Mi's in town!

My friend Mi (obviously not her real name) is in town from Brazil. She's native Japanese and worked with me at my last job. It was great to see her - she hasn't changed since I last saw her. Feisty is a great word.

What's funny is that she used to be very traditional Japanese... that is before she met me. I seem to have had somewhat of an effect on her.

One of the first trips we did together was to Japan, actually. Hokkaido island (and I think I spelled that wrong). We both managed to get an afternoon off together, and we went to a local noodle house (amazing udon soup and tempura) and then to a bath house, which is very traditional Japanese. The bath house was HUGE. And, you must go completely naked. Mi was verrrrry surprised when I just stripped down to nothing without a problem. She just said tonight how that might not have been the best idea, at least from her perspective. Immediately that day and afterwards I would say in a sing-song voice "I saw Mi naked".

So, at work, I tended to speak my mind. What a surprise. Mi would sit there and look at me and wonder at the words coming out of my mouth. She also was taken advantage of by our boss, and I would counsel her to the best of my ability, and try to get her to stand up for herself. Over time, Mi started changing a bit and now it's to the point where we're like twin sisters - personality-wise. Now, I'm not saying it was all me. I wish! Because I like her a lot. No, not in that way....

Mi signs. So the table tonight was a combination of Japanese speakers (her sister and friend), English speakers, and deaf people. Great combination. Though Mi was not very excited to hear I had gotten rid of my sign language books. Oh well!

What a wonderful evening after a very pissy day. And I biked home in the dark in the beautiful weather, meat rumbling in my belly.