Japan Happy Adventure Fun Time: Nico's Tanjō-bi!

Now that I have reached the ripe old age of 22 I definitely feel that old-agey kinda wisdom seeping into me. I expect most of my blog posts from now on to be full of thoroughly considered reflections and hints of cynicism. Kelsey 's been dealing with old age a lot longer than I, which probably explains why she wanted to co-author this post with me; got to show me the ropes, and all that.

Birthday celebrations are interesting things when your birthday falls on a workday while you have a full time job, and asking for a day off requires a mountain of paperwork, google translate, and four go-betweens. In the end we opted for something split between Sunday the 11th and a little bit on the 12th after work.

Step one was sightseeing on the 11th! Well, not exactly that. Even on birthday eves we are still busy people over here, so we went to the International Centre to get Kelsey her library card. Along the way we saw some sights, which counts as sightseeing, right? We didn't intend on snapping any photos of our day at that point, but the scenery was just too wonderful not to stop and take a picture.

Preeeeeettttyyyyy.....

Also pretty!

After that it was off to downtown Sendai! Someone must have informed the authorities about my birthday (though they were off by a day), as Sendai hosted a jazz festival that weekend which filled the streets with tourists and curious locals. And music, though not always jazz. It was really interesting to hear the street performers (almost always Japanese) sing in English, despite the fact that they and probably most of those listening couldn't speak it. Maybe their vocabulary is completely limited to the words in the song? If that is the case then having a conversation with some of them would be very interesting; try and guess which song they know based on their English ability!

It's tanabata all over again!

Jazzy musician.

Japanese lady in front wearing black? Totally staring at Kelsey.

We had to eat too, of course. But where would we go? We were in the bustling downtown area of a major foreign city overflowing with people from out of town. New flavours and aromas surrounded us, and our youthful sense of adventure perhaps at its lifetime peak. A major festival was taking place, resulting in numerous street vendors to set up shop and clamour for our attention. At the end, however, there was really no choice. We went to Subway.

Subtle menu differences. Like all that Japanese writing.

Looks legit...

Tastes legit....ohhhh yessss....

Refreshed and with our tummies full, we headed over to one of Sendai's major parks (kotodai-koen) where the majority of activity seemed to be taking place. There were quite a few stages and areas set aside for musical performances, and an even greater amount of spaces occupied by stalls for all manner of goods; mostly related to eating or drinking. It's not a street festival without alcohol, but for some reason the tent Kelsey and I frequented (yes, there was more than one trip) seemed to have a chronic shortage of customers. It's a little awkward ordering a drink when you are the only customer and there's fifteen people behind the counter, to say the least. Maybe everyone else knew something we didn't? Did we stray into the non-alcoholic beverage tent by accident?

Parks are popular places in Japan. Especially when they serve alcohol!

The inevitable result of indecision at the time of ordering.

Kelsey gives Cassis-Orenji a 5/5!

This charming local band of musicians brought to you by The Coca-Cola Company!

I (Nico) was also to be featured at the festival with my little-heard-of group "Nico and the Gypsies", but I unfortunately didn't show up for the gig. Riots may have ensued.

They didn't want to accept the perfectly reasonable demands in my 700-page contract.

A fair bit of time was spent there, taking in the sights, finding interesting things, listening and watching performers, and of course drinking. As far as street festivals go (I am not an expert) it seemed to have everything you could want. Happy people, stuff to do, good (sometimes just okay) music, and things to see.

Some festival-goers were less interested in the festivities.

Some were interested, but needed some help.

We met up with a bunch of others JETs who were also there at a statue of a mom dropping her baby - okay not exactly depicting that, but it does look that way if you try - and headed out to go find a place to eat. Being the terribly unoriginal people we are, we chose to go to the Thai restaurant in downtown Sendai that was mentioned in our last post. To be fair, the others hadn't been there before; we were merely introducing our fellow colleagues to it! At the restaurant, we were sent upstairs to a room we didn't know existed and cramped together in the far corner of the room. To our dismay, there was no sign of air conditioning and authentic Thai music was irritatingly blasting in the background. We were beginning to question our decision to come there when we discovered that to order our food we needed to write on pieces of paper and clip it onto a contraption of sorts in the centre of the room. The folds of paper would be sent straight down into the kitchen - you could even see the cook if you looked down from where the contraption was. Somehow this brightened our spirits, and soon afterwards the alcoholic beverages arrived and the air conditioning was up and running.

The boys getting cozy in the cramped quarters.

Send the orders down!

After a delicious meal complete with alcohol and a random outburst of "Happy Birthday" sung by the JETs for the second time that day (what is the fascination with embarrassing someone on their birthday?), it was time to head out to find a bar(s) to continue the celebration.

Perhaps a few too many? Nah....

Definitely too many...

After work the next day, on the actual birthday (it was the 12th in Japan, at least!), we had a fancy dinner at an Italian restaurant downtown. With our bellies full and smiles on our faces, we headed out to walk around downtown for a while. When we caught an arcade/games store out of the corner of our eye, we knew what we had to do: the photo booth was calling us. After taking a number of silly pictures, trying on some hats and wigs (they suit us very well, no?), and failing completely at a DJ arcade game. it was time to rise to the challenge of the claw game. We wasted money (the exact amount need not be uttered) on trying to win a stuffed toy from one of those claw machine games where you have to manoeuvre the arms and grab a toy. Almost always a rip off, right? Well on this night we conquered the claw - success was ours at last! It must be birthday luck or something.