BRIAN MARTIN MUSIC NEWS (Chapter 8)

Chapter 8 – Saturday 21st June 2008
Today I am going to talk about the 'talking things' that seem to be everywhere. I walk into the lift and the nice lady there in ‘liftland’ says “Mighty Mighty Mouse.” I have no idea why and I have not seen Mighty Mouse there yet but I thank her anyway and bow as I get in and out of the lift. It seems the least I can do as she is so diligently good at her job and never takes any time off. But there is a really truly lady (there are 4 of them who share the job) who is standing (all the time) in the foyer and her job is to bow and say hello………..that’s about it…………she doesn’t have a computer or anything and it’s a long day just standing there (she sits down sometimes.) But stands up as soon as we arrive or leave. Very friendly.
The street talks, there are upright speaker thingys and the lady in that says stuff too. The escalator talks as well. Lots of talking. I told you so.
Then there are periodic loud speakers in the street that we hear from our apartment. Must ask Jack what they are saying. Just hope it isn’t an earthquake warning and we are happily oblivious to it all. Yep, I will check with Jack. Yep! Now I have mentioned the musical kettle and washing machine as well as the fridge! It beeps when the ice maker is ready.
It’s like a little ‘appliance family’.
Then there is our front door alarm speaker phone video surveillance machine.
Brian answered it and as there are lots of buttons (in Japanese) he hit the big red one!!! Not a good idea! That was the big apartment alarm wasn’t it.
Remember that nice lady who bows at the front door? Well she was not so happy after that as she rang us back and we sort of got the idea that we should not have pushed that particular button. We said sorry a lot and bowed though she couldn’t see us…………funny how automatic bowing is becoming. We saw her later downstairs and bowed a lot (she could see us that time) and lots of sorry sorry more sorry. I think she forgave us cos she smiles at us still.
When you cross the street there is a dinging sound as well as birds chirping.
Well that is what it sounds like to me . Maybe that is for all the blind Japanese!?
Sounds pretty anyway. You don’t get lonely here there is always an appliance, the lift or the street to talk to.
It is the rainy season here and everyone carries umbrellas. Now they are very honest in Japan as out the front of all the shops there are umbrella stands and I have discovered that I can upgrade my umbrella just by hanging around the entrances!!!! No, I don’t really do that but you could, except I did find a ‘lock up your umbrella stand’ and have added the photo.
Uniforms- they love uniforms. The road worker guys look really cool. They have these flashing light cross-over jacket things and they look very official and they wave these long flashing red light sticks. It looks like fun.
At the train stations there are guys who wear one type of uniform and have whistles and white gloves and they are in charge of pushing you into the train at peak times. There is also another guy with a loud speaker telling everyone to squeeze in and hurry up etc. It is all pretty organized. We all stand in lines of 2 by 2 behind a mark on the ground and the train stops just in the right spot to line up with the doors. We wait while everyone gets off the train and then we all get on-there is defiantly a system. The trains and subways are very organised and it’s pretty easy to get around. Though as you get further out the signs are no longer in English and Japanese and only in Japanese. Brian is getting really good at reading. “I’m with him.”

Its been a busy Saturday. The ‘Mugan Life’ team (they are our organisers here in Japan) arrived for a meeting at 2pm. Aki, Akko, Ryoko and Yusan we had not seen Aki, Ako and Yusan for a few years so it was ‘old friends week’.
Down to business though and Ryoko doing most of the translating with Yusan helping, he speaks pretty good English too. It is long and tedious work doing everything twice and getting the right information across. Lots of questions and answers for the team and getting everyone on the right page. It was a long meeting but productive. We waved them off back to Osaka.
Then we rang Jack.
“We are bored wanna do dinner?” So we walked 20 metres to a local ex-pat bar and it was full of Yanks who were smoking, drinking beer and BBQing buffalo chicken wings on the street, compliments of the owner. So we ordered Pizza and beers and ate heaps of wings…..BBQ spicy sauce, the sauce was so strong the smell stayed on our hands for ages afterwards. There were 4 guys in the corner playing cards and were so noisy Jack couldn’t tell his usual jokes over the din. We had fun though and caught some guys on the way out Jerry, Dan and Peter all working for a company in Osaka doing the engineering of a big building. Only been living here around 6 months and none of them spoke any Japanese. I introduced myself in Japanese and they looked at me funny!!! Speaking of which, my Japanese is improving but Brian is ‘The Star’ and he doesn’t miss an opportunity to ‘show off’ and impress our Japanese friends. Which they duely are as he is now reading and writing Katakana (Japanese alphabet for foreign words) Hiragana (Japanese alphabet for Japanese words) and they are both phonetic alphabets. Brian is going to start learning Kanji (which is the pictorial alphabet – a lot harder not even the younger Japanese know all the symbols now days.)
We start ‘official work’ tomorrow Sunday with a Joy of Singing 3 hour workshop in the evening so we are looking forward to getting started!!!
More soon stay tuned to ‘Martins in Japan’.