Two weeks later

I spent last Wednesday reading about the Adolf Eichmann trial and studying Japanese before going to Red Rock with Amy. We got pretty drunk and then crashed at a friend's place in Kanayama. Amy has been on a kick lately about Carmen, her, and I moving into a place in Kanayama and getting out of Kyowa. It's easy to be enthusiastic about the idea because I don't think its actually going to happen.

We spent all of Thursday together and it was just a perfect day. I am unable to sleep in after a night of hard-drinking and apparently neither can she. We went back to Kyowa on the 9:30 train and hit up Royal Host (see crappy American-style family restaurant) for pancakes. You could just tell by looking at the picture that they were gonna be outrageously small so I outsmarted the menu and got a shrimp sandwich. This guy named Brett called Amy while we were eating and reminded her that they had made plans to meet at Kanayama station in 10 minutes. She flaked on him, but we had just enough time to run home, brush our teeth, and then show up at Kanayama station only an hour and 20 minutes late.

Brett is a cool guy. He works for Nova but he's in another area so I never come into contact with him. His roommate Jeremy works in Okazaki (my area) so I had at least heard of him. Brett is from California and he taught history back in the States before coming to Japan. We borrowed Jeremy's and Jeremy's ex-girlfriend's bikes and went riding. The three of us took a basketball and headed to a half-court near Yaba-cho. We split an extra tall 6-pack and shot around for a little while. I was able to hear Brett's theories on Japan and teaching English. Everyone has their own opinion about Japan and Japanese people and its interesting to hear about it. After that we went to Osu and poked around the trendy used clothing shops. When we got back to his place in Kanayama the sumo matches for the day were starting on NHK so we drank some more and he explained in detail the inner workings of sumo. It was quite educational.

We had a few more beers and then decided to barbecue in the park near his apartment. We went to the grocery store in a giant mall near his place to buy lighter fluid, meat, beer, and chips. The barbecue was a dismal failure. Japanese charcoal is really thick and its hollow. Theres obviously some special way to light it, but I didnt know what that was. I wasn't worried though because Brett assured us that he's a master barbecuer. It turns out: not so much. Despite using an entire can of lighter fluid and plenty of newspaper we couldnt get the damned thing going. Some of the coals got hot but not enough to really cook anything. He put two burger patties on the grill, so Amy and I left him to it and played on the swings. When we got back to check up on the 'master barbecuer' the burger meat was all mushed up and spread out, not to mention barely warm. Close enough. Brett and I ate that and then we wisely gave up before even putting the chicken on the grill. We did manage to eat a lot of chips and drink beer though, so it went pretty well as far as I'm concerned. We cooked the chicken back in his apartment and watched his And 1 tapes before some girl he was interested in showed up. He was clearly entertaining her and we were getting tired and bored anyway. Home together on the train. Probably one of the best days in Japan so far.