Late night karaoke....

Saturday was Thom - a fellow ECC teacher - 's Birthday, so he organised a night of cavorting and carousing in the main social area of Nagoya, Sakae. After dinner, we went to a rather posh looking bar for some drinks - I ended up sitting opposite a Japanese girl who didn't speak any English, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to practice my Japanese. Aaah, hubris.....my skills were in fact stretched to breaking point, as although I can order food and sort out train tickets without getting too stressed, my conversational abilities are next to nothing. So after asking her if she was studying English at the moment (she understood that at least), it kind of ground to a halt. She could only stay for half an hour though so the seat opposite me was soon empty. This meant I could see the group of people on the next table, some of whom were foreigners (i.e. Westerners) and some of whom were Japanese.
Now, there's kind of an unwritten rule that when you see other Westerners in Japan, you don't acknowledge them. Certainly, the temptation is to give a little nod or say "hi" (or in your first week, to throw your arms around them and sob "thank god, someone that I can speak to!! Where are some toilets that I can sit on instead of squat over for the love of god?!?!"). but we don't - we're strangers after all so it'd be a bit weird. Wouldn't it?

Anyway, a few of the Japanese guys looked round, chatted amongst themselves, and then two of them bounded over and launched themselves facefirst into a big friendly conversation with me and Jacqui (another ECC teacher who was next to me). I was a bit taken aback initially - the guy's face who was talking to me lit up as he gabbled English a mile a minute; I was half expecting him to whip out a pamphlet and ask if I'd considered letting Jesus into my life.
Turns out they were social event organisers for people who didn't know anyone in Nagoya - Japanese and foreigners - so they took my number and said they'd give me a call if they have one again. Watch this space....
Afterwards, we went to karaoke which was awesome fun, although I was banned from playing with the tambourine just because some people developed chronic tinnitus last time we went. *sulk* I don't think Thom will mind me saying that by the end of the night he was out of his tree and ranting about philosophy and how great Japan is to anyone in his vicinity (including random Japanese people and his own reflection a couple of times).

When you're in the karaoke booth, you order your drinks by picking up a little intercom/phone, and it was a timely reminder of the fact I've been in Japan for a while now that not only did I not mind speaking to the waiters, but that I could understand when they said they were out of certain drinks and apologise when some of the guys changed their mind about what they wanted. Time was when we'd all draw straws to make the dreaded order, bellow "FOUR. BEERS. PLEASE!!!" in English down the phone, and then sit back with fingers crossed to see what we ended up with (one time - ordered:four beers and a whiskey and soda. Received:one glass of plum wine. Baffling). I mean yes, we didn't get the coke that I asked for, but still it was nice to see that all the time I've been spending bent over textbooks mumbling "everyone should just bloody speak bloody English" hasn't been for nothing.

Anyway, karaoke was great fun, but we rather over-enthusiastically stayed till 4:30am which means I got home at 5am. And then got up at half 9 for work. Thank the great monkey god for Starbucks and his bounteous mocha frappuncinos which got me through Sunday lessons. Lo, they were good.