It does happen in Japan - 2

The 11th HOUR trend....


I, sometimes feel that, it is inured in my damn blood to do things at the 11th hour, 59th minute or whatever you define it as. Or, perhaps, it is something like man gets the vim, (RIN, WHEEL, ARIEL ! !), vigor, the energy, the dynamism only when he performs his actions at the 11th hour.

Oops!! HAPPY NEW YEAR, by the way. Have a rocking 2010 ahead. 

Though the 11th hour hastening up of things is prone to a lot of errors, it is said that sometimes these 11th hour doing of things turn out to be the most efficient. It is something analogical to a person who never participates in running race, assuming that he is not that fast and happens to be chased by a barking dog and this guy running his full breath (may be at 24 kmph) to evade its bite, somehow evades it, then sitting relaxed and introspecting himself, his running capabilities, then taking part in the next running competition and winning it…..!!

I have got the least clue as to why did I start keying in this post. And have got the least of ideas as to how the above justification will serve a good analogy. But, yes let me continue. So, right from school days, to college days, to work, even now here in Japan – my evergreen trend of ‘last minute thingy’ continues and survey (performed by my mind itself) says that this trend is said to continue till my last breath.
Our Japanese language and lifestyle training is in for a new-year off for a week. To keep us all engaged and to be in touch with the language, we were handed-over with a bunch of assignments to be completed over this week assuming that if they had given 7X assignments, ‘the honorable WE’ would be completing X assignments a day in a relaxed fashion reaching the target on the 7th day. But, this is a Japanese way of looking at things. (Very mathematical isn’t it. I, for one, am not a lobbyist for mathematics, but somehow feel that mathematical justifications are easier to comprehend the magnitude). I am not Japanese by blood. 5 days up. 2 more to go. 0X assignments completed.  And tomorrow our Dining is in for a weekly off (which happens on every Sunday), which means HIBERNATION. We hibernate the whole day by sleeping. That’s life.  So, it all boils down to the last-day. Yay! Yay! Trend is still ever-green.

There is a pretty relaxed rule here in AOTS, KKC, O’saka that we must return back to the center before 12 in the night max. after which the gates would be closed (STRICT. Mind you. This is JAPAN). Looked like this is far relaxed and would never happen. It was a Monday (2009/12/28) evening. New-year off’s 0th day (which means FULL VIGOR). We made a last-minute decision to go on to a place called NAMBA (about 40 minutes, from KKC) to watch AVATAR 3D. Details given by my friend: 1. TOHO Cinemas. 2. 8:30 PM show. 3. English (with Japanese sub-titles). 4. 3D. 5. Ticket fare : Not sure. 6. Duration: 1.5 hours. I had already read the review in IMDB and in lot other sources. But, I had not seen the duration of the movie. We started after dinner. Reached. Ticket fare was 1500 YEN. The 8:30 PM show started at 9 PM. (Totally a Non-Japanese way. No WHY clues!!). Movie kicked-off. We were all so engrossed into it. The movie had a great ending (James Cameron has rocked again). All our eyes went on to our respective watches on our hands to see the ‘half-past 10 sign’ on it. Oops!! Its half-past 11. “Why the hell is my watch showing the current time in New South Wales?” I enquired my friend. He confirmed that it really is 11:30 PM here in O’saka and the film was a 150 minute thingy and not a 90 minute one. We had about 28 odd minutes to reach the so-called 40 minute-long KKC or sleep in 2 deg. C outside KKC premises till 6 AM the next day. “Come on man, you are highly revered among people here. Every move of yours is being watched by the company. Reaching late would fetch you lot of embarrassing instances. Come on man…. Run.” I was pondering myself. I, for one, for the past 25 days, had followed all traffic signals so religiously. Today was an exception. Jumping most of the red-lights, shouldering a lot of by-standers and running without uttering a SUMIMASEN (Sorry, in Japanese), boarding a sub-way train whose doors almost closed, we managed to reach KKC at 11:59:30 PM. Hurray!
I was expecting some strict faces from receptionists for barging in like this. But it was like “Eiga wa Do’ deshita ka? Totemo omoshirokatta desu ne. (How was the movie? It was very interesting right? )” We nodded with fast breaths and proceeded to our rooms. Life is like that. 