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Air Guitar Champion
This photo, along with my words, do not do this man justice I saw the greatest thing today.
I left work at the usual time and plodded through the streets to the station. I was getting my travelcard out of my bag when a sound caught my ears. It was the beatles "Love me Do" which is not the usual sound of Kawaguchi station. I turned around, and there to the side of the station, in full view of hundreds of people was a suited up business man and a small CD player grooving away to the beatles. He wasn't even busking, he was just passing his lunch hour by playing air guitar at the train station. Small things like this are why I love Japan, and this man, this air guitar businessman of Kawaguchi is the inspiration behind my blog today.
Top Five Reasons Why I love living with Sanae in Nishi Kawaguchi of the Saitama Prefecture, Japan.
1. Hotel Zips II It's near my house and it's one of Japans "Love Hotels" (They have Love Hotels everywhere in Tokyo, so young people who live at home until they're thirty can be "familiar" with their boyfriend or girlfriend). Anyway, this one is called Hotel Zips II, they charge you either for 3 hours or the night, It's big and red and blue and yellow and the tackiest thing you're ever likely to see. I just love it. They have a huge sign on top of the hotel that you can see from anywhere in Nishi Kawaguchi and everytime I walk past it I wonder where the original Hotel Zips is. Is it nearby? Did it burn down? Was it really so popular that they had to build the sequel? I'm dying to know. I keep telling Sanae I'm going to stay there when I come back for her wedding next year and she keeps telling me if I stay there then I won't be invited to her wedding. I don't think she means it though.
2. Living in a country that has typhoons and earthquakes makes me feel very brave. I feel as though I'm living in the middle of a natural disaster zone and I am risking my life just by being here. Plus, a few weeks ago when Sanae and I were woken up by a big earthquake at 3:00am, instead of just rescuing the mirror which was dancing across the room and going to bed, we rescued the mirror and then Sanae gave me a middle of the night geography lesson all about volcanoes and I learnt that Mt Fuji is a volcano (honestly, I didn't know that before) and it could errupt when I go there to climb it in July, once again branding me as a brave woman living her life quietly and without show in the face of natural disasters.
3. The locals. Not only do I get my very own nemisis which keeps me alert and on my toes at all time, I also have Giant Bald Japanese Neighbour who as the name indicates; is my giant, bald, japanese neighbour who always nods regally at me whenever I see him on the streets and at the supa. Plus of course, the sporadic air guiitar playing businessmen. Oh, and most of the Locals are used to me now so I don't get many stares, even when I walk down the street drunk singing along to my I Pod and walking strangely pretending I'm in a film clip.
4. The "Lady Bars" Sanae and I call them Lady Bars. Other people would call them Gentlemans Clubs. Undoubtably a few people would call them whorehouses. They're not whorehouses though, they're Lady Bars. There are a ridiculous amount of Lady Bars in Nishi Kawaguchi, Gentleman only establishments where lonely men go to have dinner or a drink and converse with a young, beautiful, skimpily dressed lady. (Or in the case of Pub & Snack on the corner near the main intersection, the gentlemen go to converse with an old scary lady who sneers a lot and serves scary food.) This may seem like a strange reason to love living in Nishi Kawaguchi, but like the earthquakes making me feel like I'm in the middle of a natural disaster zone, the Lady Bars make me feel as though I'm living on the edge in the seedy underbelly of Tokyo. Sadly, to my knowledge the Lady Bars are quite tame, but all the same I enjoy walking past them and giving knowing looks to men going in and coming out of them and feeling like a feisty dame in the wrong part of town.
5. Sanae and I have a strange way of talking that not many people understand. It's not really Japglish as it's more English than Japanese, but I like that we can have whole (but very short) conversations in which I will speak only japanese and Sanae will speak only english. We also have a lot of our own words which are two words combined together to mean something else like "lazy rice", "lady bag" and "ten/five pizza"
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Kelly
non-member comment
Hilarious
So funny babe, I love reading you're blog. I wish I was there to see the sir guitar man!