Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

My weekend in the city.

Friday night was spent at the ubiquitous bar called “Sanctuary”, a place where all the foreigners in Kumamoto get together to leer at other foreigners and listen to Christina Aguilera played back to back with Dr Dre. Having drunk nothing but beer or shochu (strong sake) for the last 3 weeks, cocktails were a welcome change, although my stomach and inner ear would protest otherwise. I stepped out of the dingy underground bar into a night bathed in neon glow, the signs and billboards of incomprehensible kanji hypnotising me as they rhythmically flashed on and off. Geisha’s, drunk businessmen wobbling on bikes and a man dressed as Pikachu advertising an arcade all floated past in the scenery while I made my way through the city. My brain span inside my head as I stumbled back to the hotel at 1am, a time when Kumamoto city was still very much alive. In contrast, I felt like I was going to die.

Saturday was meant to be a day of shopping and spending a decent sized wad of my paycheck, which I had received the day before. I was forced to change those plans upon waking up and realising that I had an obscene hangover. My business hotel spat me out at 10 o’clock since they had no further vacancies, thus plunging me into check-in check-out limbo - the time between the latest check-out of any given hotel, and the earliest check-in of another one.

I passed the time by trying to pacify the thumping hangover that was causing me to occasionally drift into walls and other street furniture. The doors of Mcdonalds cried out to me. The golden arches became as two arms, outstretched, warm and giving. I sat and prodded at my limp pancakes, sausage and hashbrown, letting the greasy lumps of cook-by-numbers cuisine soak up the evil that was still burning at the bottom of my gut.

When I checked into my new hotel, I was ready to fall asleep. I gave a snort of laughter as I realised that whereas the room was of a slightly different size and layout, the bathroom was exactly the same plastic one-piece affair, created by the giant bathroom mould in Hokkaido. I collapsed into bed, savouring the feeling of not being level with the floor when I sleep.

I awoke to find that Saturday was on its way out. Yanking on some clothes I half-sleepwalked my way to the 24-hour convenience store on the ground floor of the hotel. A cup noodle and beef curry donut later, any nuance of queasiness from the hangover had all but totally gone. Roll on Sunday.

On Sunday I thought it would be a good idea to buy a bike. Buying this 10′000 yen bike (about £50) was the most convoluted purchase I have made in Japan so far and took around one and a half hours. I was under the impression that buying a bike was much like buying a tin of beans. You choose, you pay, you leave. However, buying this bike entailed notification of the police, Kumamoto registration, a lengthy demonstration on how to fold it up and a lot of flicking through dictionaries and saying “errr”. This story ends with me leaving the shop feeling slightly depleted but with a huge grin on my face as I pedal my way off round the streets of Kumamoto.

Now Im back at home. Tomorrow is a school day. Once more unto the breach.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 23rd, 2002 at 2:08 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.