Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Odd things that happen...

So lately there have been some strange things that have happened. Now, these things have nothing to do with Japan or really with me. I suppose that they are just random coincidences of time and place.

First, Monday night Shimon and I went for a walk after dinner. There is a very nice park near where he lives and so we went for a walk. We went to the viewpoint where you can see a lovely night view of the Yokohama skyline. Usually the park is busy at night with dog walkers, but we were there right around dinner time as we had eaten fairly early ourselves. As we were leaving the park, we saw a man and woman fighting. We couldn't hear anything, but we could see that the man was being rather rough. We got closer and the man hauled the woman into the nearby trees. Both of us were worried as to what was going on, but weren't sure what to do. I had to use the bathroom, so I said, "I'll be right back, keep watch." While I was gone, he asked whether things were ok. The man responded "OK" and then more weakly the woman also said "ok."
Everything was ok as far as we knew and there wasn't much more we could do. What would anyone have done? After we left the park, Shimon made me promise to never go there alone at night!

Second strange thing. Today I was on the train and a man motioned that I should have his seat. I was listening to my iPod so didn't really hear what the man was saying. Turns out he was kind of "crazy." He was speaking to me in Japanese and I couldn't understand what he was saying (this is after I removed my earphones), I realized he wasn't really saying anything that made sense. The woman sitting next to me was trying to pretend not to notice, but I think she was relieved I had sat down. (She just had that look) I must admit I felt a bit stupid, but at least I tried to talk to the man. I think most Japanese people would have ignored him (and were ignoring him), which I just couldn't do.

These two "strange" encounters could have happened anywhere and they would have struck me as odd. I just felt like sharing. :-)

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