Oh that Daisuke

Daisuke...

5/23
Being Kara's 23rd birthday on friday, we decided to hit up the old izakaya for a couple drinks and dinner. Before I go on, izakaya is a type of restaurant here in Japan where you can order small plates of different kinds of food and many drinks. More on this later. Being as how we were all running low on the money we had brought over from America since we still hadn't received a paycheck, and as how this is one of the only places to drink in Kimitsu, this was supposed to be the extent of the evening, also given that we had planned to go to Tokyo the next night and party hard there. So we arrive and as soon as we step in the door, there is an older Japanese man, who is quite drunk, about ready to demolish this kid who works there for, I'm assuming, asking him to leave. My heart went out to the little guy because this old man was looking for blood and his buddies didn't look like they were going to stand in the way. So we sit down, try to keep out eyes open for the fight (which never happened) and order some beers.
We were seated next to three Japanese men who appear quite normal at first. By normal, I mean not drunk yet. So we order some food, I was in the mood for some familiar home food so I got two kinds of fried chicken and some fried potatoes. As we sit and converse, our neighbors get progressively drunker until they decide to start arm wrestling. We take notice and cheer for the winner. Once we gave them the slightest bit of attention, the drunkest of the three, we would come to know him as Daisuke, beckoned me over to their table, chanting "champion! champion! you!" He wanted me to arm wrestle his friend, who had a nice set of guns on him. So I try to get out of it, fail, then proceed to get owned by this buff little Japanese guy in arm wrestling. We all take our turns, then start talking to our new drunk ass friends. Kara's Japanese is fairly good so we talked for a little while. So we decide that we are done when Daisuke buys a round of gin and tonics (I was drinking gin and tonic at the time). We stick around a little longer, hanging with Daisuke and crew when he invites us to go karaoke with him. We debate, knowing that the next night in Tokyo will involve even more booze and definitely some Karaoke, but by this time I was buzzed enough to want to see where this night would go and answered for the group a resounding yes. So off we went, skipping down the road with three drunk Japanese guys we had just met to sing karaoke.
A note on drunk Japanese people, because drinking is a big deal in this country and the locals get tanked like you usually only see in movies or college towns. They get regretful drunk. But they are generally very jolly when they are wasted, wanting to meet new people, especially foreigners, and practice their limited English. I leaned a lot about this this past weekend. So Daisuke fits this to a t, picking me up and carrying me down the street within five minutes of us leaving the restaurant. The rest of the walk to Karaoke World involved getting lifted off the ground at random intervals, Daisuke bending over and shaking his ass, him laying in the street or humping light poles, or him full on grabbing my "cash and prizes" and/or ass. Another Japanese cultural lesson. The kids here love to touch the genitals. They go for it all the time, and they also attempt to "check the oil" with a two finger technique similar to holding a pistol with two hands, extending the forefingers out like the barrel of the gun. They will literally spot you down the hallway, signal to you with this two-handed gesture and do everything they can to go right up the poop chute. The adults here, mainly the men, never really seem to grow out of this and also LOVE to talk about how big American penis's are and small Japanese penis's are. I had this conversation twice this past weekend. What usually follows this conversation is physical contact, which as far as I can tell, never comes off as homosexual, but more comedic and playful. As shy as they may be about other things, this is not one of them. So Daisuke and I are walking down the street, arm and arm just being drunk and whatever, and he goes for my "cash and prizes," giving them a firm "how do you do," all the while yelling "Oh, oh, very big, very big, American penis, very big." It sounds like I'm making this up, but I'm not at all. He then points to his own area and yells "Small, small, Japanese, very small." He then tops it all off with a hardy ass grab and then we get to Karaoke World. As sad as this is to say, none of this was alarming to me because this was not my first Japanese rodeo, so to speak.
So the night continues at karaoke, which was fun. Karaoke in Japan involves all you can drink alcohol included in the price, so naturally it turns into a complete shit show. I butchered Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On" (which I'm not quite sure why I sang that song, of all the songs to choose from. Anyways...). The rest of the night basically went like this...Mr. Burly Arms arm wrestling champion passing out in Daisuke's lap...Daisuke waking him up by violently shaking him by the crotch...Daisuke's sober friends picking up the tab for the whole thing (a pretty awesome side effect of being a gaijin or foreigner in Japan)...walking back to the station and Daisuke dropping his pants several times in the streets...Daisuke smashing a glass lantern with his hands...and that was about it. All in all, a pretty good night that started off so innocently.