| Friday, February 10, 2006 |
| Combinioke, anyone? |
 Bae-Yon-Chris Joon and his namesake! Yon-sama loves you...
 A "No Smo-o-o-king" sign on your cigarette machine: this is irony, at least to a greater degree than Alanis Morisette could comprehend. My 10th grade english teacher "Winky" Watson always said to refer to something as irony in lieu of actually understanding it. She also forced us to read "The Book of the Dun Cow" and called me Irwin all year, so I'm not that inclined to believe anything she said.
  Vicky and Claire T., and Ilana and I, at the Notorious Combinioke of Niimi-shi last week. Fantastic set-up: karaoke upstairs, and you hop downstairs to buy all your drinks from the store downstairs. No waiting around for watered-down cocktails that never arrive! We spent the rest of the evening at a snack bar run by a frighteningly anorexic woman and an old guy that gave us cans of juice on our way out and even opened my car door for me. Niimi is a rundown industrial city way up north, and we arrived en masse to karaoke, hang out in snowy parking lots, cruise by hordes of post-enkai Japanese guys for a 2nd look and a catcall ("Woooooo! Ikura desu ka, baby?"), frighten the other snack bar patrons with loud and terrible singing, and chill in Vicky's gigantic apartment. It took me an hour and half by Guppy-- it took Adam 4 hours by Judy (his trusty bicycle). The nickname that Dylan has given to Adam, Metal, makes more sense with each passing day, because that is surely what he's made of. While Adam's heading out on yet another long bike ride through the cold and getting ready for his marathon (with a "th"... not a marason, which just means "running for a bit" in Japanese), I'm climbing in my taxi to go to school in comfort or guppying around instead of biking like I could/should. If he's made of metal, by analogy I'm something along the lines of tofu. (The nice extra-firm 150 yen stuff, not the about-to-expire 48 yen special pack at the end of the day.)
  Social Chair Claire of Champclair and I went to a lovely "European-style" onsen spa near the airport last week to escape the monotony of a Monday night. She strolled off the train with a new urban haircut and grown-up looking jacket, looking gorgeous and business-casual, and I am wearing in this picture what I wore to work at shogakko, and looking for all the world like I'm 14. However, I've still be able to resist the ubiquitous tracksuit, so must be doing okay. The onsen is called RESPARLE, which sounds almost French, so it's the Gerard Depardieu Bath Land from here on out. We had a nice soak indoors and out, did the salt scrub sauna, marvelled at the ladies braving the ice-cold "dieto" pool, chatted with obaachans, had udon, and attempted to climb into lockers. They are about 5 inches wide, and yet the sign above my head reads "Danger! Don't enter!" with a picture of a stick man wedging himself inside. |
posted by Raychaa @ 6:12 PM  |
|
|
|
|
| So wrong it's right. And then wrong. And then wrong again... welcome to the inaka. |
| About Me |
|
Name: Raychaa
Home:
About Me: “No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this - 'devoted and obedient'. This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.” (Florence Nightingale)
Profile
|
| Previous Post |
|
| Archives |
|
| Shoutbox |
For travel-volunteer junkies Responsible Nomad My favorite place, favorite kids
PEPY Ride: Cambodia
|
| Pretty People |
|
| Powered by |
 |
|
