Accidentally on Purpose
...written on 2001-01-06, @ 22:34:25
Tales of Kim's Life in Japan
Sat January 6, 2001
After hitting the hay around 2am, I rolled out of the futon about 10 or so. I had 4 servings of grits for breakfast, all in one big blue bowl.
Today was my day to go to the library and return my overdue books and video. I was hoping things would go as well as they did in Criminal Behavior. I had to dress warmly for the bike ride over, but I knew inside the library would be steaming hot, so I didn't want to overdo it.
Once again I returned the materials with no penalty. After browsing the English language books on the second floor and picking a cookbook to check out, I went to the 4th floor to watch a laser disk movie. I thumbed through the selection and picked out "The Horse Whisperer" since I had never seen it.
I went up to the lady at the desk and gave her the disk. She pointed to the machine that I was to use to input the movie code, how many people wanted to see the movie, how old I was, where I wanted to sit, etc. She had to come and help me do all that since I didn't understand the Japanese.
I settled into one of the pair of chairs in front of station 11. I could hear the show going on in the station next to me better than I could hear my own movie, so I went up to the woman and tried out a new verb form I had learned the other day, "verb" + "nikui". Nikui means "hard or difficult to do". I got the form right, but I used the wrong verb, haha. Instead of saying that the movie was "hard to hear", I said the movie was "hard to write". Buddha bless her though, the woman got my meaning, said the phrase like it was supposed to be said, and then turned up the volume on station 11's tuner.
I was so sleepy, the room was so warm and the movie was so slow and the volume still too low, that I slept through a good part of the middle portion, but I woke up enough to watch the rest. I went back down to look at the books some more and then I went to Yanagen department store.
Now that I have some Japanese cooking books, I am in the market for some Japanese cooking utensils. I browsed around and found a couple of things, but I either couldn't find some important ones or else they were too expensive. I went downstairs to the grocery and bought some goods and walked home since it wouldn't all fit in my bicycle. I'm glad I live close by!
After I put up the groceries, I went back to get my bicycle and to see if a particular shop up the street was open. It wasn't, sheesh, Saturday night and the shops downtown close at 7:00! So I turned down a side street, went a ways and then turned left when I got to my street. I was just passing my hair salon when I peeked in and saw my hair dresser, Hideki. He had his head down and didn't see me, so I doubled back on the other side of the street and parked my bike in front of the Shinto shrine across from the salon.
I took off my helmet and nonchalantly leaned against the pillars of the front tori gate. 'I wonder if this is rude, lazily leaning against the tori like this?', I thought and shifted my position to an inside railing. I could still see the front door of the salon, but I had acquired a couple of curious onlookers. You see, no matter how nonchalant I could try and be, a foreigner, a woman foreigner no less, with a helmet, standing in the shadows at a Shinto shrine, pretty much sticks out like chopsticks in rice at a Japanese funeral.
I looked at one of the men watching me. This guy was young. I had surprised him when he saw me as he looked up from what he was reading as he walked along the sidewalk. He stopped just past the shrine right in front of Mod's Hair. He was waiting too. 'Hmm,' I wondered to myself, 'could we be waiting on the same hairdresser?' I thought back to the day when Hideki had his hands in my hair and remembered that he said that he liked girls. I had just begun to crinkle my eyebrows and narrow my eyes at this interloper when a shiny black car with a woman driving pulled up and took the young man away. Good!
The other man who was watching me had passed me twice already. He had run onto the grounds of the shrine and through to the other side of the street and a few minutes later came back again. He was wearing a long black wool coat and a white surgical mask (Japanese usually wear these masks when they have a cold so they don't spread germs).
I got back on my bicycle and debated whether I should be standing, sitting, or riding when I "bumped" into Hideki on his way out of the salon. I pushed off and went riding down the street to change my lurking position. I pulled up on the same side of the street as the salon and rested my foot on the sloping driveway and waited some more. The guy watching me disappeared and I forgot about him until I saw him run past me again and look back nervously. What is his problem? I thought. Then it occurred to me.
When I was at the shrine I was trying to read the purple sign surrounded by flashing gold lights that hung over the door next to the salon. It took me a couple of tries, but I finally deciphered the name of the joint to be "Nice Girls" . Below it was another sign that said "only $30". The guy looked back and forth at me and the door and finally went in. Ha, he thinks I'm spying on the club! That made me wonder if he was really sick at all or if that was just a disguise he used to go into the club. Well, he came out a little later to smoke a cigarette and pulled the mask down and still kept staring. I suppose you would too, I mean afterall, I was going on over half an hour waiting for Hideki out in the cold night air. His boss had already left in this silver Alpha Romeo roadster, but Hideki was tarrying. I was getting restless too I might add, I just wanted to say "Happy New Year" and invite him to have a drink with me sometime.
By this time my watcher had finished his cig and went back inside the club. I had decided to throw in the towel and go home and pushed off from the sloping curb to ride one last time past the door of the salon. The next scene should have been in a movie.
I crossed the street and was on the sidewalk getting ready to maneuver between two cars and a van parked there, when out in front of me, on his own bicycle, shoots Hideki! Now people, I didn't have to feign surprise because I WAS surprised! Hideki heard my brakes squealing and my gasped "Oh!", turned his head and saw me, smiled, stopped his bicycle, and then turned to greet me. :::Insert a guilty-pleasure-filled-oh-thank-buddha-it-went-my-way laugh here::: as I wished him a happy new year. He said the same and asked me if I was heading home. Yes, I replied, I was. I told him I lived close and pointed to my building. I asked him if he'd like to go have a drink with me. He said something that I didn't understand and when he saw that I didn't get it, said in English, "promise friend" and I got the drift that he had plans. "Zannen" (too bad), I said as I looked down at the ground my heart all aflutter. "Mo kondo" (next time), he said and with an affirmative nod from me and an "oyasumi nasai" (good night) from him, he sped off into the young Ogaki evening. I pedaled me and my big smile home.