casey comes to town, part 2

I dragged casey to school for my oral communication and community student classes. he was a great sport about it all. I was so intrigued by the students' and teachers' reactions to him. He sticks out for many reasons; he’s tall in the land of petites, he’s black in the land of Japanese, he’s outgoing in the land of social anxiety disorder. They loved his eyes and hair, were befuddled by the size of his feet, amazed by his friendliness. some of the girls would rush up to him and tell him he was cute before scurrying away. some would tail us around the halls excitedly whispering. they were thrilled to shake his hand and make eye contact with him. we went out to dinner at a fancy French restaurant with uchiyama sensei [next to casey] and kodama sensei, my new supervisor.

we ate local food till I thought we would explode.

we sang karaoke until we could barely whisper.

we began my b-day party at the stroke of midnight.

with the English team on my birthday.

to celebrate, we met at my house to slam some beers before taxi-ing to region plaza for the spectacle known as professional wrestling. as if it isn’t odd enough to be watching a bunch of grown men in lycra with their names stitched on their butts beating each other up, we don’t understand a word of the disputes or announcements, and to top it off, our seats were directly in front of a group of mentally handicapped adults. they were cheering and chatting with us which truly enriched the experience in that `how freakin surreal` kinda way.

then we headed downtown for dinner at our favorite hole, funae.

and of course, more karaoke.
when we arrived, the owner of the bar came out with a birthday cake…well, actually, I drunkenly busted into the back room to tell him hello and caught him in the act of getting the cake ready, thus ruining the birthday surprise, but he didn’t seem to mind.

we met these guys en route and dragged them to the karaoke bar with us.