Another Night Out in Suskino... Single Friends

10th Jan, 2005 - T-chan and I head off once more into Sapporo to meet up with another of T-chan's High School friends, S-chan. The subway's a great way to get around in Sapporo, there being three lines, the Tōhō, Tōzai and the Namboku lines which are coloured blue, orange and green respectively. Fares to the city are around 200-250 yen, but it's best to get a mult-fare (you make a very small saving when you buy a 2000 yen ticket). It actually takes longer to get to the city by the subway than it does with the train - but the big advantage is that the subway comes out directly under Odori, and it's just a hop-skip and jump then to Suskino for eating out.


T-chan has four close friends that she's had since high school, T2-chan (I've told a little about her before), S-chan (below), M-chan, and U-chan (I'll tell her story shortly). The last three were her friends in baton-twirling class of all things! It always made me chuckle that I was going out with a Japanese Cheer-leader!


Unlike T2-chan, S-chan doesn't really speak any English, so it's down to my poor Japanese to communicate (when T-chan's not there to translate). I always wondered what they really thought of T-chan going out with (and marrying) a strange gaigokujin (foreigner).


It's a little strange, but S-chan used to work in night-clubs in Suskino (not necessarily a great job). It's hard for me to picture her working at night... what's the attraction? Is it the money, or is it the life-style?

Of all her main friends, T-chan's the only one who's married. And she had to go to Australia to do it! Seriously, there's definitely something strange going on in Japan... Actually (on a slight change of topic)... it was around 2005-2007 that Japan's population peaked, and is indeed now shrinking. One of the downsides of having such a long life expectancy! That, and a population of men that don't want to settle down and have children.

 It's hard however for T-chan to really feel connected, despite the advances of email, messenger, skype - and blogs. It's not easy to share your life as a series of 1's and 0's being transmitted across the world. I'm glad that she can still re-connect when she goes back to Sapporo.