Wrong Lines, Right Lines and Ghanaian Pickup Lines

I'm good at getting lost and today I excelled myself by catching the Yamanote line in the wrong direction. After ten minutes spent happily listening to my IPod I started to question the station names I was seeing. Had I even been to Meguro? Is Gotanda really on my route home?

As we were about to depart Osaki the chirpy intercom lady chimed out "tsugi wa Shingawa, tsugi wa Shingawa" (Next: Shingawa). Now, if I'd wanted to catch the Shinkansen and leave town, Shingawa would have been perfect. Sadly I didn't want to leave town, I wanted dinner, so had to make a mad dash towards the closing door.

I escaped, almost at the cost of a leg, and headed back towards Shibuya. All this faffing around meant that I avoided the rush hour and had a seat all the way to Ikebukoro. And the moral of the story is that, more often than not, stupidity is pays off.

I've been asked to tell you about my fellow students so I will! They're an interesting bunch- the class is comprised mostly of Chinese, Korean and Thai people, with a german, a dutch woman and a Ghanaian who sits in the corner "laying down funky beats" (he literally beat boxes in the middle of class) and trying to butter up the "laydees" (his word, not mine).

I've taken to sitting next to this Ghanaian as he speaks English and the low, African drum beat sounds he emits are quite comforting. Also, some of his lines to the pretty Korean girl (named Minji) on the desk behind us are priceless. On top of that his Japanese is worse than mine and in a class full of Korean speakers- a language very grammatically close to Japanese- his less than instant grasp of new sentence structuring gives me hope.


There is, of course, lots more to be said. I could tell you about today's trip to a sushi restaurant with a few if my classmates or write an article on the glitzy but oh-so-naff Japanese photo booths... However I'm off to see Tokyo Tower then the Imperial Palace grounds tomorrow and need my rest.

Oyasuminasai!