Sunday, April 13, 2008

Wink Or Swim

Swimming in Japan is very strange. In most public Japanese public swimming pools, half of the people walk up and down the pool instead of swimming. At the end of each hour, everyone has to get out for a rest.

I went swimming at a school swimming pool near my house. The staff seemed really pleased to have a non-Japanese customer. One of the lifeguards rushed up to me as I entered the pool, and asked where I was from. When I told him I was English, he got very excited and started talking about Mr David Beckham, a British footballer. I tried to explain that football was the opium of the people etc, but I'm not sure I was able to fully get my point across.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being worth 25 million could, prolly, buy you a lot of friends. Did the lifeguard speak Nihongo with you or Eigo? And have you been speaking to people much in Japanese?

Karamoon said...

The lifeguard was very keen on trying out his English. I don't use my Japanese enough as I'm usually hanging out with English-speaking friends. I should probably get out more...

- Karamoon