The Welcome Party

Today was a good day. Really. I'm not missing the other two words from that sentence. Today was a good day.

Again, I overslept. That, because I couldn't sleep in the evening, again. But I learned from my tutor today that it was not required to show up at 9 am - indeed, few people do, and that's why they stay so late (in addition to "custom"). I spent my day hacking at an algorithm we talked about at the book club, so that I can understand it better and remember it longer. Then a lot of people were going to lunch together, and asked me if I wanted to tag along. Sure! So we went to a traditional Japanese fish restaurant. There's three set courses each lunch: baked fish, cooked fish and raw fish. So I picked sashimi, simply because it was most unfamiliar. It came as a bit of a shock that I was the only one subscribing to that option, but I bravely persevered.

It was quite Yummy. I got three pieces of something and three pieces of something else, and one of those might have been a yellowtail, and the other might have been some kind of a snapper. It would help if I even remotely knew what those were even in English, but alas, no - so it's just six pieces of Fish. There was also a bit of wasabi, and soy sauce, and some unidentified but probably pickled vegetables, some glass noodles, a bowl of rice and another bowl with miso soup. When I asked whether they ate misojiro before or after the fish, I got a simple and very Japanese answer: "during".

Still, it was a bit difficult for me - I managed seiza just until the meal arrived, then switched to cross-legged position. One leg was properly numb by mid-course, so I switched again to give the other leg the chance to experience the same adventure. In the end, I stuck my leg out in front under the table, hoping I won't ending up playing footsie with the Korean guy across the table, but everything went okay. No subtext, no subtable...

I made plans to go check out the gaming Wednesday in the Yellow Submarine (a gaming outlet). However, it seems they no longer play games in both shops, but only in the one I haven't gone to. In the meantime, my tutor called me (my first incoming phonecall!) and told me there was a welcome party for the newcomers in his dormitory, which is about 50 metres, or 7 minutes, away from my dormitory. (An aside: 50 metres or 7 minutes?!? The thing is, the buildings are next to each other, but the entrances to their courtyards are in fact quite far from each other.) I apologised because I couldn't possibly get there on time - especially since I needed to shower again before I could go meet new people. It's so bloody damp here, the humidity is killing me - and I can't even imagine what I'll be going through come summer. And the locals don't even sweat it. Sure, here and there you can see an old riiman wiping his face with a handkerchief, but it's more an exception than a rule. And from what I heard from other gaijin (I'm gaijin, so I'm allowed to say it - kind of like "nigga" being considered an insult from anyone except from a black person), I'm not really an exception. The Southeast Asians have apparently adapted.

So, I was in Shinjuku, at a wrong place. While I was there, I might as well have a browse for a minute or two, I thought, so I took a quick look around the Yellow Submarine - and then I saw an arcade.

The arcade was amazing. I mean, it's just various video games, but I haven't felt such a wonder about video-games since I was in Piccadilly Circus twelvish years ago (which is when I first saw Virtua Fighter, and the game that spun you around - can't explain better than that at the moment). I mean, there are plenty of amazing games available on personal computers, and they get amazing-er and amazing-er all the time, but you generally know what your computer was capable of - the PC games don't really have revolutionary stuff that often.

Here I saw two games that made me widen my eyes and stare for a bit. The first one was DVX or some other TLA, which was controlled by a stick, three buttons, and a touch screen, all at the same time. The second was Sangokushi Something, which is a collectible card video strategy game. I kid you not. You buy cards, make armies from the cards you have, and deploy them on the surface of the game. The game knows where your cards are. Each card represents an army unit, which takes its orders by how you position the card. If you turn the card by 180 degs, the lil guys will do about face. And if you push the card forward, the guys march to meet the enemy. The battleground corresponds to the play area, so you actually control all units' movements by shuffling the cards around the table. It was totally cool to watch, but then I remembered the party and my soaked shirt and decided I better shuffle myself.

The party was fun. There were various people from various countries, some were newbies and some were oldbies, I met many of them but few names stuck. They'll just have to throw them at me harder. In particular, a Serbian girl was delighted to finally have someone who'll understand her native speech (natsukashii naa...), a wacky Korean invited me to her birthday party on an indeterminate date, a Bulgarian guy studying the same stuff as I do gave me his phone number so I can get some cool books from him, and a strange-in-a-good-way gothy girl who apparently holds Japanese classes around here was all gothy and strange, but in a good way. Loved her hat.

I apparently missed the first party, when people were doing little cultural presentations (among those, my tutor and 9 other Japanese doing some kind of a dance), and I passed on the fourth party, the one in the Russians' room where they started moving when we were being kicked out from the third party.

Tomorrow I'll oversleep intentionally, I think, and stay later in the lab. Not hurrying anywhere tomorrow. So, that's what I'll do. Yep, that's the plan. Uh-huh. Oversleep.

If I can.