Saturday, pool, fireworks

M. and I just had a somewhat surreal, interesting night out in Ube. The other teacher's who don't teach on Saturday went off to Akioshidai to see the fireworks, while we couldn't even manage to get to the local fireworks since we worked until the time they started.

Class today was nothing memorable with the exception that I played janken several times with various children, and later in the evening, with an older man. Go figure. So, anyway, I headed off to kickboxing like usual to see if I could get through the firework traffic. It was nonexistent where I needed to go thankfully, so I trained for a short amount of time, and oddly enough got to watch a lot of the fireworks out the gym windows since we were on the second floor. They were quite nice. We were let out early so we could beat the traffic back so I headed back to my apartment and we waited around a bit for the traffic to die down before heading back in Ube.

We parked in the somewhat main area then set out to walk around and examine the many fascinating bars (An Evening Frustration?). It was a sort of combo low level red-light district, drinking, and food. It was so neat to see them selling late night sushi to the drunks. We wandered for awhile, catching the tail end of the yukata wearing fireworks crowd. Then we walked by one of the most dingy looking places I've ever seen in Japan with a faded sign indicating it was a pool hall. We were intrigued so we headed up and sure enough there were nice tables and racks of ques, along with faded, ugly banners, ashtrays, cheap ramen and a wall of trophies. We figured, why not? and got a set of balls and ques and an assigned table (after discovering it was about 6 dollars to play for an hour, or maybe for as long as we want... no idea... or maybe for the first time we play? meh. the guy's japanese was confusing). Anyway, we played one game (I won, but only by luck since we both suck *L*) and were served coffee (which was weird). We were in the middle of a second game when the guy running the place came over and asked if we would allow a Japanese person to have a go (in Japanese). I kinda couldn't figure out if he meant we had to give up the table, or if the guy wanted to join us but it turned out to be the later.

So, then we're joined by this older man who is obviously very familar with the place and is going to cream us *L* We played two on one and we're both pretty sure he missed a lot of his shots on purpose so as to prolong the game. (Another weird thing is that everyone who played regularly wore gloves and this guy was obviously pretty good in that he kept a glove there or something.) In the meantime, he chatted with us and gave us his business card, and offered us as many snacks as he could (including dried fish which he kept in a little bag in his pocket...). He asked us to call him Aki-chan too, which was just... weird. Still, we had a lot of fun, and we actually won which definately tells you he let us. We refused another game, telling him we had to go and headed off into the streets, where of course, we encountered the Nova people (they're everywhere, I tell you). We had a good time talking to them and they showed us a nice bar that was too crowded for us to go in, so we headed off to do some more walking, which was nice other than the drunk that followed us for awhile. Also got hit on by a random guy. It's kinda funny to watch someone try to chat you up while drunk and not able to speak more than a few words of English...

Next time it'll be darts, I think. Still, a pretty cool, if a bit strange night.

Saturday, pool, fireworks

M. and I just had a somewhat surreal, interesting night out in Ube. The other teacher's who don't teach on Saturday went off to Akioshidai to see the fireworks, while we couldn't even manage to get to the local fireworks since we worked until the time they started.

Class today was nothing memorable with the exception that I played janken several times with various children, and later in the evening, with an older man. Go figure. So, anyway, I headed off to kickboxing like usual to see if I could get through the firework traffic. It was nonexistent where I needed to go thankfully, so I trained for a short amount of time, and oddly enough got to watch a lot of the fireworks out the gym windows since we were on the second floor. They were quite nice. We were let out early so we could beat the traffic back so I headed back to my apartment and we waited around a bit for the traffic to die down before heading back in Ube.

We parked in the somewhat main area then set out to walk around and examine the many fascinating bars (An Evening Frustration?). It was a sort of combo low level red-light district, drinking, and food. It was so neat to see them selling late night sushi to the drunks. We wandered for awhile, catching the tail end of the yukata wearing fireworks crowd. Then we walked by one of the most dingy looking places I've ever seen in Japan with a faded sign indicating it was a pool hall. We were intrigued so we headed up and sure enough there were nice tables and racks of ques, along with faded, ugly banners, ashtrays, cheap ramen and a wall of trophies. We figured, why not? and got a set of balls and ques and an assigned table (after discovering it was about 6 dollars to play for an hour, or maybe for as long as we want... no idea... or maybe for the first time we play? meh. the guy's japanese was confusing). Anyway, we played one game (I won, but only by luck since we both suck *L*) and were served coffee (which was weird). We were in the middle of a second game when the guy running the place came over and asked if we would allow a Japanese person to have a go (in Japanese). I kinda couldn't figure out if he meant we had to give up the table, or if the guy wanted to join us but it turned out to be the later.

So, then we're joined by this older man who is obviously very familar with the place and is going to cream us *L* We played two on one and we're both pretty sure he missed a lot of his shots on purpose so as to prolong the game. (Another weird thing is that everyone who played regularly wore gloves and this guy was obviously pretty good in that he kept a glove there or something.) In the meantime, he chatted with us and gave us his business card, and offered us as many snacks as he could (including dried fish which he kept in a little bag in his pocket...). He asked us to call him Aki-chan too, which was just... weird. Still, we had a lot of fun, and we actually won which definately tells you he let us. We refused another game, telling him we had to go and headed off into the streets, where of course, we encountered the Nova people (they're everywhere, I tell you). We had a good time talking to them and they showed us a nice bar that was too crowded for us to go in, so we headed off to do some more walking, which was nice other than the drunk that followed us for awhile. Also got hit on by a random guy. It's kinda funny to watch someone try to chat you up while drunk and not able to speak more than a few words of English...

Next time it'll be darts, I think. Still, a pretty cool, if a bit strange night.