A Day with Natsuho

Last Saturday was a holiday in Japan called Culture Day.  So, Aaron had the day off.  None of my students were able to make it to class that day.  A few had other plans, one had to study for some tests, and another was sick.  So I got the day off as well, and we took advantage of it. 

We met up with our friend, Natsuho.  It'd been a long time since we'd seen him, so it was a meeting overdue.  Natsuho showed us this cool curry place in downtown Sendai.  It had some interesting dishes that were a little different from the typical Japanese curry place.  Aaron and I both got the tandoori chicken.  The curry was excellent, but the coolest thing was seeing little people hanging around all over the place.  Literally.  They were so cute.  Hanging on the cash register, potted plants, napkin dispensers, and so on.  We ate and chatted about random things and just caught up.  

After curry, we decided to check out the arcades.  We actually tried out two.  Both were called Taito Station.  The first one was pretty small, but the second was much bigger.  First we hit the 5th floor.  Yes, the arcade had 5 floors!  The top floor was the Dart Floor.  Normally I associate darts with bars and billiards, but I guess in Japan they're considered an arcade game.  Aaron and Natsuho duked it out while I just took pictures of the arcade.  I was happy to sit on the soft pleather couch.

 

After playing several rounds of darts, we headed back to the first floor, which was the crane game section.  There were so many crane games with every type of prize you could think of.  Very type of plush toy, t-shirts, collector figurines... the most disturbing was the slutty school girl statues.  In front of the arcade was a taiko drum game.  Aaron and Natsuho duked it out again.  Natsuho was very good.  I think Aaron didn't quite understand all the rules of the game, and neither did I!  But I think they enjoyed it.

There was also an air hockey game on acid located on the first floor.  It's like your normal air hockey game, except that it shoots a hundred pucks at you at the same time and you have to get them all in the opponents goal.  It looked really fun.  

While they played their air hockey match, I was capturing all the craziness of the arcade.

THE CLAWs look like alien robots!

And I found this lost Rilakkuma wandering the place.

Aaron about to take his first shot.

After the arcade, we walked to a bowling alley that was not too far away.  It was located on the 5th floor of a building in downtown Sendai.  I was so surprised that anyone would put a bowling alley on the top floor of a building.  I wondered how people on the 4th floor, or the entire building for that matter, managed with all the noise from above.  I was also surprised by how nice and clean and modern it looked.  Usually every bowling alley I've seen in America is old, dirty, and dingy.  But this one looked really updated.  Unfortunately, the smell of smoke was still there, like every other bowling alley, or public place in Japan for that matter.  But it was much more bearable since there weren't too many people there.

The first game we bowled was horrible.  Aaron and I both scored under 100.  It was honestly the worst game I've bowled since I was about 10.  I think I got a 62 or something really embarrassing like that.  The second game was much better and I got a 123 and I actually managed to get some strikes and spares.  The third game I think I got a 119.  My legs and hand were already tired by the time we reached our third game.  I think I got like 5 splits in that game!  It was pretty terrible, but it beats a 62.  Natsuho was very good.  He consistently got strikes and spares.  He definitely killed us.  But it was a lot of fun.  In the end, the bowling alley printed out our scores.  They recorded what we got in each frame and all the exact pins we knocked down.  It was pretty cool.

What the monitor looks like in Japanese.  I'm in the middle.

While walking outside we also saw a funny dressed man.  When we looked at him, we noticed he was holding up a sign advertising his ramen shop.  It was Tenkaippin!  Our friend, Dave, works at Tenkaippin in Hawaii and it was a place we would visit after going to the beach in the summer.  I had to get a picture with him.  After bowling, Aaron was really curious about it, so we checked it out.  I was still full from the curry, so I just sat while he ate his miso ramen.  Unfortunately, I'd say that Hawaii's Tenkaippin is much better.  Aaron regretted it later.  Even so, the whole day was a lot of fun.

Aaron enjoyed bowling so much, he wants to do it again as soon as possible.  Natsuho is a fun guy to go bowling with.  While we were bowling, he mentioned he had a girlfriend.  It'd be great if we could arrange a double date.  As for me, I really like bowling and I was pretty disgusted at myself for getting such a terrible score the first time around.  I also had much less control over the ball then I used to.  Getting some practice would be a good idea.  But I'm also significantly older than I used to be.  At least that's what my body's telling me.  I was sore for the next two days from bowling.  From bowling!  Now that's a little sad.  That means I need to start exercising more.  Natsuho also mentioned his girlfriend works at a gyutan (cow tongue -- Sendai's specialty) restaurant.  I don't really like gyutan, but I suggested we all check it out together one night.  I don't know when we'll next get to see him, but hopefully, it'll be soon.  It was nice to get a full day off and spend time with a Japanese friend.

Aaron, me, and Natsuho.