The next day, Sunday, I woke up and came down stairs and saw that everything outside was covered in an inch of snow. We were planning on leaving at 10am and driving to Takasaki in Gunma to be there for 11am but Ayumi told me that she’d heard from Saharu that the trains were slow and so she’d be a bit late, and with the amount of snow outside we decided not to take the car and to get the train for safety’s sake. The station was absolutely adorable. The front doors to the station were sliding doors, but they have to be opened manually. I also pointed out how cute the clock over the door is, and was told that the clock’s always wrong, which makes it even cuter. The train was 20 minutes late but Ayumi’s parents waited with us the whole time.
Eventually we were able to board the train, floated through many snow-covered fields, and eventually arrived. When we arrived we waited for about 2 minutes and then two cars approached, driven by Hitomi and Naomi. I had difficulty deciding which car to ride in but with with Hitomi/Saharu. We drove around their university, because we couldn’t enter as it was Sunday, and then Naomi pulled up her car (with Ayumi and Misuzu) beside ours and we discussed where we’d eat lunch. Naomi knew a place and we followed them. On the way Saharu had made me a slice of chocolate cake and I gave her a picture book of Ireland and some Irish postcards. We went to a Japanese restaurant and I had a bowl of rice, pork, onion, leeks and an egg, which was really nice except that the egg would have been better warm and the menu said it was 1197kcal, which is about half of what I should eat in a single day.
While eating Saharu gave me a present from everyone. It was a really nice photo of a Tokyo sunset, centred on Tokyo Tower, and also a box of flashcards about Gunma’s history, which she said is studied by every student in Gunma so they know their local history. I gave all the girls Irish phone straps in the shape of Claddagh rings.
We left the restaurant and all went to the train station to go to karaoke. When we went in the guy working at the fare adjustment station shouted out to us asking what train we wanted. The girls answered and he said “it’s coming now!! Hurry!” and surely enough, a train was stopped just outside the window. He told us not to buy tickets and just handed us small pieces of paper saying where we boarded. We got on the train just in time.
While on the train, three or four guys about 14~16 years old were sitting in a corner, pulling down the window and looking out and shouting back and forth. One guy had a big metal case with him, decorated in various stickers. Another had a camera tripod. Another had a tattered book of train timetables and was frantically flicking through it. The girls told me that these were train-otaku (think train-spotter). I’d heard about these guys before but had never seen them until then. All the snow affecting the train times seemed to have them pretty excited.
We left the train station and walked to a building with all sorts of various entertainment-based shops. There was an arcade, pachinko, some small restaurants, a lingerie shop, and a karaoke. We got two hours in the karaoke (which so wasn’t enough) and was so much fun. I sang lots of songs, mostly at the request of the girls. I can’t remember them all but I did sing All You Need is Love by the Beatles, Your Song by Elton John, When You Were Young by the Killers, and I also gave You Raise Me Up (I picked the Josh Groban version over the Celtic Woman version) a try at the end. I also sang Way Back Into Love from Music and Lyrics in a duet with Saharu, and Tale As Old As Time from Beauty and the Beast with her.
The girls sang some great songs, many at my request. I got to hear Sakura no Toki by Aiko, SEASONS by Ayumi Hamasaki, Goodbye Days by YUI, Find the Way by Mika Nakashima, Fragile by Every Little Thing, and lots more. This time I did my best to choose songs which suited my voice as opposed to songs I enjoy listening to and I actually did quite well. We had a nomihodai (all you can drink, though non-alcoholic) but their menu’s “delicious milk” wasn’t so delicious. Their cream soda was though.
After karaoke we went to the game centre and I played Time Crisis with Ayumi and we took some purikura together. There was a three-player game in the corner being played by a single woman and I thought I’d give it a go. It’s actually networked together with other machines of the same type all over Japan and you play against other players. When you finish a round, it connects to another machine (and shows you where it is) and says who wins. We lost by a very large margin.
We went back to the station after and asked a man for help on what to do about the Shinkansen. He was the most animated Japanese person I’ve ever met in my life and was jumping around in front of us explaining what train to get and how I’ll have to hurry for my transfer in Tokyo. He explained in surprisingly good English when they girls explained that I was doing the travelling and did his jumping around for me too.
We went to the Shinkansen platform (you can buy a 140 yen ticket to allow you see someone off at the platform) and decided on a train and I stayed with the girls on the platform until the whistle blew and I had to go. I gave them each a hug and kept waving until the train moved out of sight.
On the Shinkansen, three girls in their 20s were standing in the corridor and I started talking to them. Yuko, Sanae and Hitomi were their names. Yuko told me that she’s married to an Australian man and her English was great. I told them about how fantastic Ayumi’s family is and how great all my friends are. They got off before Ueno station and I texted Ayumi the whole way home.
When I got back to Okazaki it was dark and cold and too late for taxis. I called the taxi company and they sent a taxi, but I wasn’t the first person in line at the taxi stand so I didn’t get it and had to call again to get another. I got home in the end and fell asleep pretty quickly.
I really love all my friends up North. They all call me “Danieru-shi”. Danieru is the Japanese approximation of Daniel and “shi” is a suffix usually used for famous people that you don’t know and never will know. For example, Obama-shi (of the US) is often on the TV these days in Japan. It’s also used by otaku (hope you clicked that link I gave earlier on if you didn’t understand “otaku”) to refer to each other sometimes. My friend Saho gave me this name back in March 2007 and at that time I was hanging out with these same friends all the time, so it stuck. No one else ever used it and right now they’re the only people who use it, but it’s a really great, nostalgic feeling when I hear it.
[update] When I was in the car with Kaori and Ayumi on Saturday, her father asked me to try to speak some English to Ayumi to see how well she was able to converse. I did and I was told “when you speak English it’s like a different person! It’s not Danieru-shi… just another foreigner!”. They were right. I could even feel it myself. It’s like an actor suddenly dropping character; removing all their adopted mannerisms and accent or whatever. You suddenly see a different person with the same face.
Last year at UL with all these friends, one of them said “when you speak in English it’s a really ‘cool’ feeling but when you speak in Japanese it’s really ‘cute’… it’s totally different”. Tilmitt’s comment below is correct. There are things that are ok to say in Japanese that just sound ridiculous in English. When I read lyrics to Japanese songs I often think “wow this is a really deep song” but when I see an English translation it just sounds ridiculous. A Japanese friend of mine wrote some poems in Japanese and I helped her translate them. She agreed that the English translation sounded really really cheesy, but the Japanese one was pretty deep.
Anyway, there’s a lot more that I know I’m forgetting but as I remember things I’ll write them. Definitely the best weekend I’ve had in a long long time, and I’ve been having some great weekends recently.
I think its safe to say we’ve lost you to that country.
You’re a guy, you can’t use ‘cute’ as an adjective to describe an inanimate object!
But it does sound like a good weekend.
You should have heard me talk about how cute the electricity lines are here. I explained to the whole family how adorable they are and how the best ones are the small ones. They look best if you focus on the furthest ones away. I like the big ones too that stretch over the mountains but not as much as the small ones covering small towns.
Terran – was thinking the exact same thing.
You guys don’t understand, when you speak Japanese you don’t feel like a fool or gay or whatever when you say stuff is cute. I find I can express my feelings alot more honestly and be generally more happy with myself when speaking Japanese. In Japan, it’s ok for guys to like cute stuff. There are ever army posters with cute characters. I think this is the way things should always be, but it’s impossible for people who haven’t experienced life with the superior race to understand!
THANK YOU! You reminded me of what I was forgetting to say! Updating article now.
Possibly due to my Fenian ways, I can’t really see why Japanese culture should be considered superior. It has some good things, but like, judging by the huge rate of suicide over there, it has some kinks to iron out.
I just don’t ever look at something and think ‘cute’. I don’t think I’d be any different if I was immersed in a Japanese society. I don’t like even the idea of those maid-cafes or anything like that.
I love Irish culture. I wouldn’t swap this country for anything. I would never say our culture is the best on earth (actually I probably have done, but whatever) but it is what I prefer. Any time I’ve been away from Ireland for longer than three weeks I begin to miss it.
Nothing like the sense of home you get on seeing your first Dunnes Stores sign.
If I had to choose between a Japanese company or an Irish company I’d go with the Irish company any day. If I have kids some day, I don’t want them to have to suffer the Japanese educational system either. The government here makes lots of really really bad decisions too, and there’s this xenophilia that started around the Meiji Restoration and is still a huge part of the culture. They all love Americans and want to be just like them. There’s even a recent fashion trend where girls dress up like black american hip-hop stars. There are lots of parts of Japanese culture which I don’t like, and it cannot be said that it’s a perfect country, but it is a great country. Well up there with Ireland.
I agree about the government, I get so angry when I think about they act. I think they’re a national disgrace that brings shame to Japan.
A national disgrace that’s voted in by the people of the country. Though admitted, people our age in Japan have zero interest in any of the candidates for government positions. I suppose in a society that values seniority and tradition over all else, the only people who get to run for such important positions are elderly gentlemen scared of changing anything. (Except for getting an army back so Japan can do such honourable things as helping the US in their holy war on Islam. In so many ways it really is all about impressing the Westerners. What a pity.)