Yesterday we were going to a sento near where a Finnish friend of mine lives. For those who don't know what that means - probably a lot of you, I presume, as I only heard about this a couple of weeks ago myself. Also called furoya, they are basically just public baths. A long time ago, few people had the possibility to bathe in the comfort of their own home and had to use these public places to freshen up. Today people of course have a bath at home, so there are a lot less of these sentos around, but I'm guessing they also offer a wider variety of different kinds of baths than before, and the one we were going to apparently even has some sort of a sauna in there.
The sun had just set as I was biking over to the spot where I was meeting up with my friends. And just as I was arriving there, a policeman whistled for me to stop! So I did, although I didn't know what I'd done wrong as I'm being extra careful here with the bike - don't really wanna kill any pedestrians, and there are a lot of them around! But it was about my bike lamp. It's one of those dynamo lamps that only light up when you're biking, so I haven't been able to check whether or not it works since when it's supposed to light up I'm sitting on the saddle and can't really see the lamp from up there.
 |
| Such a pretty night! And just minutes after this I was seized by the police. |
Anyway, this was my big crime, and I was like, sorry, I'll get it fixed tomorrow or buy one from a 100 yen shop or something... But he wanted to see my residence card, and took all my information down. He also wanted to know if it was my bike, and where I bought it from, which was a bit difficult to explain. I probably looked guilty as fuck, as if I'd stolen the bike or something, since it was quite difficult to come up with the right words seeing that I speak next to no Japanese, and was being interrogated by a police officer - not the most comfortable situation for a language learner.
Then he also wanted a phone number, which I still don't have. I have been convinced by several people that I really don't need a phone number here, it's enough if I just have the data service on my phone, but I think the majority of problematic situations I've encountered here have somehow been due to not having a phone number. Well, since I didn't have one, guess what he wanted to know instead? Not my email address, which I offered to give - always co-operate, right? Nope, my blood type. Yes, you read correctly, my blood type. I was like, um, I don't know what this has to do with any of this, but played along of course, telling him that I'm AB negative. He had an expression on his face that I couldn't read.
Later on I was again reminded about the Japanese people's obsession with blood types, as apparently they tell a lot about your personality, so this morning I went online to check what mine says about me. Well, AB types are apparently mysterious and unpredictable, so now I'm probably on their blacklist of immigrants, just waiting to be deported any day now.
And I'm still not sure whether or not I'm getting fined! I didn't get one at the spot, but as he took down my address and everything they could theoretically still send me one. But I don't think he said anything about that, so fingers crossed for that...
Oh, and wanna know what happened with the sento? It wasn't open on Thursdays. Like, the only day of the week they aren't open is Thursday. So, we popped by Fresco's, bought some beer and went over to my friend's house for dinner instead. Really hoping to go to a sento soon, though! But now I must go and buy a new bike lamp. Gah.
PS. This is something that I need. Desperately. It contains Star Wars vocab in both English and Japanese. I still haven't met a Japanese Star Wars fan, but I know they exist so of course I want to be prepared to discuss all aspects of the movies with them when I meet them.
No comments:
Post a Comment