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1) So this week finally after lots of quiet suggestion, beaurocratic back steps and just plain laziness on my part I have finally found a Karate Dojo that I can join. So on Monday I went to my first practise held in the Gym on my current host brother's old Jnr High School. (but thats beside the point) The club itself is run by a dude with a black belt (of course) and its students consist of three brown belts (two 12 year olds and an old guy) and one white belt (a 11 year old) - ALL BOYS. So I somehow have to break into a dojo that is all boys and is mainly made up of lethal little children. *sigh* Noone said it would be an easy up-hill battle. So while the boys were doing drills, the old guy/brown belt taught me the basics of moving in Karate. Basically I learned how to walk. Its not as easy as it sounds actually. Firstly you have to slide and I sweat mainly through me hands and feet so I kept sticking to the basketball court floor meaning that sliding was a painful matter. Then I learn to walk and punch, walk punch and turn and then one defensive move. It was very difficult but it didn't hurt my muscles as much as I thought it would. When you are walking you see, you are basically in a constant half crouch with your knees bent all the time. Theoretically this should hurt but thanks to riding to school everyday at break neck speed in third gear to keep up with Komaki I managed to do it without it even hurting. The poor old dude was always like 'lets take a break. Do your legs hurt?' and I was always 'No, actually not really' I think he was actually very suprised at my ability to be able to move fairly gracefully (thank you mum for sending me to ballet lessons). All in all it was good fun but I got the distinct feeling that they thought I wouldn't last long (being the stupid foreigner that I am) so I am going to go to all the lessons available, being Monday and Friday only, and practise real hard so I can -using that great Australian term- jarred them up real good. Hee Hee
2)On Tuesday my regular Rotary meeting was moved to the evening as we were having a special event to celebrate Hanami (if you don't know what that is by now, go hide under a rock, you steaming nit you). So yeah I turned up a tiny bit late and all the seats at the non-smoking table were taken. (Actually I have been told that the fact that my club actually has non-smoking tables at all is amazing and the fact that it is a 1:3 smokers to non-smokers ratio is very amazing indeed!) So I had to sit at a smokers table with my councilor after which a beer was immediately plopped down in front of me. I stared at this beer, tall and cold, pure, liquid gold for a total of 3 seconds before my councilor opened his big mouth and stated the horrible truth, I was still a high school student and not yet legal.
Then it was taken away from me and a pint of *shudder* orange juice replaced on the coaster. Then to make things worse the PRESIDENT of the club walked up and asked why I wasn't drinking beer tonight. Damn Seno-san and his adherance to stupid outdated Rotary Rules. I can hold my drink better than any of them anway. You see, Japanese people, actually Asian people in general for that matter, lack a certain enzyme in their bodies that helps to break down alcohol. This means that anything they drink is absorbed (or more than europeans anyway) and they get drunk on much, much less. This in turn also makes them go very very red in the face, fueling that famous image of the Japanese salary-man staggering red drunk in an alley, pissing on his shoes. So after two pints of the stuff they were all getting loud and rowdy, chain-smoking the end 1cm of cigarettes (its a dirty habit but what a waste!) and putting them out and asking me strange questions about my feelings about America and President Bush in broken English. (Its a good thing I didn't drink because had I been drunk when they asked me about Bush I would have been more unforgivingly cruel about him than I was)(actually the Japanese don't like him either and everyone hates his accent, hehehehe). After two hours I'd had enough, made my quick apologies and fled to the lobby with a pounding headache resulting from lack of oxygen and loud business men in a smokey environment. I was followed by my now fairly drunk councilor who then continued to lecture me on the differences between Japanese and Australian mothers and how Japanese mother worry more about their children and therefore me. HEEELLOOOOO! I GREW UP WITH A CHINESE MOTHER. I THINK I KNOW THE MEANING OF CONSTANTLY WORRIED MOTHERS. *sigh* Oh well, I free meal and a box of chocolates as a present. Not too bad a night I guess, or am I being too optimistic.
3)Ok, just for those people not in Japan, something-yaki means like fried on a hot plate or grill eg. takoyaki (dough balls fried in round hot plates with octapus inside - mmm) and soba-yaki (fried noodles - durrr!). This therefore implies that I got fried. And I did. I went to the International Association's Annual New Business Year/Hanami picnic. Sunday was an uncharacteristically SCORCHINGLY HOT day. Anyone that thinks that Japan is a cold country should be slapped across the bum-bum right now (unless you are Gemma and live in Sapporo and the freezing wastelands of the frozen Hokkaido north) BECAUSE IT IS NOT!!!. So of course, Jane that a)forgot a hat (I didn't even bring one from Oz) b) sunnies, or c) a long sleave shirt got completely fried to a crisp in the deceptively mild sun. There was enough of a cool breeze to keep my cooled but enough warm (so deceptively warm) sun to make me go as red as a possum's foot on a hot tin roof. And it wasn't until the day was over and everyone was packing up that my Jmum mentioned how, well, red I looked.
Japanese people are very conciencious about there skin and strive to have perfect blemish free whiteness. Of course, in Australia this is the epitome of impossibleness so I have lots of spots and moles and nice tanned skin (or at least I did before I came to the Japanese winter and turned a unhealthy pasty white). So you'll see Japanese bitties covered up so that only their faces show (thats stockings and gloves too) and riding around in the horrible spring heat *shakes head*. But Jane in her white shirt short sleave shirt got fried and while everyone was relaxing at home last night, was rubbing copious amounts of lotion into her itching arms. *sigh* But the picnic was fun and I had a good time talking English all day. Yay!
Hope you like this weeks entry, I tried to make it more humourous. Smilies *cough cough* (damn smoke) ^-`
PS:The piccie's of Harrison Ford plugging my favourite Japanese Beer, Kirin Beer!!!