Nani desu ka / What?! (on earth is going on?)

Have you ever had someone want to molest your hair on public transport? Keep this relatively clean, please - I'm talking about the hair on your head. If not, I can tell you all about my experiences (yes, plural for a reason). The title of this post pretty much sums up my reaction to this, and a few other events throughout the evening.

However, it also perfectly fits my experience of language learning on my 2nd day at university. We had a different teacher who is very keen to speak as little in English as possible, although doesn't always manage it. As a recent TEFL graduate, I can only commend these efforts. However, there is a need to explain what is going on very slowly and clearly in Japanese and check the class understands this. Because several of my classmates and I had not one clue what was going on. We knew she wanted us to read something. Or maybe, no, it was answer the first question. Or was it just do the example? Oh wait, I'm not even on the right page. Damn.

She'd only just taught us numbers so I half the time I only understood that she'd asked us to turn to a page when the student next to me, Tom F, who has studied a bit more Japanese than I have, began rifling through the handouts. To cut what could be a much longer rant on the frustration of not understanding, I need to study hard this weekend. And hopefully I'm going to make a better, more empathetic TEFL teacher when I go abroad next year.

The afternoon was passed confusion-free and with a stomach blissfully full of very cheap and oishii (delicious) tabemono (food) from the Shimo-tokaido campus. Sadly, this doesn't make for a very interesting blog post. The fun really begins when we all set out to an izakaya (Japanese drinking tavern that serves food as well) in Shinjuku for a party to say goodbye to one of the Japanese volunteer students and to welcome us JLSP students to the fold. First off, we get separated at Shinjuku, one of the world's largest station, and horrendously easy to get lost in. Finally, we manage to regroup and wind our way through the streets near Kabukicho, the red light district of Tokyo. Here's a shot of the Shinjuku at night:

We arrive at a place that looks like a garage but actually contains the izakaya which stretches much wider than its bizarrely nondescript entrance and goes up four floors - it was pretty much a Tardis! I then discover that even though I don't drink I have to pay 3,000yen for this evening. I pray this some kind of good deal, despite the price. After much questioning, I find out it is eat and drink as much as you like for a value up to that 3,000.

I didn't need telling twice. Lucy (another non-drinker) and I began to work away through platters upon platters of food. Fried chicken, fried octopus, fried shrimp, potato salad, octopus dumplings, gyoza (Chinese dumplings), pickled cucumber, braised pork belly, pork belly on sticks, shitake mushrooms, endamame beans... I wish I'd taken a picture. It was soooo good. Tom P also insisted that I drink some plum wine (priestss in training like their drink apparently) and so I managed a glass of that, and duly bowed when I completed it. I wouldn't order it again, but I didn't want to spit it out immediately which is an improvement on most alcohol.

Many introductions and fun conversations later, and the evening was getting late. We left at past midnight, with many people definitely tipsy if not drunk, whilst I was cheerily sporting the latest chopstick look. Sadly, they were only wooden disposable ones which inevitably led to comments that I was obviously pretty cheap...

With fears that we would miss out last train, we made it onto a different line. By this point, many people were a little worse for wear. Axal (on the right) felt somewhat neglected and decided that he should also share in the cuddles:

It was at this point that hair molestation on public transport experience number 2 occurred. Experience Number 1 was in London when a friend and I were attempting to make it back to Richmond on night buses, accompanied by two guys heading the same way and possibly on something more than alcohol. Whilst on this bus, I turn round to find one of the guys has got my hair in his mouth and is chewing it.

Experience Number 2 fortunately involves no saliva. A Japanese man became enchanted with the chopsticks in my hair, asking repeatedly if he could pick one out, and for me to spin round. Now trust me when I tell you it's not a particularly comfortable feeling to turn your back to a drunk person who's trying to feel up your hair. Eventually, I picked out a chopstick and gave it to him in an attempt to shut him up but then he tried to put it back in my hair, almost taking out my eye in the process. Antti, one of the Finnish students, safely returned it to me.

The party should have stopped as soon as we stumbled home. But Tom P called for more drinks in his room and beer-sharing man-love was high:

It was past 3am before I made it back to my room in a frenzied, hyper-state and decided to call England until 4am. It's 1pm the next day now. I am unwashed, coming down with a cold and sorely regretting the late night. But what an evening!