New Town, New Friends, and Lost...

My first night in Kyoto I got in around 5:00. I was hanging out in the lobby area and met a couple guys. There names were Rowan and Alex. Rowan was from the UK but is currently living in Melbourne, Australia. Alex is from Quebec, Canada. We decided we would all get dinner together in Kyotos downtown area.

We spent a good hour just walking around and trying to find somewhere to eat. The problem was that it was difficult to find a place that was cheap, offered a lot of food and had english menus with pictures. Eventually we found a place that we thought met all 3 criteria. They had an English menu, the prices were reasonable and we just crossed our fingers and hoped the meals were of good size. The thing about Japan is that sometimes the portions are incredibly small. I would say that in some cases (okay, many cases) the appetizers in the United States are bigger than the full meals in Japan. I have noticed this in particular at more expensive places.

When we got our food we realized why it was so cheap. The food tasted great. But the portions were tiny. I didn't really feel any different after the meal than I did before. So we headed to the local convenient store to get a more substantial dinner.
This is Rowan after he got some food from the convenient store

After that we headed to a bar to grab a drink. I met an Australian named Chris. Chris was 35 years old and this was his first time travelling by himself. He had just finished a mountain bike excursion across Mongolia. On a whim he decided to come to Japan for about a week. I enjoyed talking with him and hearing his story. He had a 10 year old daughter that he said he was beginning to really miss. Him and the mother had separated. He didn't go into detail but I appreciated his honesty and sincerity. We had a good old fashioned man bond.

From left to right (Chris, Me, Rowan, and Alex)

On the way back Rowan thought it would be a good idea to follow the river for a while. I thought this was a good idea too until we got lost. We were walking on the street to head back to our hostel and all of a sudden all of us realized that something just seemed wrong. It was taking way too long. During this time Rowan had been doing most of the navigating. Alex and I had pretty much remained quiet. I had given one piece of advice that turned out wrong. Eventually Alex spoke up. Since he he had remained silent thus far (meaning he hadn't been incorrect yet) I decided to jump on his ship and let him be captain. Eventually we found our way back.

What did I learn? First off always bring a map of my own. Second, never leave navigation up to the guy that got you lost in the first place. Third, always ask the really quiet guy his opinion. Fourth, I like the slang in Australian English.

Japanese Dance Club

On Friday we went out for “Taw’s last night out in Japan”. To celebrate we went to a club. There were some major differences between this club and club’s in America. One of the key components Japanese culture is that the sexes are pretty segregated. If you walk into a Japanese classroom (any grade level) the students naturally sit with members of their own sex. If you look at a Japanese playground (any grade level) students generally sit and are grouped by their own sex. It was no different in this club. The males dance with the males. The females dance with the females. There was only one male I saw dancing with a female. This was Tim (a fellow teacher at Taw’s school from Los Angeles) and his girlfriend, Yukari. Just so you understand this is now how all clubs work in Japan. There are clubs that are more sexual. But this type of club where heterosexual men dance with one another and heterosexual women dance with one another are not uncommon.

Initially I was thrown off by this. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to dance but not with a bunch of other dudes. But soon a realization crossed my mind “when in rome…”. I then went to dancing. At one point one of the other males turned my way and started doing the dance where they wave their two fingers (in a peace format) across their eyes. He then pointed at me. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do as he was a little bit close for complete comfort. He clearly wasn’t coming on to me. He was simply having a good time. But I didn’t know what to do. Do I get closer? Do I step back? Do I develop my own move? Do I mimic his move? I opted to mimic his move. This apparently was a good decision as he continued to come back my way for some dance action at various times over the next hour.

Another humorous thing happened while in this situation. There were 5 of us at the club: Myself, Taw, Kana, Tim, and Yukari. Tim and Yukari were dancing together. At some point in the night I wanted to dance with a female. It was clear that kana enjoyed dancing as she was dancing. I wanted to dance with her yet I didn’t know if it was okay. She is Japanese. I didn’t know if it would be offensive to her. I sat there dancing (slightly off rhythm) with this game of tug ‘o’ war happening in my head. Do I ask her? Do I just dance with her? Is that offensive? What if she doesn’t feel comfortable saying no? Am I hungry? Do I feel like dancing? In the end, I opted not to dance with her because I didn’t want to offend her. The next day the whole situation made me smile because of the cultural struggle I went through.