Japenglish

I never really noticed how long ago the cicada stopped. Must be the change in weather over the lastfew weeks. It was a constant reminder of how foreign this place is, as I've never lived where they're so constant throughout every day.

I've been out three times this week with the guys with the last two being until 6am and 4am respectively. I'll never be able to say I didn't check out the night life of this place.
Wednesday had us at what seems to be another regular pub for the guys where it has 300 yen beers once a week. After a few hours we moved onto another place where I ended up chatting away to the bar chick who didn't speak English at all. It was all pointless gibberish, really. Where I was from, when did I get here, what do I do etc. However, it was a lot of fun. Amusing to think back on... especially since I went back there last night a little more sober.

She was a chatty again, but didn't come over til we were leaving. Asked if I was going home or moving on elsewhere etc.
I then managed to miss the elevator while I had my back turned whereby the guys all disappeared. So we kept chatting while we waited. The elevator came again, which was quite full. I jump in and, as the door closes, an alarm thing goes off. "Too heavy," was what someone brokenly pointed out to me...
So I ended up having to get out and wait with the bar chick again. She looked at me, wondering what I was doing and I had to break the news that I was too heavy. At least she had a good laugh.

So the guys were waiting at the bottom, wondering what had become of me (even called me to see what I was doing). I did finally make it out of that place, though. And so we headed off someone else.


I'm having too much fun with all the little quirks of this country, but you'd have to see them for yourself to 'get it' sometimes.
We got to the next place, which was a quiet little bar on the way back to the apartment. There were only a few people in there, but ended up having a long chat to this Japanese guy who spoke fluent (and very native/slang/good) english since he'd lived in Canada for 3 or so years. Nice guy, but was strange to compare someone like him (who was 24 y/o) to the students at Nova. This guy hasn't done any real study since school, but simply lived in an english speaking country for as long as he did. If Nova's students had the time in their lives to move overseas, they'd end up saving more money and would become fluent much faster.
The Japanese lead busy lives though...

I'm already dreading having to go home in 17 months. It just doesn't seem enough time.