Japan II
September 30th 2003 -
Japan II
Today’s mission of silliness worked only in the broadest sense: I convinced Craig and Griffon that it would be a good idea that, whenever we disembarked from a train, we should shout out to everyone on the train:
“Tsukiatte Kudasatte Arigatou Gozimasu!”
which means, very roughly, “Thankyou very much for sharing this experience with me”. So, we all learned the phrase off by heart, which meant that the other two learned it a great deal better and faster than I did, because I’m crap at languages (but I try harder). Anyway, we got invited to drinks and eats after work, and so we drunk a great deal of beer and ate a lot of food and got onto the train feeling quite tipsy and convivial. And, wouldn’t you know it, about three stops after we hopped on, all the other people from my company who are also visiting, hopped into our very same carriage. What a co-incidence! Really. It really was a bit spooky-ooky, since they weren’t having meetings in even remotely the same place as us.
Anyway, I was getting pretty hyped, because we’d all memorised this phrase and we’d shout it out as we exited the train, and the other members of our company would look strangely at us or laugh. Either was fine.
So, of course, as we got to our stop, I shouted out the phrase as loudly as I could, and the other two had completely forgotten because they were so drunk (or so they claimed) and we hopped off and everyone else laughed. Excellent. Anyway, Craig has promised to shout it out tomorrow evening (we’re taking separate trains in the morning). This time, I’ll let *him* lead.
Other than that, Tokyo is still fun and good. I’ve had lots of work meetings and am rather tired and drunk, so I’m not feeling quite as descriptive as yesterday, but I’m still being delighted and happy at all the marvellous things happening around me here. I like cities. This is a really big city.