Takeshi and Company
...written on 2001-02-04, @ 14:56:29
Tales of Kim's Life in Japan
Fri February 2, 2001
Friday, Ivan, Lana and I had the day off. We had made plans with Takeshi, our favorite waiter from Shirokiya (Nights in Shirokiya). We were to meet at the Eki (train station) at 7:30. Chad would get off from work at 10pm and join us later.
We piled into Takeshi's car and went up the street. He honked his horn at a car full of women, his friends, alerting them to follow us. He parked behind Shirokiya and we all got out and walked a block to the restaurant where he had reserved a table for us.
Conversation got off to a slow start, but after I had everyone introduce themselves, things got rolling. Takeshi's friends, Akiko, Naomi and Hazumi, were all pretty, fun and had a good grasp of English. Akiko has been snowboarding for 6 years and invited Chad, Ivan and Lana to go with her sometime (I'm not a real snowbunny type). Takeshi talked about his dream of going to Los Angeles, studying English for a year and never coming back to Japan, prefering to start his own service business in the States. He said he feels Japan is literally just too small for him.
The food was good and the laughs plentiful, but I started feeling woozy as the night wore on. Perhaps it was my new contacts, at any rate, I dropped out of the conversation and started rubbing my temples. After we left the restaurant I had them drop me off at my apartment. The others made plans to go to a pool room and would end up staying out until 3am.
Lana told me later that they all exchanged phone numbers and that we were invited to Akiko's house party next Sunday. That will be fun!