Of Cake and Alcohol

I`m sure I`ve mentioned this before, but if you don`t look Japanese, ABSOLUTELY NOBODY will expect you to be able to understand a word of the language. Madame et Monsieur (I`ve been learning French... sort of), I am proud to say I discovered a new low in this phenomenon at the weekend. I was in this little coffee-shop place under the train stations (plural) in Sannomiya (central Kobe) the other day, and I walk up with my cake to pay and get my iced-coffee (The cakes are self-service). Anyway, at the till the shop assistant doesn`t even bother to say anything to be and just sort of starts pointing to the door. Eh? You want me to leave? No, You want me to go round the corner with you? What? I just stood there looking rather puzzled and just said えと，何ですか？ (Err... what?) At which point she decides to say something and I realise what she meant was "お持ち帰りですか？” Which means "Do you want this for take-out?"... seriously, just say that in the first place and we`ll all be much happier...

We also had the Kobe university festival at the weekend (every Japanese university has their own festival which is pretty much a weekend-long party.) On the Saturday night about 1/2 the Intercultural Studies faculty was converted into bars and restaurants from 1700 on Saturday to basically 1200 the next morning... Imagine if you will: Many many Japanese people + 19 hours + $2 cocktails...

Anyway, I got randomly asked by two guys if I`m the quote "Random foreigner with the sunglasses"... I think it might be time to change that particular habit (see the "Magic Sunglasses" entry if you missed that). Lilly and Yume both got marriage proposals from these guys as well. Incidentally they`re physics students as well... Japanese physics students are obviously a bit different from their UK counterparts, given the 3rd question these guys asked (after the sunglasses and marriages) was "Oh, French person (ie, Lilly), do you know A.P.C (French clothes brand)? Dior? Lavin?"

BTW, any body who learned Japanese from either Minna No Nihongo or just generally in the UK, 喫茶店（きっさてん: Cafe/coffee shop）is something apparently something only old ladies say... you have been warned. Unfortunatly I wasn`t and got laughed at by my teacher this morning...

On the subject of funny Japanese, people have noticed that, having learned Japanese in a UK classroom, I have a tendency to say "そうです” (sou desu: means roughly, i suppose/that is the case/i agree) a lot. It`s a sort of useful thing when either a) I have no idea what someone said to me b) I can`t be bothered thinking of a proper answer . Anyway, this slightly backfired on me at the weekend and someone was saying something to me, though I wasn`t really listening at all and just said そうです、turns out they were asking me if I wanted another drink... Unsurprisingly I didn`t get one...

Oh, btw, Spooks series 8: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO sob sob