jeff w. wherf r u?
On Saturday afternoon, at about 3ish, Jeff came over to my spot brandishing a bunch of beer, which we wasted no time getting into. We spent the afternoon sitting out on the balconey, shooting the breeze, listening to hiphop and taking it easy. Neither of us was paying much attention to the amount of beer we were drinking, but let's suffice to say we weren't drinking slowly.
By 6-ish or so, we were tanked and somehow got it into our head that we were going to make a rap song, which started but didn't get very far. A few hours after that, we decided to hop on my bike (doubling with Jeff on the back) and drive down to the south end of Central Ward to go bar hopping. The bike ride turned out to be pretty disasterous, with at least 3 crashes that sent jeff flying headlong onto the sidewalk, a near manslaughter incident involving a group of hapless schoolgirls, and a brief stop into a convenince store to get some duct tape to tape the bike seat back on, but eventually we made it to the south end (about 3 km away).
Already the situation did not really call for more alcohol - Jeff and I were a staggering menace before we even made it to Nanba, but the first place we dropped into was staffed by a friend of mine - Misa - who firmly insisted we do shots of jaggermeister with her. Now about 10`o`clock, I could already see that jeff was dangerously close to the tipping point, so I suggested we get out of Misa's place for a bit and go over to my other friend Tricia's bar and take in a change of scenery.
Eventually getting over to Tricia's, we were again confronted with being intimidated into jaggermeister shots, which sort of set me off into a frenzy of throwing coasters and straws everywhere. Jeff could barely do more than lean against the counter and blurt out wierd musings about being 30 year old grown men who by all means should have abandoned this kind of wreckless behaviour years ago.
After calming Jeff down, we decided to round the night out back at Misa's bar, meeting up with her boyfriend Ryan, before unwisely deciding to bike home in the middle of oncoming traffic down an artery avenue in Osaka.
That was a nightmare - I was too drunk to steady the bike, and with Jeff wavering back and forth unsteadily on the rear spokes, any semblance of control was lost. Cars were swerving and honking, Jeff was screaming. Drunk bystanders in the street leaped for cover as we careened northwards, swerving in between parked cars and stationary traffic, unable to stop. Finally I managed to slow it down at a 4-lane intersection, and hastily decided that we should walk the rest of the way.
At this point it was around 2:30am, and Jeff and I both were on the verge of complete collapse. What happened next is unclear, but I rounded a corner, walking the bike beside me, and suddenly realized jeff was no longer at my side. I looked around, backtracked down around the corner again, and shouted his name. But there was nothing. No one. Jeff had completely dissapeared. A mystery was afoot.
The area we were in was a closed down business district - there was neither other pedestrians nor any bright lights like over on the south side, so visibility was bad. Had Jeff stumbled into some sewer drain or gutter? Was he collapsed in a dark corner somewhere, having decided it was better to lay like a dog in the street rather than continue this death march back to my apartment?
I guess I must have called Jeff several times on the cellular - I can't really remember. I didn't get any answer. What I do know is I text messaged him:
Jeff w. wherf r u?
The notation was primitive and drunken, but the message was clear. Well, except for the "w." part I'm not sure where I was going with that.
Anyways, after 10 minutes or so of clumbsily looking around, I decided all was lost and abandoned Jeff to his fate. I got back on the bike - now easy to ride with only one passenger - and headed home.
I figured Jeff really had passed out somewhere, and would come to eventually, and he would call me and we could send a taxi to fetch him.
Deciding that I couldn't very well just go to bed while my friend was out there in the streets, I returned to my apartment and made a disasterous attempt at cooking up some instant Ramen. Nothing went as planned; soy sauce and noodle flavouring was everywhere. The burner was on too high. Chopsticks wouldn't stay in my hand.
Confusion. Panic.
I was cleaning pieces of Ramen off the sofa when finally Jeff called - he was barely coherent at this point and couldn't really explain where the hell he had been. I told him to hop into the nearest Taxi.
This in itself posed another challenge. Central Osaka is serviced by 4 major avenues running north to south: the Midosouji, the Tanimachi, the Yotsubashi and the Chuo-dori. Aside from that, no other streets even have names; its just a complex mess of roads, avenues, streets and alleys with no designation, no pattern. Confusion and horror. Elevated expressways snake through the city and sometimes accumulate on top of each other over 10 stories high. And given that, at 222 squake kilometres, Osaka proper is over twice the size of the borough of Manhattan, it is not easy to simply describe where you want to go.
I slowly and carefully explained to Jeff to tell the taxi driver to take the Tanimachi Avenue northbound, and drop him off at City Mall at Tenmabashi subway terminal. This was close enough to my apartment to be able to walk down and meet him.
Roughly 15 minutes later he called me back. "I'm at...um, some place called City Mall" he said, seemingly having forgotten that this was the destination we had agreed on earlier.
Anyway, I went down and got him, and he passed out on my new sofabed making him the FIRST PERSON TO USE MY NEW SOFABED.
And thats the point of this story, that I have a new sofabed and now anybody can come stay with me whenever they want.
END
By 6-ish or so, we were tanked and somehow got it into our head that we were going to make a rap song, which started but didn't get very far. A few hours after that, we decided to hop on my bike (doubling with Jeff on the back) and drive down to the south end of Central Ward to go bar hopping. The bike ride turned out to be pretty disasterous, with at least 3 crashes that sent jeff flying headlong onto the sidewalk, a near manslaughter incident involving a group of hapless schoolgirls, and a brief stop into a convenince store to get some duct tape to tape the bike seat back on, but eventually we made it to the south end (about 3 km away).
Already the situation did not really call for more alcohol - Jeff and I were a staggering menace before we even made it to Nanba, but the first place we dropped into was staffed by a friend of mine - Misa - who firmly insisted we do shots of jaggermeister with her. Now about 10`o`clock, I could already see that jeff was dangerously close to the tipping point, so I suggested we get out of Misa's place for a bit and go over to my other friend Tricia's bar and take in a change of scenery.
Eventually getting over to Tricia's, we were again confronted with being intimidated into jaggermeister shots, which sort of set me off into a frenzy of throwing coasters and straws everywhere. Jeff could barely do more than lean against the counter and blurt out wierd musings about being 30 year old grown men who by all means should have abandoned this kind of wreckless behaviour years ago.
After calming Jeff down, we decided to round the night out back at Misa's bar, meeting up with her boyfriend Ryan, before unwisely deciding to bike home in the middle of oncoming traffic down an artery avenue in Osaka.
That was a nightmare - I was too drunk to steady the bike, and with Jeff wavering back and forth unsteadily on the rear spokes, any semblance of control was lost. Cars were swerving and honking, Jeff was screaming. Drunk bystanders in the street leaped for cover as we careened northwards, swerving in between parked cars and stationary traffic, unable to stop. Finally I managed to slow it down at a 4-lane intersection, and hastily decided that we should walk the rest of the way.
At this point it was around 2:30am, and Jeff and I both were on the verge of complete collapse. What happened next is unclear, but I rounded a corner, walking the bike beside me, and suddenly realized jeff was no longer at my side. I looked around, backtracked down around the corner again, and shouted his name. But there was nothing. No one. Jeff had completely dissapeared. A mystery was afoot.
The area we were in was a closed down business district - there was neither other pedestrians nor any bright lights like over on the south side, so visibility was bad. Had Jeff stumbled into some sewer drain or gutter? Was he collapsed in a dark corner somewhere, having decided it was better to lay like a dog in the street rather than continue this death march back to my apartment?
I guess I must have called Jeff several times on the cellular - I can't really remember. I didn't get any answer. What I do know is I text messaged him:
Jeff w. wherf r u?
The notation was primitive and drunken, but the message was clear. Well, except for the "w." part I'm not sure where I was going with that.
Anyways, after 10 minutes or so of clumbsily looking around, I decided all was lost and abandoned Jeff to his fate. I got back on the bike - now easy to ride with only one passenger - and headed home.
I figured Jeff really had passed out somewhere, and would come to eventually, and he would call me and we could send a taxi to fetch him.
Deciding that I couldn't very well just go to bed while my friend was out there in the streets, I returned to my apartment and made a disasterous attempt at cooking up some instant Ramen. Nothing went as planned; soy sauce and noodle flavouring was everywhere. The burner was on too high. Chopsticks wouldn't stay in my hand.
Confusion. Panic.
I was cleaning pieces of Ramen off the sofa when finally Jeff called - he was barely coherent at this point and couldn't really explain where the hell he had been. I told him to hop into the nearest Taxi.
This in itself posed another challenge. Central Osaka is serviced by 4 major avenues running north to south: the Midosouji, the Tanimachi, the Yotsubashi and the Chuo-dori. Aside from that, no other streets even have names; its just a complex mess of roads, avenues, streets and alleys with no designation, no pattern. Confusion and horror. Elevated expressways snake through the city and sometimes accumulate on top of each other over 10 stories high. And given that, at 222 squake kilometres, Osaka proper is over twice the size of the borough of Manhattan, it is not easy to simply describe where you want to go.
I slowly and carefully explained to Jeff to tell the taxi driver to take the Tanimachi Avenue northbound, and drop him off at City Mall at Tenmabashi subway terminal. This was close enough to my apartment to be able to walk down and meet him.
Roughly 15 minutes later he called me back. "I'm at...um, some place called City Mall" he said, seemingly having forgotten that this was the destination we had agreed on earlier.
Anyway, I went down and got him, and he passed out on my new sofabed making him the FIRST PERSON TO USE MY NEW SOFABED.
And thats the point of this story, that I have a new sofabed and now anybody can come stay with me whenever they want.
END