find and talk to interesting people at random

I found two interesting people today. Actually one was an old Japanese guy who started talking to me while I was trying to get some peace and quiet at Meiji Jingu in Harajuku. And he wasn’t very interesting.

The second guy I met found me instead of me finding him like the goal suggests, but anyway, he was much more interesing than the old guy. The interesting guy was a chef from Norway called Eirind.

I was minding my own business just practising some pool when a guy around my height wearing big pointy shoes and a strange but cool suit walked up to me. Instead of giving him my ‘fuck off’ face I shook his hand and we played pool together. I’m really glad I didn’t give him my ‘fuck off’ face because Eirind was a really cool, down-to-earth guy. We drank beer and shot pool. We laughed at his stories of him losing his credit card in a bar in Shinjkuku on his very first day in Japan. We talked about Norway’s fishing industry which exports a hell of a lot of ‘uni’ to Japan. I forgot what uni is. Fucking popular though. In the end, I took him to Womb, a sweet club in Shibuya, where 2 many DJs where playing. I couldn’t go as I’m not on holiday like he is and I have to go to work tomorrow. Shit. We exchanged e-mail addresss, I told him where the love hotels were, and we bid each other farewell.

Hope to see you again mate.

I owe you two beers.

My boss took my to a hostess club the other night after the staff party. It seemed a pretty expensive place but I didn’t expect to actually meet an interesting person there.

For anybody who doesn’t know, (that is, if anybody is actually reading this) a hostess club in Japan sucks. A lot. You pay a high fee to sit and talk with cute girls (sometimes not even very cute) who laugh at your shit jokes and continuously refill your drink. That’s it. Oh, and maybe you’ll be forced to sing Karaoke by your boss like I was.

As this was, unfortunately, my second time to a hostess club I was less than excited and was seriously regretting joining the after party-party. After we all sat down at our table and the Karaoke catalogue was thrown down before me I met my hostess for the next two hours. Her name was Michelle. Half Japanese and half . . . something else. I was drunk so I can’t really remember. But I do remember having a good conversation with her and even though she began pretending to laugh at my jokes soon her laughter was at least half genuine. Perhaps out of pity as she could see I was uncomfortable at the prospect of singing.

Anyway, I got her phone number and e-mail address, and because I was drunk, I thought this was a good thing. After the free taxi ride home (thanks boss) I had sobered up a little and realised that it’s very normal for a hostesses to hand out her contact details: because she wants you to come back to the club to spend more money. Shit. Well, I’m still e-mailing her, and she did promise to meet me outside the club should our schedules ever allow it (yeah, right).

I really hope I can see her again sober. I really can’t remebmer how cute she was.

Wish me luck.