Friday after work my colleagues took me out for some drinks as a celebratory welcoming. I guess they were very happy to have me here because they started buying little bits of food and lots of shots of tequila...yiiikes. I introduced Corona beer to my colleague Rao. There were quite a few people to start with, Takako, Rao, Noriko, Ben, Jega, Anand, Steve T., his fiance Pilar from HR, Steve W., Juliana from HR, her fiance, Dinesh, etc. But everyone eventually dropped off and it ended up being myself, Takako, Noriko, and Jega. They took me to "the gaijin" bar called Heartland. Gaijin is foreigner, and in this area there are a lot of them because of the international companies and embassies and there also are many Japanese girls looking for these gaijin. I'm sure the draw is something about money or the West or something. My colleague Noriko told me not to say what company I work for, because it's a green light for Japanese money-grubbers. But anyway, everyone in this bar was either a gaijin in a suit (me) or a Japanese girl. Nothing seedy or anything, just very odd. We met some other people, two Japanese girls and a Turkish girl and two Turkish guys, and went to yet another place called Muse which had a bunch of different levels. There was a dancing area, bar area, lounge area, dart board area, karaoke room (occupied by some other guys from my company). Then my colleagues went home and I stayed with the other people we met and went to another place called Motown which was way too expensive. I thought we had walked much farther than we had and I wasn't exactly sure where we were. But after leaving, I realized that I was around the corner from my apartment. The streets are so confusing here, there's no grid! It's like the Village in Manhattan but with more tiny little winding streets. Some streets look like nothing but alleyways but if you walk down them you will find the best little sushi restaurants and whatever. I made it back to my place and went to bed. The next morning I had brunch with my manager Steve and his fiance Pilar and another colleague named Bill who is from the States and has been here for just over two months. We ate at a place called The Hobgoblin that has English breakfast type food like eggs, big sausages, toast, etc. Afterwards, I went back to my place to relax since I had not had a real day of downtime for the past month.
