GOODBYE KYOTO MONKEY SIGN, GOOD EVENING OSAKA
March 1st 2009 10:39
I woke up with all my things still unpacked and sprawled all over the place. Trevor was still asleep. I turned the television on and flicked around until I saw CSI Miami dubbed in Japanese; I flicked the channel again to find CSI New York dubbed in Japanese. I pulled out a bottle of whiskey from Trevor’s bag and poured some in a glass and gulped a bit of it down to wake me up. There’s something about drinking whiskey that makes me feel like some sort of sophisticated wise man who wears a suit and hides his sadness and has a big leather chair. I looked around the place: our whole tiny hostel room smelt like cheese snacks and vomit. Trevor grunted, swore at me, fell back asleep. That was our seventh day – the day we were supposed to meet the rest of the group and actually start our study scholarship.
If you haven’t been up to date with everything, I’m in Japan because Vicki introduced me to someone who enjoyed a few of my short stories and decided to grant me a study scholarship to the country. To be joining me was Trevor, who travelled around all over Japan with me for a week prior to the scholarship, as well as one guy and five other girls from a University who I’d never really spoken to.
Trevor and I said our goodbyes to the guy in the hostel as well as some other residents (Germans and Koreans) we’d met, and we hopped over the pedestrian crossings one last time, waved passed our favourite restaurant one last time: we were glum – we thought it’d be the last time we’d see Kyoto. So we stayed a little bit longer; we wondered about the gigantic train station and the gigantic Christmas tree behind its rear, we explored the city behind it. We bumped into this girl I met in a party in Brisbane so we went with them to a karaoke bar and shared free drinks and cigarettes from smiling businessmen. After a few more drinks and awkward kisses and fooling around and wondering about it was nine in the evening and we were already two hours late for meeting the rest of the group. We sang our farewell and zoomed off to Osaka in a shinkansen.
Trevor sort of said something like: “We had our fare share – well I had my fare share – of beautiful women, we drank and met people and learnt things about ourselves and cruised the night towards morning… Dean, this is the life… we truly are spoilt.” Trevor smiled as the bullet train did not rattle. I wanted to thank him for telling me about Coltrane and all the wonders of jazz but I said nothing. Our bullet train stopped. We picked up our big bags and headed out sweating – it was a warmer than Kyoto. We weren’t tired. We checked our watches and asked for directions. We were in Osaka – the real story was just about to begin.
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Comment by Postmodern Critic
Postmodern Critic
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
What is the name of your course? Is it in English?