Nakama getto!
Apr. 23rd, 2008 11:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flameravenSo, earlier this afternoon, I was planning on coming back to my apartment and spending a leisurely evening; by which I mean I was going to come back here and eat instant ramen and spend the rest of the time watching anime, or possibly Doctor Who.
Haa.
The reality was so much better. Zutto tanoshikatta yo.
In fact, I finally succeeded in tracking down the Shingegumi ACT, which is the “street dancing” club I’ve been wanting to join. I had some difficulty at first—I went to the building that was indicated on the little map included with their flyer, and there was no one there except another club, and they directed me to the front of the third building, which is actually the building the language lounge is in. However, I didn’t see anybody meeting out there, so, returning to the lounge, I sent a quick e-mail to the leader of the group, Rika. She sent a reply back that it was a little hard to find them, but if I was still around, they’d be waiting.
So I went out, and practically tripped over them—it seems they practice in a little alcove, which is screened by a hedge of bushes. (I was thinking “mae” meant literally “in front of,” and the place is quite secluded, so it’s not a huge surprise that I missed it the first time around.)
I watched one of their dances, and then started practicing some of the moves myself, and wow, this is going to whip me into shape fast. Lots of jumping around and coordination—my biggest problem with the moves was that I kept mixing up my left and right. In the end, I got most of it, and we started running through the entire dance, and then my biggest problem was that I was out of breath halfway through and started missing the rhythm because I was too tired. Heh. Also, sandals are not appropriate footwear to do what amounts to aerobics in—mine kept half-slipping off my feet, which also tripped me up a bit.
We practiced for over an hour and a half, (and I got there an hour late, at five instead of four!) until 6:40. I was, naturally, pretty tired at the end of it, but fortunately we went to dinner afterwards (as I had suspected we might). Rika drove us to the Joy Café, and although I have no idea where it is I definitely need to find out—the place was incredibly cheap, with great food. I got a tray with a bowl of rice, miso soup, fried chicken (with the requisite shaved cabbage), and the drink bar with unlimited drinks for 650en! It was excellent. The only downside was that the place allowed smoking, which became a little bit of a problem after awhile—the place was popular, as you might expect, and there were a lot of people lighting up.
In the end we were there for over three hours; we didn’t leave until 10:30 or so, and I only just got back. Mostly we talked and talked… there were all the usual questions about where I was from, when I came to Japan and how long I’m staying, and what kind of Japanese food I do and don’t like (Rika was quite sad to hear that I listed natto under the “kirai” category), and then we got into discussions about manga and anime, and video games… we must have spent twenty minutes talking about Pokemon alone. This was the second time that I ended up providing the English names of all the Pokemon for a group of Japanese… who knew my encyclopedic knowledge of those games would end up being so useful?
There was mention of Smash Brothers, and I think I may well have found a new group of people to play that with… which should be quite interesting. Techi said she was a Kirby player, and Rika plays Pikachu… I didn’t hear anything about it from the guys, though.
We talked about anime and TV shows… zodiac signs (after a brief mention of Fruits Basket), which lead to me talking about my job at the zoo last summer, because I was wearing my Indy Zoo shirt, which has a tiger on it (and I’m also the Tiger sign), and how I painted faces there… the club members also paint their faces for the summer festivals, so I may be revisiting my ‘face painter extraordinaire’ skills for that.
Iya…iroiro na koto ga shabeta. Nanikamono oboerarenai. Demo, honto ni, sugoku tanoshikatta yo.
(Forgive me for the occasional lapse into Japanese here. I’ve been speaking mostly that the last four or five hours, and it is occasionally hard to switch back.)
We have practice again on Friday, and then Sunday there’s a mini-festival and barbecue at the school, where there will supposedly be a lot of people performing (also quite a bit of food).
It’s gonna be awesome.
Haa.
The reality was so much better. Zutto tanoshikatta yo.
In fact, I finally succeeded in tracking down the Shingegumi ACT, which is the “street dancing” club I’ve been wanting to join. I had some difficulty at first—I went to the building that was indicated on the little map included with their flyer, and there was no one there except another club, and they directed me to the front of the third building, which is actually the building the language lounge is in. However, I didn’t see anybody meeting out there, so, returning to the lounge, I sent a quick e-mail to the leader of the group, Rika. She sent a reply back that it was a little hard to find them, but if I was still around, they’d be waiting.
So I went out, and practically tripped over them—it seems they practice in a little alcove, which is screened by a hedge of bushes. (I was thinking “mae” meant literally “in front of,” and the place is quite secluded, so it’s not a huge surprise that I missed it the first time around.)
I watched one of their dances, and then started practicing some of the moves myself, and wow, this is going to whip me into shape fast. Lots of jumping around and coordination—my biggest problem with the moves was that I kept mixing up my left and right. In the end, I got most of it, and we started running through the entire dance, and then my biggest problem was that I was out of breath halfway through and started missing the rhythm because I was too tired. Heh. Also, sandals are not appropriate footwear to do what amounts to aerobics in—mine kept half-slipping off my feet, which also tripped me up a bit.
We practiced for over an hour and a half, (and I got there an hour late, at five instead of four!) until 6:40. I was, naturally, pretty tired at the end of it, but fortunately we went to dinner afterwards (as I had suspected we might). Rika drove us to the Joy Café, and although I have no idea where it is I definitely need to find out—the place was incredibly cheap, with great food. I got a tray with a bowl of rice, miso soup, fried chicken (with the requisite shaved cabbage), and the drink bar with unlimited drinks for 650en! It was excellent. The only downside was that the place allowed smoking, which became a little bit of a problem after awhile—the place was popular, as you might expect, and there were a lot of people lighting up.
In the end we were there for over three hours; we didn’t leave until 10:30 or so, and I only just got back. Mostly we talked and talked… there were all the usual questions about where I was from, when I came to Japan and how long I’m staying, and what kind of Japanese food I do and don’t like (Rika was quite sad to hear that I listed natto under the “kirai” category), and then we got into discussions about manga and anime, and video games… we must have spent twenty minutes talking about Pokemon alone. This was the second time that I ended up providing the English names of all the Pokemon for a group of Japanese… who knew my encyclopedic knowledge of those games would end up being so useful?
There was mention of Smash Brothers, and I think I may well have found a new group of people to play that with… which should be quite interesting. Techi said she was a Kirby player, and Rika plays Pikachu… I didn’t hear anything about it from the guys, though.
We talked about anime and TV shows… zodiac signs (after a brief mention of Fruits Basket), which lead to me talking about my job at the zoo last summer, because I was wearing my Indy Zoo shirt, which has a tiger on it (and I’m also the Tiger sign), and how I painted faces there… the club members also paint their faces for the summer festivals, so I may be revisiting my ‘face painter extraordinaire’ skills for that.
Iya…iroiro na koto ga shabeta. Nanikamono oboerarenai. Demo, honto ni, sugoku tanoshikatta yo.
(Forgive me for the occasional lapse into Japanese here. I’ve been speaking mostly that the last four or five hours, and it is occasionally hard to switch back.)
We have practice again on Friday, and then Sunday there’s a mini-festival and barbecue at the school, where there will supposedly be a lot of people performing (also quite a bit of food).
It’s gonna be awesome.
