So we had this big plan for Saturday and I was supposed to meet these guys at some subway station which had a name ending with a 'Jima' prefixed by the whole of English alphabet arranged in random order with each of the vowels appearing thrice.
The major hitch though, was that the rendezvous was scheduled at 10 am. 10 am...For Chrissakes, 'outtathebed by 10ams on Saturdays' is something thats been banned since the first Geneva convention, but try telling that to the Japanese!
Forgetting the depressing thoughts of having to get up early next morning, I religiously spent the Friday night as they're supposed to be spent. Watched FRIENDS(must've finished half a season I guess) which went on till the wee hours in the morning. Didn't know when I fell asleep. Didn't know when the friggin alarm started ringing. All I remember is that I woke up with a start with an early morning gyaan that something which cant be accomplished by yelling a "f*** you" 20 times at a howling clock can be accomplished with a simple press of a button Christened "Stop".
Anyways, 9:15 am it was.Not a moment to lose. Got ready quickie and made it to the nearest subway station as fast as my legs could carry me. Was just in time for a train which was about to leave. Phew! Got in the train, got a cant-take-this-constipation-no-more ® look on my face, put my iPod on, and waited for my something-Jima station.
1 song, 2 songs, 3 songs, 4 songs...My destination was just 3 stations apart. Heck, the songs were short ones.
Got lost in melodious oblivion priding at the meticulousness that went into my Pod's song collection. Just when I thought I'd traveled long enough for a "Next stop:Siberia", I finally decided to look at the map in the train. Sure enough, holy horny hyenas, we were traveling in the wrong direction or more sensibly put, I'd caught the wrong train!!! Boohoohoo...Cursed myself, got down at the next station and traveled all the way back. Finally reached the meeting point at 10:10 and found my co-adventurers for the day already there waiting for me. Sometimes I just wonder what will it take these guys to slip the schedule by, say just 5 mins...for once atleast. Please. Being in time all the time is so damn boring!
Hayashi-san and Tanabe-san had come equipped with the plan for the day. The first question they asked me was whether I'd had my breakfast. I, eager to make up for the 10 minute delay, replied with a yes almost forgetting that 2 slices of bread and jam was all I'd had for dinner on friday. Realised the gravity of my mistake only when I was told that the plan for the next 3 hours was to go bowling!!!
"Houston, we have a situation. I can hear the Big Ben hammer the maximum hour of the day in my tummy and I've to go bowling"
"This is Mission Control. Give us ur co-ordinates"
"43 N 141 E"
"We have your image. The satellite shows your foot firmly lodged in your mouth. We cant help you out. You are on your own. Over n out!".
After the last hope of getting any food for the next 3 hours faded away, I quietly resigned myself to fate and went bowling.
Bowling was indescribably pathetic. Missing the gutter was becoming a big achievement after a while...C'mon, how better do you expect a hungry guy to bowl. Anyways, the perseverance in guttering paid off..The 3 hour bowling schedule was cut short to 2 and boy, was I elated...
"We go for lunch now?" were the words and I swear it was plain soothing sweet music to my ears!
So we finally headed for lunch. Whenever I or any of my Indian colleagues go out with our Japanese colleagues, we always go to Indian restaurants. But this time, my friends Hayashi-san and Tanabe-san, good lord bless their souls, had chalked up this grand plan to take me to a Japanese restaurant. The plan, despite their best intentions goddamnit, just couldn't have had a less opportune timing!
Finally went to the restaurant with the hope that I'll get something veggie to eat which I realised was a bit too much to hope for. One look at the menu card and I knew it was game over!
I let my friends decide the items for me. The food consisted of Udon(plain noodles) served with something. That 'something' was what we needed to decide.
"Squids OK?" asked Tanabe-san
"Sorry Tanabe-san. I don't eat sea food"(or anything that moves)
"Beef OK?"
(and that includes anything that moos too!)
Finally decided to have the noodles with Soya sauce since there was nothing else I could have it with. Its blasphemous, I tell ya, to have Udon with Soya sauce but thats the price you pay for being a vegetarian.
I rolled the soya sauced noodles neatly on my chopsticks and swallowed it. It beat my worst expectations about how bad it could taste.
Its funny how sometimes even some jokes you've read long ago, help you in a situation. It was in one of such jokes that I'd read that the taste buds are at the tip of your tongue. I put that knowledge to good use and kept shoving the noodles halfway down my throat. It worked. The noodles avoided detection by the buds and I managed to clear my saucerful of noodles..Yippee!
Once out of the restaurant, the best part was that Hayashi-san told me this was only the first phase of the lunch. We then went to another restaurant known for its fruit juices and pastries.Yessssss.... Throwing all the table manners and its likes to the wind, I gulped a couple of pastries and some 3 glasses of orange juice and finally was at peace.
The interesting thing about this restaurant was that there were these girls dressed in pretty frocks who were serving orders(and yes, the place was a decent one). For 1500 yens, you could get a snap taken with them. My friends insisted that I do and so gave it a shot. The snap came out good albeit a total washout for my imagination that I'd look like a James Bond with the Bond babes on either side. I was looking more like a Sylvester Stallone stuck between Mickey Mouse and Bugs bunny!!!
Hayashi-san presented the snap to me in front of those 2 girls, as a memento and said
"Babu-san, please take their picture, bosom"
Excuse me...
"Please take their picture, bosom"
Before I could think of any scandalous interpretations of what he said, there was this waitress who knew a bit of English who told me what he meant was "Please consider their photograph to be precious"
It reminded me of something that had happened with me a couple of days back. There was a design issue in our project which needed to be clarified with our end client. So on the day of the client meeting, my Japanese boss comes to me and says "Babu-san, regarding the doubt that you had asked us, we will arouse the client today". I remember thinking "Dude, there are better ways of negotiating with the client than that. Anyways, if thats how you wanna go about it, keep me out of it!"
Coming back to the topic, we finished our second and final part of the lunch and went roaming around. Visited a beautiful Jinja(Japanese Shrine), shopped a bit and by the time it was over, it was late evening. So that was how the day went. I bid adieu to my friends, thanked them for spending time with me, took a taxi, went home and hit the sack!
That was some Saturday huh!
® : Registered expression of the Japanese Train Commuters Inc. All rights reserved. Copying by permission only.
The major hitch though, was that the rendezvous was scheduled at 10 am. 10 am...For Chrissakes, 'outtathebed by 10ams on Saturdays' is something thats been banned since the first Geneva convention, but try telling that to the Japanese!
Forgetting the depressing thoughts of having to get up early next morning, I religiously spent the Friday night as they're supposed to be spent. Watched FRIENDS(must've finished half a season I guess) which went on till the wee hours in the morning. Didn't know when I fell asleep. Didn't know when the friggin alarm started ringing. All I remember is that I woke up with a start with an early morning gyaan that something which cant be accomplished by yelling a "f*** you" 20 times at a howling clock can be accomplished with a simple press of a button Christened "Stop".
Anyways, 9:15 am it was.Not a moment to lose. Got ready quickie and made it to the nearest subway station as fast as my legs could carry me. Was just in time for a train which was about to leave. Phew! Got in the train, got a cant-take-this-constipation-no-more ® look on my face, put my iPod on, and waited for my something-Jima station.
1 song, 2 songs, 3 songs, 4 songs...My destination was just 3 stations apart. Heck, the songs were short ones.
Got lost in melodious oblivion priding at the meticulousness that went into my Pod's song collection. Just when I thought I'd traveled long enough for a "Next stop:Siberia", I finally decided to look at the map in the train. Sure enough, holy horny hyenas, we were traveling in the wrong direction or more sensibly put, I'd caught the wrong train!!! Boohoohoo...Cursed myself, got down at the next station and traveled all the way back. Finally reached the meeting point at 10:10 and found my co-adventurers for the day already there waiting for me. Sometimes I just wonder what will it take these guys to slip the schedule by, say just 5 mins...for once atleast. Please. Being in time all the time is so damn boring!
Hayashi-san and Tanabe-san had come equipped with the plan for the day. The first question they asked me was whether I'd had my breakfast. I, eager to make up for the 10 minute delay, replied with a yes almost forgetting that 2 slices of bread and jam was all I'd had for dinner on friday. Realised the gravity of my mistake only when I was told that the plan for the next 3 hours was to go bowling!!!
"Houston, we have a situation. I can hear the Big Ben hammer the maximum hour of the day in my tummy and I've to go bowling"
"This is Mission Control. Give us ur co-ordinates"
"43 N 141 E"
"We have your image. The satellite shows your foot firmly lodged in your mouth. We cant help you out. You are on your own. Over n out!".
After the last hope of getting any food for the next 3 hours faded away, I quietly resigned myself to fate and went bowling.
Bowling was indescribably pathetic. Missing the gutter was becoming a big achievement after a while...C'mon, how better do you expect a hungry guy to bowl. Anyways, the perseverance in guttering paid off..The 3 hour bowling schedule was cut short to 2 and boy, was I elated...
"We go for lunch now?" were the words and I swear it was plain soothing sweet music to my ears!
So we finally headed for lunch. Whenever I or any of my Indian colleagues go out with our Japanese colleagues, we always go to Indian restaurants. But this time, my friends Hayashi-san and Tanabe-san, good lord bless their souls, had chalked up this grand plan to take me to a Japanese restaurant. The plan, despite their best intentions goddamnit, just couldn't have had a less opportune timing!
Finally went to the restaurant with the hope that I'll get something veggie to eat which I realised was a bit too much to hope for. One look at the menu card and I knew it was game over!
I let my friends decide the items for me. The food consisted of Udon(plain noodles) served with something. That 'something' was what we needed to decide.
"Squids OK?" asked Tanabe-san
"Sorry Tanabe-san. I don't eat sea food"(or anything that moves)
"Beef OK?"
(and that includes anything that moos too!)
Finally decided to have the noodles with Soya sauce since there was nothing else I could have it with. Its blasphemous, I tell ya, to have Udon with Soya sauce but thats the price you pay for being a vegetarian.
I rolled the soya sauced noodles neatly on my chopsticks and swallowed it. It beat my worst expectations about how bad it could taste.
Its funny how sometimes even some jokes you've read long ago, help you in a situation. It was in one of such jokes that I'd read that the taste buds are at the tip of your tongue. I put that knowledge to good use and kept shoving the noodles halfway down my throat. It worked. The noodles avoided detection by the buds and I managed to clear my saucerful of noodles..Yippee!
Once out of the restaurant, the best part was that Hayashi-san told me this was only the first phase of the lunch. We then went to another restaurant known for its fruit juices and pastries.Yessssss.... Throwing all the table manners and its likes to the wind, I gulped a couple of pastries and some 3 glasses of orange juice and finally was at peace.
The interesting thing about this restaurant was that there were these girls dressed in pretty frocks who were serving orders(and yes, the place was a decent one). For 1500 yens, you could get a snap taken with them. My friends insisted that I do and so gave it a shot. The snap came out good albeit a total washout for my imagination that I'd look like a James Bond with the Bond babes on either side. I was looking more like a Sylvester Stallone stuck between Mickey Mouse and Bugs bunny!!!
Hayashi-san presented the snap to me in front of those 2 girls, as a memento and said
"Babu-san, please take their picture, bosom"
Excuse me...
"Please take their picture, bosom"
Before I could think of any scandalous interpretations of what he said, there was this waitress who knew a bit of English who told me what he meant was "Please consider their photograph to be precious"
It reminded me of something that had happened with me a couple of days back. There was a design issue in our project which needed to be clarified with our end client. So on the day of the client meeting, my Japanese boss comes to me and says "Babu-san, regarding the doubt that you had asked us, we will arouse the client today". I remember thinking "Dude, there are better ways of negotiating with the client than that. Anyways, if thats how you wanna go about it, keep me out of it!"
Coming back to the topic, we finished our second and final part of the lunch and went roaming around. Visited a beautiful Jinja(Japanese Shrine), shopped a bit and by the time it was over, it was late evening. So that was how the day went. I bid adieu to my friends, thanked them for spending time with me, took a taxi, went home and hit the sack!
That was some Saturday huh!
® : Registered expression of the Japanese Train Commuters Inc. All rights reserved. Copying by permission only.
