More life in Briefs

Last Friday-- Impromptu drinking party at home

Sachie, a friend of mine had some spare time Friday night and dropped by the home to hang out. We ended up making a big batch of bean dip to go with some nachos. Oh how I missed good bean dip. We got a call later on that some of her friends were planning on going drinking. So we said that's we'd be in if anything transpired. What transpired was that a horde of people appeared at my doorstep with booze and we all hung out till about 4:00 am drinking and talking (well, it wasn't solid drinking).

Olympia, my roomie was sort of complaining before that she didn't have enough Japanese friends. Looks like she has a fan club now since she can also teach English. Some people ended up staying over because they had a few too many drinks.

One guy ended up telling us that he recently got a girlfriend so everyone ended up asking how did he ask her out. His response was "Well when you meet someone as nice as that, it's as natural as the sun rising and the moon revolving around the earth." I'm really glad to finally meet a Japanese guy with some nice wit :)

Saturday-- International student party, Master Student drinking party and Clubbing

International Party:

Allright so I sound like a party animal right about now. But... let's say that I'm living the busy life. Recently a new batch of international students on a scholarship like mine have arrived in Japan and the foreign student organization hosted a welcome party for these people at the dorm. Meaning food and dancing. I only stayed for the food however since I had to attend a drinking outing with the masters student that time (we tried to go out and do something 3 times and all were failures because we were all to busy!).

I hung out at the international party for about an hour to meet the new international students. No other Canadians arrived however. I did meet a person at the party that caught my attention. I was sitting down at the reception desk with a few friends when a girl goes by me and tells me " I remember you" and goes off to tell me "you're the guy that learned Japanese from video games right? I met you last year here" I was thinking, "oh crap" because I didn't know anything about her and she was pretty cute (d'oh!) and how did she remember about me for so long!?!? We end chatting for a bit and I had to run off to meet up with the Masters students for our drinking outing.

Drinks:

I meet up with the people near the Disney Store in Sendai, which is one of the major meeting spots for all people preparing to head out to a group outing. 7:00, I was late for about 10 mins. That's what happens when you have too many people to catch up with.

The 7 of us met up and then headed out to this old fashioned bar with sort of a 50's feel to it. The food and everything was pretty damn great and we spent atleast 3 hours on 20 bucks. Not bad at all. We had a great time and everything talking about whatever. According to my friends, they're wondring why I wasn't labeled as a "dangerous chemical" and included in a "how to handle dangerous chemical" presentation at lab! Who meeee? Who'd get the crazy idea that I'd be dangerous? Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Where ever I go, some parts of my life always stays the same. Especially when it comes to the girls and rumors. In high school there were 4 rumors about me going out with different girls (for those that know me, you know that I ain't a player). I denied everything... a 5th rumor emerged-- that I was gay. There's just no winning in life sometimes eh?

Anyways, I'm pretty friendly with one of the master’s students at lab and stuff like that. Anyways she's from China, real nice person too. She really likes spicy food and when ordering some friends asked the waiter "what the spiciest food you got for her." I blurt out "just get her some raw chili peppers and she'll be happy." Some of my friends give me an odd glare for a second and I tell them "what? You should see the walls in her room, they're covered in dried chili peppers!" *D'oh!* My friends look back at me "Oh the walls in her room eh???" Great, so another rumor is born. The difference with these people is that they're a lot more forward which kind of put me on the spot. After some jabbing, we pretty much got to the point where they said, "well why don't the two of you go out?" Whoa. Dangerous stuff!

Well we're good friends so there'd be none of that. That and since we're in the same lab and knowing how news and rumors fly around I'm kind of against that. Hahaha, I got the response from my friend who told me "you'd be fun to go out with but there'd be no way I'd marry you because you play too much!" We had a good laugh over that, I never heard a person be so direct but it was true in a sense. I do my best to have fun! The real magic is to do good work and have fun...the ideal world would be the marriage of the two. Perhaps they'll learn the secret someday... either that or I have my formula wrong, but I'm willing to see if my objectives work out for me. Drinking ended at about 11:00 pm.

Clubbing:

The international party ended by about now and the people from the party (I knew) would be relocating from the dorms to the city. I was already in the city (takes only a little bit to get out to the city from the dorms fortunately) so it would only be a matter of waiting. A sub group was already down there at Karaoke but I didn't know where. I tried calling a few people but the singing must have been a little loud for people to pick up the phones. After about 30 mins of trying, I decided to give up and head into a club and hang out. Not to self. The club was dead at 11:30 pm! It didn't start picking up until 12:00 pm! In Canada it's pretty filled by atleast 10:00 pm! Well after milling about at the club for about 15 mins, I thought I'd jet from the place (and take the club entry as a loss). I picked up a drink from my drink ticket and decided to have a short drink... right after finishing my drink, hordes of people started coming in and the place got pretty damn lively.

A bunch of friends also came in that evening so I ended up spending the evening having a few drinks, chatting and dancing with them. I didn't get home till about 3:30 am. Long day indeed.

Sunday-- Work!

Slept in, but that should've been obvious. I woke up and scratched out 2~3 essay topic over a few essays in a notebook over a few hours. I'll write about them later on when I can put them all together. Taught English in the morning, went to lab in the afternoon till the evening to run some experiments before out bi-weekly meeting happening on Monday. Dropped a friend a line to see if I could catch dinner with her in the evening after I finished experimentation (turned out she was busy). Dinner got postponed till Monday at 9:30 pm.

I came home that evening famished. I dropped by the grocery store and bought tons of food. Cooked fried pork with bean sprouts, chicken and fried scallops in butter and soy sauce. I made a ton of food that evening thinking that my roomie would be back and we could have some dinner together. She never showed, turned out that she was out with friends at a going away party for one of her colleagues. I had a great dinner however (and more scallops for me).

Monday-- Labs and Drinks

Lab life as usual, classes in the morning, experiments in the afternoon and lab meeting in the evening starting from 6:30 till 9:30 pm. I left the lab to catch up with my friend to catch up over some dinner at this really interesting Japanese bar/restaurant. Things are kind of miniature, made of wood and stuff. As an interesting note, the places in Sendai do have really nice interior design!

My friend works as a make up artist for hostess (no, they don't usually sleep with their clients... some do however) so I got to learn a little about that world. It seems that these hostess for expensive bars are really for higher up people to show off (to which I think is kind of stupid, but that’s the culture). So anyways, what happens, a pretty and dressed up lady joins a group of well of businessmen recommending expensive drinks to them. The idea is that the expensive things that you buy shows off the amount of money you have. At the same time, the hostess also requests drinks for herself (of the expensive variety) and so since the guys also want to keep her pleased, will end up buying the drinks for her. In the end the restaurant makes a bundle of cash for selling expensive drinks and the hostess gets a cut. Something like could never exist in Canada; it's a cultural thing (well for some people atleast over here).

Future Outlook:

Friday -- Probably will be going out with friends again
Saturday -- Lab party under the Sakura
Sunday -- Olympia's B-day party, need to reschedule another party to the week after
Week after Friday -- Lab New Student party

Huh... so fine, I might be a party animal! :P