Beppu Nights!

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

This past weekend, I and my new, wise and beautiful Jamaican friend Shauna took the 25 minute train ride from Oita City to Beppu. Our plan was to eat at one Shauna's most favorable restaurants, "Korean's that Serve Whole Chickens" followed by live music at a nearby club.

While waiting for Shauna at the Oita City train station, I perused the station's amateur photography exhibit. Oita City is currently constructing elevated train tracks throughout the City and the photos were taken of the project. The overall amount, variety and convolutedness of public transportation in Oita City is quite amazing. The Buses go everywhere! The trains are actually cheaper than the buses and they are much faster, but they do not travel to as many specific places.

One of the schools (Saganoseki) where I will teach is in a very rural fishing town, 30 miles east of Oita City, but I can take a train 3/4ths of the way there in 20 minutes and then get on a bus right next to the station which will take me directly to the school in another 20-30 minutes.

Although the public transportation options are convenient and environmentally beneficial, the system can be quite confusing and so I owe many thanks to the veteran teachers here who have instructed me on how to get around. In fact, the system can be so confusing I will often see local Japanese people staring at the station time tables trying their hardest to figure out what bus they need to get on and what time that bus will show up. So, you can imagine how hard it is for a foreigner that doesn't speak or read much Japanese to figure it out.

There is also a massive amount of people that ride bicycles here in Oita City. I never thought I would see young women wearing short skirts and heels peddling a bicycle to work at 7:30 in the morning. Men in business suits ride bicycles everywhere. Senior Citizens ride bicycles with large baskets mounted above the front and rear tires that are full of groceries. In most of the places I have lived in the US there are much larger distances between home, work and commercial centers. Nevertheless, I think if people from the US saw how easy it is for people here of varying ages, genders and economic status to bike easily to multiple destinations they might reconsider paying 60 dollars weekly to fill up an SUV. Biking to multiple places everyday, I have lost close to 15 pounds since I have been here. There are still many people here that drive cars, but most are all small and fuel efficient.

Anyway back to my Saturday night adventure with Shauna. After we met at the station, she showed me which ticket I needed to purchase, she asked a train schedule specialist where we could board our train to Beppu and we headed in that direction.



We arrived in Beppu and Shauna pointed out a small hot spring bath right outside the station. A drunk man encouraged me to place my hands deep inside the bath, but I wasn't about to fall for his 'lets trick the foreigner schenanigans,' so we left the drunk man displeased and headed towards our dinning establishment.

Unfortunately, the 'Korean Whole Chickens Restaurant' was closed (see the picture below which shows Shauna's extreme disappointment). We headed to a all-you-can-eat and cook-your-own-meat restaurant instead.

This place reminded me of BD's Mongolian Barbecue except that the patrons do the cooking at a grill in the middle of the table. In the buffet area of the restaurant, customers may pile multiple raw meats, raw seafoods and uncooked veggies onto plates, take the plates back to their tables and then cook the food on a personal table-top grill. They also had all-you-can eat ramon noodles, sushi, salad, drinks, desert and fruit.

Having been a customer before, Shauna showed-off her expert grille skills. Whenever she left the table, I failed miserably at attempting to keep the food from becoming overdone. Another great thing about eating across the table from Shauna is that she has a perfect smile, one that makes you feel happy to be alive and that has made me feel like I made the right decision in coming to Japan.

After dinner, we bought a lemon for Shauna's friend Pernais, who would be performing at the club. We arrived at the club, met Pernais and checked out the scene. The left side of the club was lined with couches and chairs and on the right side a bar and DJ booth. At the far end, opposite the entrance was a small floor space for performers.

The first group of musicians was composed of three performers, a young woman that played a small set of hand drums, a man that alternated between a large set of hand drums and a small xylophone and a another man that played a sitar, an acoustic guitar and very long horn. During some of their entirely instrumental songs, the man that played the sitar would make these alms sounds. An Australian man sitting next to me later explained that the alms he was producing were Mongolian in origin and took years of study and practice to perfect. He described how the performer has to split their vocal chords, a very difficult technique, in order to produce the sounds.

The next act involved a group dressed as native Japanese drummers and singers. There were three male drummers and two female dancers. The dancers danced around the small circular space in between the drummers and the audience. Two of the drummers told ancient stories in between songs which of course I did not comprehend, but nevertheless seemed interesting. Towards the end of their performance they encouraged the audience to dance in the same rhythmic style as the female group members.

Shauna's friend Pernais (on vocals), a drummer and an acoustic guitarist made up the third and final act. Pernais, a young woman from Jamaica sang a few Bob Marley songs, a few originals and several other covers from performers with which I was not familiar. The first few lines from her first song, Natural Mystic, brought a sudden ahhhhh from the audience. The timing was perfect and the guitarist, who at times seemed aloof, played well. Overall, Pernais's singing came out inspired and soulful. This was best night I have had in Japan so far.

After the music performances ended, Shauna, Javi (another teacher living in Oita, originally from Texas) and I took the 0100 train back to Oita City.