Yikes! I have actually been pretty busy at work lately, which has had a direct effect on my blog post output
The next weekend was relatively uneventful, as I was still recovering from a bit of the flu, although I did venture by bus to a mall complex in southern Ogaki with Jon and Sarah after we heard there was a Subway there. The mall itself was meh, but we did properly find a Subway, and it was tasty. We scoped out the other restaurants, and found a tasty looking Chinese place, as well as another restaurant where you could add an all you can eat ice cream buffet to your meal for $2.25, i.e. ridiculously cheap. We vowed to come back for that. (It hasn’t happened yet, but will soon.) We then headed back to watch Swingers, a film recommended by Jon. It had it’s hilarious moments It was awesomely bad, indeed, and horribly cheesy, but worth a watch for sure. After the movie, we headed out to Pastel, since I was eager to try the pasta and all you can eat pizza set they have. The pieces were small and the crust paper thin, which explains how I ate around 30 of them, but I still think our waiter thought it was obscene. The next day I went to a music practice for capoeira, which was awesome. After the practice we hit up an all you can eat buffet of Japanese cuisine. The cool part is that when they took away one dish they brought in a new, different dish to replace, so there was a nice variety. The sushi was certainly tasty, but what I really pigged out on was the platter of freshly fried tempura, especially the slices of sweet potato. That alone was worth the $16 price of admission.
Rock got wind of the all you can eat pizza set and wanted to hit it up right away. So Rock invited some people, and so on Thursday (i.e. a mere five days later) we rolled in there with six foreigners…and the wait staff looked afraid. Rock is a big guy, and so is Joel, plus I can do all right, especially when it comes to pizza. It was pretty much a battle of wills between our table and the wait staff. You get a little sign to put on your table to designate “More, please!” or “I’m full!” In theory, if you have “More, please!” facing out, they keep bringing you pizza. We kept going through the pizzas so quickly (they’d literally be gone in a minute) that halfway through the flow of pizza slowed severely, and I think they were trying to get us to leave by not bring out more pizza. We, however, had resolved to be in it for the long haul, although Joel was getting desperate as times, literally eating the remaining crumbs from the previous pizza.
We were certainly fine with just sitting and chatting (it’s not as if the place was full, far from it) and to be honest, the longer they waited, the more room we’d be able to make in our stomachs. Eventually they wizened up and realized their tactic was the exact opposite of what they should’ve been doing, flooding us with pizzas so we have no time to digest. They began bringing us two pizzas at a time, and after a few rounds of that, we called it quits. After two times in one week, though, I think I’ll be happy to never go there again, or at least not for a long, long time.
The last weekend in February involved me, against my better judgment, skipping capoeira practice on Friday to go out for a couple drinks. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but Rock had invited the relatively chill group of engineers we met on Christmas to go out, and I had been meaning to see them again. Every once in a while, I figure I should be more active about being social, and it normally ends in awkwardness. I was discussing this phenomenon with my cousin Joe once, and he dubbed those situations as “social experiments”. Although not a complete “social experiment” in that it wasn’t utter failure, there were still moments of awkwardness. I ventured out a little later than Rock and met up with him at Bierhall, our bar of choice in Gifu. Due to some horrible rain that night, only one of the engineers had showed up. Thankfully, it was the younger girl who was arguably the most interesting person in the group at Christmas. Maybe it was the smaller group, but conversation with her was often stilted and seemed forced. The moments of silence were on the awkward side and I was scrambling to find something to talk about. Eventually one other engineer came, but sadly that didn’t help things. His English isn’t nearly at her level, so he just listened and tried to survive. Rock and I attempted to explain the concept of “That’s what she said” to them. The guy admitted to not getting it, but the girl pretended she got it, or at least thought she got it, and then was attempting to use it. It wasn’t a pretty sight. She didn’t quite get the key concept that it needed to be used after veiled sexual innuendo. We’ll have to re-explain it next time. After a couple of beers, we decided to call it a night.
The next day I had to go into work for a half day in the afternoon, which, let’s be honest, ends up screwing up my entire Saturday, but oh well. It was the second round of entrance exams/interviews for the graduate school, so I have to be there to ask each applicant a couple of questions in English at the end of their interview as a sort of proficiency check. It’s actually one of the more interesting things I get to do at work since I get to listen to their presentation and see what all the prospective students want to study. The things that bugs me, though, is that my presence is meaningless. Their English performance pretty much has zero effect (and I don’t think it should) on whether they get into the school or not. Like most things in Japan, it’s all about appearances and going through the motions. At least with my presence and an English proficiency “requirement” lends a little more credence to their claim to be an international school. I’m asking them pretty basic questions in English, and I’m generally allotted the last minute (or two) of the interview period to do this. Most of the time we barely get through two questions. I’m impressed if they give more than a one-sentence answer.
After I got done with that, I went out to Bellmart for dinner with Jon, Sarah, and Rachel. It was cool to have Rachel along. I’ve only hung out with her a couple times before and never in a smaller group. She is quite chill and fun to talk to. After dinner we went back to Jon’s place and had a rousing marathon of Uno and cards. And the Uno gods were smiling upon me, as I won every game. It certainly made up for the Boggle trouncing I received a few weeks beforehand. It was nice to have an addition to the group, and Rachel seemed to only occasionally be freaked out by crap Jon and I would say, so that’s a good sign.
The next day I headed into Nagoya to hang out with my friend Aki, quite possibly the most chill Japanese person I know. We grabbed lunch near the station, where I had this tuna donburi with an odd, gooey porridge (possibly tororo, a potato based food with and unnerving texture). We also got stuck in the smoking section, one of my pet peeves. Aki didn’t look too happy about that either, but it was all good. We caught up and chatted a ton about anything and everything, including what the hell we planned on doing with the rest of our lives. That’s always a fun conversation, and as per usual, no conclusions were reached. Our original plan was to go bowling, but being downtown Nagoya, the bowling alley was packed and there was a couple hour wait. So we went to a nearby pool hall…also full up. We decided to go back and put our names in at the alley and wander around for a bit. After lamenting how there really isn’t much to do around Nagoya station (if it isn’t mealtime, granted) and that the big city isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Next time, Aki might come up to Gifu prefecture and we’ll hit a couple of smaller towns. We eventually stopped at a place that Aki said had tasty desserts. Sounds good, I’m in. Unfortunately, they did not have the Tiramisu on hand, despite it being on the menu, but they more than made up for it with how tasty the NY Cheesecake I ordered was. After killing more time chatting at the café, we headed back for some bowling. Finally, we grabbed some appetizers and drinks at this really spiffy izakaya. The interior decorating had a general pacific island theme and created a really immersive atmosphere. The food was decent, and the blueberry liquor from China we both tried was interesting, but reminded me a bit too much of cough syrup to warrant a second glass. Finally, we headed back to the station and on our separate ways. It had been quite awhile and was nice to hang out with her again.
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