In the summer we often have to go to the beer garden, and hopefully get drunk enough to forget about the heat.
I was invited to a beer garden yesterday for yet another farewell party, this time Nick, who is taking his family back to the UK.
Many of his colleagues were there with their Japanese wives and kids. Julie and I stood out big time, me in my barely respectable mini-skirt and her in her definitely indecent hot pants.
The unfortunate bloke sitting next to the pair of us is Paul from the UK, married with a kid. When he told us he is a photographer, Julie and I exchanged a look in alarm.
But to our great relief, he turned out to be quite normal. With an open smile and self-depreciating sense of humor, he was pretty laid-back and likable. He seemed harmless enough, especially when he portrayed himself as a devoted family man.
We three chatted away easily about anything and everything, but as the beer kept flowing, our initially rather intelligent discussion gradually deteriorated and our jokes became more and more juvenile.
And he changed too. He started to look at me funnily. In fact, he simply couldn’t take his eyes off me, and of course he also took loads of pics of me with his humongous camera. In his drunkenness, he told me several times that he was captured by me. But I swear I didn’t put a spell on him!
To be honest, I was very disappointed, because I genuinely liked him at first. It’s extremely difficult to find interesting but still nice people here in Tokyo.
After Julie and I hugged Nick good-bye, we left the party. She had another party to catch, and I headed home alone. But on my way home, I was still upset about what happened earlier, when I suddenly heard someone shouting something in Japanese.
As I turned around, without stopping, I found a Japanese man in his early 20’s asking me again if I was going home. So I politely told him in English that I didn’t speak Japanese, while I kept walking.
He was very surprised, but quickly recovered and caught up with me, saying in English this time, “Please just wait!” I ignored him, and luckily, he didn’t follow me.
My mum is right, Tokyo is a very dangerous city!
