What a crazy year that was and in true Japanese style we will be holding our 忘年会 (Bonenkai) or end of year party. Interesting enough 忘年会 translated literally means “forget the year party” and I can imagine there are more than a few people who would like to do that.

The party will be held at the Pink Cow. We will be holding this in conjunction with their Japanese Lounge event. There will be traditional Japanese music performances from Shakuhachi and Shamisen player. There will also be Kimono wearing.

ENTRANCE: FREE!!!!!

Doors open at 7pm
This is a free event so this is an excellent opportunity to experience some amazing Japanese culture, learn some Japanese and make friends. We would love to see you there so if you are interested please come along and if possible please sign up to the Facebook Event Page so we know how many people to expect.
Useful links:

The Pink Cow Website

The Pink Cow Facebook

The Pink Cow Map

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This week’s Fun Friday was recorded at The Pink Cow on Friday 2nd October 2009. I was joined by Sandra, Jim, Daniel and Yukki who all injected some hilarity and fun into today’s podcast. A big thank you to all of them who put up with a badly behaved iPod recording device. And apologies to you dear listeners as the audio skips a few times at the end of the podcast.

What did we talk about today?

Here’s a list of topics we talked about with some links and other information:

1) The Learn Japanese Pod Meet Up at the Pink cow

We will be having a meet up on Sunday October 18th at the Pink Cow. We are doing this in conjunction with the Pink Cow’s Japanese Lounge event which is an opportunity for you to experience some excellent traditional Japanese music. There will be traditional Kimono wearing, Shakuhachi and Shamisen performances. So come along, have some fun, learn some Japanese and meet some great people.

Pink Cow Facebook group

Learn Japanese Pod Get Together Event Information (Facebook)

THE PINK COW MAP

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2) Earth Quake Prediction

It turns out that Yukki chan has a friend of a friend of a friend who knows someone who works in a secret underground government agency that can predict earthquakes. According to Yukki, Tokyo will crumble to the ground around 9th October. That’s good news because it means I might not have to go into work.

3) Japandra’s Amazing Poster Giveaway

Sandra of Japandra fame has just given away an anti “chikan” poster to one of her subscribers. She has her mits on a new one and will be giving it away soon in a new competition. Listen to this podcast or check out her blog for some upcoming information on that.

Sandra writes great blog containing interesting and witty observations about life in Tokyo.

4) John Cusack’s in Town

Apparently John Cusack is in town promoting his latest movie. One of Sandra’s friends is going to interview him. We tried to work out which hotel he was staying at so we could stalk him.

John, if you are reading this blog post or listening to the podcast please make it easy on yourself and come out for a drink at The Pink Cow we want to hang out.

That’s pretty much it for this week. Thanks again to Jim, Sandra, Daniel and Yukki for making this a fun Fun Friday. Stay tuned, check out the forums and send us an email with your ideas, suggestions, questions and comments to: info(at)learnjapanesepod(dot)com

This is a picture of Shibuya crossing. As you can see I had the camera on the wrong setting and it was horribly over exposed. However I liked the effect and proudly saved it to the memory card on my camera.

And then I get stopped by the police.

“Excuse me, is that your bike?”

“Yes”

“Well there have been a lot of bike thefts in the area, can we check the registration of your bike?”

I wasn’t exactly in a position to say no.

“Sure go ahead”.

The cop had a look at the registration lable on my bike.

“This bike is registered in Osaka”

“Yes, I used to live there”

“So where do you live now?”

“I live here in Shibuya, but I just moved from Chiba and before that I lived in Osaka” I replied.

“Wow”

I’m not sure what was so “wow” about that but I guessed he was half doing his job and half looking for a conversation with a foreigner. I changed the subject.

“So are you guys busy this time of night?” (Obviously not otherwise they wouldn’t be on mess with the gaijin patrol).

“Erm…yes” he lied.

The conversation went from traffic safety to the best place to get lunch in Shibuya. He was quite polite and I actually enjoyed the somewhat bizarre natrure of the conversation.

He got a call on his radio. The bike registration did exist and I wasn’t a suspect anymore. He thanked me, gave a half bow and walked off.

A strange but interesting encounter.