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EAST ASIA -- 東亜 japan -- 日本 | |
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STORIES
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AKIKO'S AMBUSH | |
| 日本語OK! Maps Iceland
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I MET A JAPANESE girl called Akiko in Iceland and she invited me to visit her house in Tokyo, which I finally did on Saturday night (September 20, 2003). Actually it wasn't quite in Tokyo, but somewhat west of there -- a city called Hashimoto (橋本 in Japanese characters), another faceless Japanese habitation, although kind of charming in a concrete way. A little more leaf-life and houses than you would find in Tokyo. I met Akiko in Reykjavik, in the youth hostel -- and the fact that I met her in Iceland was an auspicious sign for me, what with the fascination I hold for that strange northern land. I figured that seeing her in Japan would both remind me of an Iceland and give me a chance to talk about what a cool place it was, provide a link between Iceland and Japan. The night I chose to visit her house there was a typhoon going on, which added an eery ambience and plenty of "rain-and-wind" category sound effects to an already eery night. There was also a small earthquake to add its usual mix of fear and wonder, and some people got hurt when the roof of a temple fell down on top of them. I was all set for a good time! I arrived at the house about half-an-hour late, and felt guilty when I realised the whole family has delayed dinner so they could eat with me. There are three generations around the table including the grandmother with gummy mouth, shocking blue hair -- but a winning sense of humour! On TV they were watching a program about these young people going around the fish markets cutting up squids so they could eat the eyeballs, which the grandmother found hillarious. (This last sentence is actually not true -- we didn't watch the squid eyeball program until the following morning, but I am just changing a few things to make the story flow better. Call it an artistic licence!) Getting to the point: dinner progressed smoothly, although I can never eat heartily when I am on a date -- and I kind of assumed it was a date of sorts, it felt like a wierd kind of date. We ate tempura, the Portuguese/Japanese battered fish and vegetable combo which I normally like -- but as I said, I was kinda nervous. 緊張した! After a bit of the usual chit and chat (I thought I performed well, got some laughs and impressed everyone with my poor Japanese!) all the adults announced they were going to bed and disappeared, and it was only me and Akiko left. I was just wondering what was going to happen next!
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