my model adventure

so, it was a regular old tuesday evening. i had gone out to dinner with a friend and visited her in her adorable new apartment near hakata station. fun to be sure, but nothing out of the ordinary. i left her place around ten, hoping to go home and get to bed early, as i seem to only be getting about 6-7 hours of sleep a night (poor sleep because of the heat) and my chinese herbalist told me i needed to get at least 8. so far this is not working out very well. anyways, i could have caught a bus to hakata station and another bus back to my place from there, but the bus from hakata is only local and takes a life age. so i was planning to take a quick bus back to tenjin, and my usual highway bus home from there. the bus came a few minutes after i arrived at the yanagibashi stop, and the first thing i noticed was the group of five raucous foreigners sitting inside, near the door (in japan you get on the bus in the middle and alight from the front). the second thing i noticed, upon entering the bus, was the unmistakable and overwhelming smell of beer. i fled to the middle-front of the bus and for the first three minutes or so i cursed the stupid, loud, inappropriate foreigners who were unknowingly (drunkenly) terrorizing the japanese passengers and creating foreigner stereotypes. i had my earphones in so i wasn't listening to whatever they were saying (too loudly), but at one point i turned around to shake my head at their impropriety and one of them pointed at me and said "are you white?"

i proceeded to tell them just how ugly and embarrassing their behavior was, though i stayed calm as not to make a scene. they quieted down a bit and i asked them why they were here, on this bus, at this time, on a tuesday, drunk. i figured they were just backpackers, but it turns out that two were english teachers in korea, and three were professional models who were working between korea, singapore, and hong kong. and i don't just mean commercial models. i mean, high fashion, runway models! i didn't have time to be starstruck, as i was trying to keep them quiet until we got off the bus. they wanted to go to the street where all the foreigner bars are, which was just around the corner from my bus stop, so i agreed to take them. there if they behaved themselves. to be honest, only two of them were being really annoying- one of the teachers, and one of the models (who had arms and abs like an abercrombie & fitch ad, but was a certifiable douchebag). the tiny youngest model (high fashion and runway) had had too much to drink and the other teacher, a pretty nice guy, was taking care of him. and then there was amsterdam (not his name, duh, but his place of origin), the serene, mature, radiant, and least drunk of the bunch (i won't deny for a second that i'm smitten, or at least in awe).

so i finally got them off the bus, after having to make change for them with my own money (they really had no idea what they were doing, being drunk and in japan) and showed them to a few local bars. i TOLD them that because it was tuesday there would be no one out and no scene, but they insisted we try to find somewhere fun. it took ages to get them a block down the street, as the baby model had to be propped up and watered with electrolytes, and the two drunk assholes were making friends with the sketchy japanese dudes on the street. i know i should have just left them and gone home, but it was too darn surreal, too amusing and unusual to pass up. besides, my last bus didn't leave for more than an hour. it would get me home in time to go to bed at the same time i have been each night lately.

much stupidity ensued, such as the two annoying ones getting yelled at by the bartender of the club i sometimes go to because they had brought their beers into the establishment, and me having the opportunity to touch the ROCK HARD abs of the a&f-like model, as he was pretty much willing to let anyone have a touch. i took them to another place, where amsterdam played pool and lost a game of foosball to the bar owner, the a&f model disappeared outside to drink, smoke and be loud, the two teachers hit on the only women in the bar, a trio of divorced middle-aged women, and the baby model finally perked up (he was on the verge of passing out earlier from being made to drink too much- i can't believe how poorly men treat each other when they drink! experienced something similar during study abroad in kyoto, when my friend and i watched some college boys giggle about their passed out friend and i was thisclose to yelling at them and rolling him over so he didn't drown in his own vomit. thankfully they finally rolled him over themselves. JESUS.). we struck up a conversation and i learned a bit about the modeling world and why they were here and so on. the really loud and obnoxious teacher finally demanded we move on because he was starving and he refused to turn the hotel key over to the other teacher and baby model. amsterdam, sober by this point, said he just wanted to go back to the hotel near hakata station, so my last duty as teacher/model babysitter for the evening consisted of leading them to a bus stop, instructing them how to make change, and how long it would take them to get to the station. i shook amsterdam's hand and received crushing hugs from baby model and a&f, then waved ciao to the teachers and waited for them to safely board the bus before heading to my own bus stop.

i know they got home safe and to their respective photoshoots because i am now facebook friends with baby model and amsterdam (who thanked me for showing them around). of course, i looked through all their photos, and even the simple dinner parties or shots with friends turn into photoshoots with them. i swear, models live on another plane of existence. it was a very strange night, and i remember it almost as though i was drunk too, though i was most definitely stone cold sober. sigh. models.

i don't want to seem like a creepy stalker, but i just have to share a photo of amsterdam in all his modeliciousness. for your viewing pleasure:

sometimes life throws the craziest things at you, just to shake it up every once in a while. i'm not complaining ^_^