And the wait was definitely worth it.
At exactly 6PM on the dot my coworkers and myself all filtered into a mom-'n-pop fish joint on the street between the town hall and the station, about twenty people in all. In the tatami-lined, shoji-screened back room an impressive spread was laid out and I was seated between the education department head and the school affairs section head. Both of them gave speeches I scarcely understood and then it was my turn to give a speech that I hardly understood. Or maybe I just don't remember too well after the drinks, who knows. My god, how the beer, sake and shochu flowed.
Kusu is a drinking town like so many other remote municipalities back in the states. I guess the typical nightlife equation in the states is sex, drugs, booze and rock, but there's no drugs here so the booze has to pick up the slack. Kusu is also a major rice producer in the prefecture, being in a valley and with plenty of water, and the town puts its bounty to use in at least three sake distilleries. My coworkers were soused within an hour.
Not me though, at least not entirely. Despite the widely held Japanese custom of anything-goes drinking with coworkers I wanted to err on the side of caution. It was a good thing too because the mayor arrived around 7PM and plopped down next to me and I got to pouring him drinks. He gave a little speech too and I understood it better than the previous ones, probably thanks to the beer ears. See, I understand and can speak much better Japanese when tipsy or even downright pickled, I think because normally I consciously over analyze what I'm saying and hearing instead of just setting the subconscious language nodes on the task of translating what I already know. Drinking lubricates the process, but one still needs to remain somewhat vigilant not to slip.
The antics among my drunk coworkers got pretty nuts at points. One has to remember that many actions normally taboo are considered A-OK when drunk in Japan. So a stroll down a somewhat uncomfortable memory lane last night has a gay swim instructor trying to get me out of a closet he seems to think I'm in, a married (but very cute) coworker flirting with me for over an hour and a P.E. teacher 8-years my senior all but throwing herself at me. Oh boy.
So I played my cards right and didn't make a jackass of myself. Kudos to me. After the restaurant bit let out I headed out with my immediate supervisors Goto-san, Nogami-san and a few others to a nice bar whose name I can't possibly remember, but I'm definitely going back, maybe even becoming a regular. The owners were twenty and thirty-something surfer types who ran a very spiffy ship: reasonably priced, tasty and massive cocktails; a preserved German leg of pork on a spike adorning one end of the bar from which they cut paper-thin slices for appetizers; good pasta, surprisingly (rarer in Japan than you'd think); and finally just a chill atmosphere.
I couldn't stay too late due to my kitten situation and took off at about 11PM. It's about a three minute ride back to my pad, but I learned a valuable lesson in just that short time. I guess I'd never done it before, surprisingly, but alcohol and roadbikes really don't mix well. No catastrophic accident here I assure you, but man was it hard to keep my balance at slow speeds and control the thing when the equilibrium is off just a bit. No more of that for me--if I crashed Honey Flash (my name for the bike this week, subject to sudden change) I'd be beside myself, as well as completely screwed as far as transportation.
The Spread. The two in the back are Goto-san and Hiramatsu-san
The mayor and I
Michi, the P.E. teacher and I
Seriously, the room erupted in dance for no reason
A really bad shot of the kitten. I can't get good lighting with the crappy incandescents here. Notice the eyes, if you can see them--what the hell is that? It's doing much much better now, not wheezing anymore, eating well and meowing much less.
--Matt
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