Getting Crazy and Busy in Joetsu

The last few weeks have been easy, laid back. I have taken a break from constant travel and stayed in the Joetsu area relaxing and working the scene here resting up and saving money for next month when Sara and Jan come to visit me!

My friends and I fill our time with an array of activities hitting the local scene (which surprising is growing here in the inaka (countryside)- I guess it is true the area I live in is on the outskirts of the third largest city in Niigata (really that is not saying much- it is kind of like a Saint Charles, MO kind of town..with no larger city to retreat to, and Japanese) The girls and I have been busy doing many things from making our appearance at the makeshift dance club in Nest to yelling our hearts out at Japanese Professional Wrestling.

Due to our area we tend to frequent Takada's Nakamachi.. It is the street in Takada, lots of the bars are hostess bars, you can go in and get chatted to by a purty lady, and as you can see from this sign- talking can be pleasurable...lots of the places along Nakamachi are yakuza ran. The yakuza is the Japanese mafia, and I guess that it really is rather seedy, seedy but safe.

On Friday (6-24) Mel, Liz, Beth, and I hit the town. We went to Club Nest. Nest is a coffee shop in Takada. It is really the only place you can get a cappuccino or espresso that is not from a push button machine (well at least that we have discovered). They also serve cocktails, but I go there for coffee. We have gotten to know the staff at Nest from our frequent meetings there, as it is a good place to meet up before a night out on Nakamachi. The staff at Nest presented us with a flyer about Club Nest and asked us (repeatedly) to come. We promised we would.

Nest is a swanky joint; sharp white furniture accented with stainless steel, a bar area, and big open windows in the front. They share their space with a record store that sells vinyl and cds. They always tend to have good tunes pumping through the system. The one drawback is Nest is usually a little bright with all the in your face white screaming at you (doesn't bother me all the much but it bugs some of my friends). But for Club Nest, they toned down the brightness and created a small space for dancing. We were warmly welcomed upon our entrances for Club Nest. It was ladies night, so that meant two drink tickets with the 500 Yen entrance fee. Rock on. That is basically two drinks for $5.00, which in this country is nearly unheard of!
The DJ was rockin’. He was spinning a varied mix from reggae, to hip-hop, to classic rock. Every thing with a beat that made you move. So one strong Moscow mule into the night, I found myself busting ill moves on a makeshift dance floor in my local coffee shop. The girls and I constantly laughing, stirring it up, dancing our asses off were quite a sight I’m sure.

Club Nest closed down a tad early (they were suppose to close at 11:30 pm, but we found ourselves leaving a little after 12) so we headed over to Nick’s and PTA to cap off our night.

It is interesting: I would say my friends and I have definitely become a fixture on our little scene here in Joetsu. We have our places in which we frequent (as have all the other ALTs before us I am sure)
PTA’s, the small karaoke bar ran by the friendliest “Master”, Nick’s Be Café, i.e. Nicks, more of a pub-like atmosphere with a big wooden bar and darts!, Funaie, the local izakaya with an English menu and cheesy potatoes to die for, Memory Live Bar, we have our monthly open-mic’s here and visit it ocassionaly for various live music…

and then me and my girls have added a few more into the standard mix as well…
We have Nova, the only dance club in town, Tiff and I scored life-time free passes by always sitting next to the owners on our trips for a nomihodai at Funaie,
Nest, the aforementioned swank coffee house,


Hag, a bar in which ShimuzuSensei from my school is the sempei of the master- it is a tiny bar with a friendly atmosphere and CHEAP drinks! Hag is sort of our little secret, it sets along the river and is like a little hole in the wall kind of joint, this is the place we go for a few drinks and a chat, just like the others who go there: a funny fact is that the name was actually suppose to be HUG, but do to a spelling error they wound up with HAG- an acronym a few friends use for Hot Asian Men- so from HUG to HAG... oh English.....

Sleeping Sheep, another bar that sits up above Nicks with chilled atmosphere and cool interior.
All these places have friendly staff that are welcoming to my friends and me, and if you are ever in the area are worth a visit for a taste of small Japan.

Saturday was a good day. While taking a stroll on the beach, Mel ran into a guy, Takahiro, whom I had met a few weeks earlier. So she called us telling us to come down to hang out. So, Liz and I met Mel and went to the beach. Takahiro and his friends were hanging out and had some jet skis. I was inappropriately dressed in a long white linen skirt, but got taken for a ride anyway. Takahiro and his friends were really sweet- pulling it all the way up so I would only have to wade through ankle deep water to get on the back of it. He took me on a great ride on the ocean, and went back to shore. As I began to hop off the back in maybe a couple of feet of water, being a gentleman, he called to his friend and once again he took me to only ankle deep water. How nice. Yet, myself being blessed with all the grace in the world, I found myself falling off drenching myself in the only ankle deep water. I am such a fool. Always! My white linen skirt drenched to the skin exposing my cute little black knickers…lovely…I actually didn’t care that much, me being near a body of water and attempting to go close to it, goes hand in hand with me eventually falling in it… So we hung out on the beach taking in the rays and chatting and then went back to get hot for the party that night….

Saturday night was a going away party for our friend jen. She is moving to Tokyo to be with her man Tak, they are great together. We started at a beer garden, then hit Nicks, and then went to Nova where Liz and I danced the night away.


Thursday was Tiff's birthday, so we did what any special gal would want to do on her birthday, we went to watch Professional Wrestling. The Japanese professional wrestlers are not that different from American.

Except for the presentation of flowers done by the women in kimonos, I have never seen that on WWF.
Our pro-wrestling experience was quite surreal really. Our seats happened to be right smack in the midst of a large group of mentally handicapped people. Their smiles were contagious as well as thier yelpings of "Ittai-sou!" (That looks like it hurt!) The japanese are quite shy and reserved a lot of the time, but once we started screaming, the crowd followed suit (although there were some hard-core fans who had been screaming the majority of the time. We also asked around to see how many people believe that the wrestling was for real. Every fan we met believed it was. (Although like us, most japanese people know that pro-wrestling is planned otherwise there would be a lot of broken necks) right?!