So the talk of the town has been the coronavirus. All of the schools in the area are closed from 2 to 6 weeks but not until the last second is it announced that my school will also be canceled for two weeks.
As i'm leaving work with a huge smile on my face, my boss says, "Have a good weekend. See you Tuesday!" And I was like "uhhhh... did you see the email?" And she says "oh yes, school is canceled but you're still coming to work." So that was kind of a bummer.
It takes me about 2 hours to get my entire week of lessons prepared. If I have to come into work for 9 hours a day for two weeks, I think I will be able to get my entire school year planned. That's my goal, at least. I don't know what else I will do. It's very likely that my manager will have me pass out flyers in the train station for hours a day.
So after work on Saturday, I headed to Yokohama to go this bar called Yamaryu. The owner of 4Leafs told me that one of my favorite wrestlers Daisuke Sekimoto will be bartending that night so I had to go.
The bar seats about 10 people, but not comfortably. I open the door and Sekimoto is standing right there and shows me the only stool at the bar available.
I spent the next two hours talking with Sekimoto, owner Ryuji Yamakawa who is a retired wrestler and other pro wrestling fans. Everyone spoke different levels of English and I speak a low level of Japanese so communicating wasn't easy but we made it work.
At one point in the night, Sekimoto demands 5 minutes of "English only" time so I could be apart of the conversation more.
Before I left, I got my picture with Sekimoto and he walked me out. We had a nice talk outside the bar for a few minutes before he told me how to get to the station. It is custom in Japan when you say goodbye to someone, you see them out and wait until they are completely out of sight. I walk down the street a little bit and I turn around and the massive Sekitmoto is just standing there, watching me. He gives me a big smile and waves goodbye.
The next morning, I get up early and head into Tokyo for a wrestling show that Sekimoto is wrestling on. After the show, I walk up to his merch table and he sees me and yells "CJ!" He thanks for coming out the night before and for coming to the show today. Sekimoto is such a nice guy and was really great with every fan who approached him. He's been wrestling for 20 years and has built a large following so he knows a lot of his fans personally.
After the show, I decided to take a trip to Shimokitazawa which is a very trendy neighborhood known for it's cafes and thrift shops. Those are two things I love, so I spent the majority of my afternoon exploring around there. I didn't get any pictures but Shimokitazawa is such a cool neighborhood that is certainly very busy but has a different vibe from the major areas in Tokyo.
After that, I traveled to Shinjuku for a free metal show I had heard about. It was held in a small recording studio called Hill Valley Studio and the show was in the very small practice room. I saw 6 bands total. 2 pretty standard punk bands and the other 4 were power violence bands. Power violence is a very chaotic style of metal that is intended to be as fast and abrasive as possible.
There I hung out with two guys I met there. One guy was a backpacker from Ireland who has spent the last couple months traveling through Asia. The other was a student from America who is studying abroad in Japan until October. It was really nice hanging out with those guys. They both had similar tastes in music as me so it nice. I mean, clearly we have similiar tastes in music because most people don't enjoy power violence.
The next I planned on having a quiet day in the neighborhood, shopping for stuff I need and not doing much else. And then I watched a video about Chinatown in Yokohama and instantly had a craving for Chinese buffet.
Yokohama's Chinatown is the oldest and largest Chinatown in Japan. The first Chinese people to migrate to Japan came to Yokohama. So it's thought to be the most authentic Chinese food you can get in Japan.
The buffet I went to was excellent. Chinatown was pretty empty at 8:00 PM on a Monday which was perfectly fine to me. I ended up getting lost on my way home but the food was worth the struggle.
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