo Dolls, RHCP, Oasis, Finger 11, as well as others. Imagine “Wonder-Wall” being sung not by a guy with an absurdly thick English accent, but rather in Japanese-English. It had roughly the same effect, and really not surprising if you think about it. I had two beers and I was ready to go home at this point. We gathered everyone up, said our hellos and goodbyes, and went to the car of one of the ALTs that does not work at my school. Lumarie, the only one who really knew where I lived, had to go home by another route, so I was stuck on my own. Everyone else knew how to get to Ono (the area I live in), and I had walked around enough to know where to go, right?

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was dropped off in Ono, in an area I recognized, and told everyone goodbye thinking I was by my apartment. The Scottish girl was worried about me, however, and gave me her phone number in case I got in trouble. Shortly after getting out of the car (it’s around 11:30pm) and waving goodbye, and turned around to find this was NOT my apartment building. Um… well, they probably just let me off a bit early. I’ll walk this way a bit. I followed the road heading the same way the car was traveling for well over an hour and a half. I did manage to find my school and grimly kidded myself that if it got too bad, at least I could be at school when it opened in the morning and get help.

By 2am I had turned around when I starting walking past rice fields I didn’t recognize. I had stopped several times by now trying to call the number I had, but with no luck. I couldn’t get a connection. I’m not sure if the line was busy or if I had a bad number. Whatever the problem was, it was clear I was on my own. See, the thing was, I had stupidly left the sticky note with Nagaishi-sensei’s number and my address on it at home because I didn’t want to lose it if I got money or something out of my wallet. I did manage to find a cab, but I didn’t have my jishou (dictionary). This was going to be tough. First, it was really hard to describe the fact I was lost without knowing the word for “lost.” Second, where was I supposed to tell him to go? Japanese addresses are difficult, and I only had seen it written in Kanji. Landmarks? Like maybe the market next to my house? Yeah… couldn’t remember the name of it, and when I told him I lived near a supermarket in Ono, he brought me to the wrong one in an area I didn’t recognize.

He finally stopped at a office to whom I assumed the taxi company he worked for belonged, and he called a friend who could speak English to come and get me. It was almost 2:30 and I had taxed my brain to the limit when I finally had a small breakthrough. I was constantly pestering Nagaishi-sensei about the Kanji I saw everywhere I went. One of them belonged to a place next door to me of which I had hoped was a restaurant but was explained to me to be a bar. The name of the place is called kurumi, but the first character, written in hiragana which I can read, looked like shi, not ku to me. “Mi”, the last character, was written in kanji, but for whatever reason, the mishap with the first ku had caused the name of that bar to stick in my head. Finally, I kept trying to get the cab driver (still on the phone) to listen to my pleas about my breakthrough. He stopped talking and looked at what I had written for him… “eeee, to” (Japanese for hmmmm) Kurumi? Hai, Kurumi. Eeee, Ba- desu ne? Hai, it’s a bar! (In Japanese) It’s next to my house! I nearly hugged a stranger in that cab when he pulled up to my apartment, but by this time we had bonded a little and he understood how glad I was to be home. Cabs are expensive here, but it was $20 well spent to be safe and in my apartment’s bed.

A couple pics from the bar.