Day 11 (Dinner with My Landlord and Other rich Men) - March 30, 2008

Day 11 - Dinner with My Landlord and other Rich men

So I thought today was going to be a quiet day when I would stay in and rest. Well it was for a while until I got a call from the front office of the hotel saying that I have lunch at 12. So I asked, "What is the cost?" They told me 8000 yen so I quickly said, "No lunch no lunch"and hope they understood. Shortly after this, the real estate man who was at the place that I would be getting the apartment from, came up and said lunch time lunchtime. I however didn't recognise him and thought he worked at the hotel and wanted me to pay for lunch so I again said "no lunch no lunch". He then had a slightly disappointed look on his face then he said "I pay for lunch". This was when I recognised him so in my head I was like, "OOhhh now I get it". So I asked him for 5 minutes to get ready.

He then told me that the owner of the hotel I am staying in, is his cousin...so they both took me to have lunch in a restaurant place where the three of us sat on the floor. My feet were cramping the heck out of me and I had to be there smiling and nodding. The food was some sort of vegetable pizza with some noodles-looking thing which was extremely hot and I saw the men slurping it away with the chop sticks. The real estate guy was saying to me "Eat eat". Now this thing was extremely Hott and I was like using the chopsticks and trying to do what they were and when mi seh di ting hot and did a bun mi up but mi haffi gwaan like everything was ok and there shaking mi head away.

The real estate guy then left me with his cousin, the hotel owner and said he will come back to take me for dinner at 6:00 pm. So the hotel owner guy took me to a plaza where he was buying some stuff. I eventually bought a glove, 2 alarm clocks and an extension cord which all came up to about 3000 yen. He then dropped me back at the hotel.

Now remember the real estate guy said he would come for me at 6:00 pm for dinner. This man came knocking at my room door at exactly 5:40 pm telling me "dinner dinner". Mi seh bwoyy dem man yah serious. So I asked him for 2 minutes to get ready. He then took me to this small bar-looking place where some older men were eating and drinking away. When I say older men I mean di man introduced mi to the men there and one of them was like 88, the other 83 and another 60. I am pretty sure that none of them were younger than 55. There were about 6 of them in all and a lady that supposedly was the owner of the little place. Now all these old men were wealthy guys. One of them owned a gas station line, another was some head of some big place while another was some important government official. So this was like some sort of hang-out spot of a set of rich old guys.

They shared out some vegetable looking thing for me and said "Eat eat" and all of them were there steering at me while I was like a scared dog looking into their eyes with the chopsticks in my hand. I then tasted the vegetable looking thing and it was like biting into a scotch bonnet pepper and each time i chewed, it became hotter and my facial expression I think showed that it was extremely hot and they all were there laughing away... then the bar tender looking lady then dropped a tall cup of beer on the table as well as some vegetable fritters looking thing. And I was like "Lord helpppp!!!" they then dropped some light rum on the table as well. I then saw the 88 year old guy with some tiny eel looking fish and he put one in my plate and mi seh to mi self "Mi nuh like how dem fish yah look at all innuh." suh mi jus eventually lock mi eye and bite it. It was a bit raw but I ate it...I then was trying to ask then what it was and pointed at it again, and without my consent they put another 1 into my plate. So I just stopped trying to ask questions afterward. Then they passed another little cup to me with another set of vegetable-looking thing with strips of meat in it. One of them then said "whale meat yes whale meat". I was trying to stall from eating it but they were all there just looking on. So guess what?? Yes I had some whale and it wasn't too bad actually...tasted like beef :)

So I started wondering how come these Japenese live so long and they drink and smoke like crazy. Research shows that Japanese have the longest life expectancy than any other set of races as the men live on average to 78 and the women 82 there about. And to my dismay, the study says the reason is their DIET. The whale, the raw fish etc etc.

So anyway the bar lady said in Japanese that she is very happy to see me and now I can call her mother. And actually she is the same age as my mother. She was a very nice actually I was told that the people in my town are amongst the nicest in Japan. The men eventually started to touch my hair and basically was saying that they never felt anything like it.

The gas station owner eventually started to gesticulate and talk to me while the apartment man was trying to translate in English. He was saying that he has a daughter who is 27 and very pretty. I really don't know why he was telling me honestly, but anyway... He then gave the lady (my new mother) some money. I see him took out at least 30,000 yen to give to her because he was paying for everyone's food. OOh and they gave me this cartoon-like saving pan thing and all of them dropped some money in there :) I think it came up to like 1000 yen but I am still thankful.

After this the men took me out again and rain was falling outside. These men had me walking up and down and around in the cold weather rain for about 10 minutes then they took me to a karioke place where they gave me more snacks and some whisky stuff to drink. Luckily...all this alcohol that they were giving me was very light. I again started to wonder..How is it that they have a zero tolerance alcohol thing going on but EVERYONE drinks all the time...then I remembered from the training that they said they will drink but definitely will have a taxi to take them home afterward. They made me sing a kareoke song, I choose "I am all out of love" from air supply, because I did not see any other I knew...Plus most of the words I am saying I am pretty sure they have no clue about. But they were still clapping and cheering me on. I noticed that each time a karaoke song ended there was some reggae music in the background playing, I heard some Mavado and Elephant man songs... When the guy around the bar table heard I was Jamaican he started to but his 2 fingers in the air and was like " bap bap"... this was so funny...

They eventually took me out of that place and I saw 2 taxis outside waiting on us. They made the taxi take me back to the hotel which was like right around the road, not even a 30 seconds drive actually. So I got in back at about 10:30 pm.