Not long after arriving in Fukuoka, I was lucky to make a new friend who not only shared a lot of similar interests to me, but speaks English very well. These are two essential ingredients to a friendship, liking some of the same stuff and actually being able to communicate effectively in at least one language. I know I want to practice my Japanese all the time, but the truth is it isn’t ready to sustain a full conversation yet. Give me a few more months and maybe that will change, but until then, I’m very happy I met someone I’m able to hang out and compare cultures with.
So this Friday we agreed to go see Ready Player One together at the cinema in the Canal City (it does have canals, and it is as complicated to navigate around as a city) shopping mega-complex. I have a weakness for sweets at the cinema and it doesn’t feel like I’m properly at the movies unless I have several thousand calories of popcorn and cola with me as I enter. Knowing that Japan tends to throw a few surprises at you in even the most mundane circumstances, I was ready for less-than-common popcorn choices and boy, I was *not* disappointed. It was so difficult to choose, that I went for a mix of matcha, salted and caramel flavoured popcorn. The picture below really doesn’t do the popcorn justice; it was both amazing to look at and delicious in equal measure.
Tastes a lot nicer than it looks…
The movie itself was great fun. I’d recommend it to anyone, but especially to those that wasted their precious childhoods playing games on consoles and PCs. There are so many easter eggs that it would take many, many viewings to catch them all. Although my favourite was the Gundam and Iron Giant cameos, those were super neat.
One thing that I found a little different from UK/US/Australia is that the house lights didn’t come on during the credits and everyone sat patiently as they scrolled through. I was expecting some sort of signal of “OK, you can go now” but instead I quietly watched the credits with everyone else. I even found a Quora entry about it, and frankly, they don’t know either. Ah Japan, always full of surprises.
Post movie smiles
After the movie, we had a bite to eat (OK, many bites) and before we finished up we swung by the shrine located right next to the shopping complex. It was mostly closed up at that time of night, but it looked cool, so here’s a photo anyway!
Neat!
In summary, I got to hang out with a friend, see a movie, eat too much food and see a shrine, all in the one super-fun-packed evening. That is Japanese efficiency for you!