Drunken Guy and More Police

On the way home tonight, I saw a man lying in the corner of an intersection. I went past at first, but thought better of it and turned around. I stopped my bike near him and asked if he was alright. He was clearly drunk and I could smell the alcohol on him from a few feet away. He kept falling over into the street, and kept pulling himself back up using a guy wire for a utility pole.
After a few minutes, he pulled out a cell phone and called someone, presumably for help. Satisfied, I went to the nearest police box whose location I knew and reported it, then got a couple of numbers to call in the future.

To top it off, they were all impressed with my Japanese (not actually a good sign), seemed to think I was super-cool because I had both a cell phone and a radio, and I got some good info about an electronics shop for my trouble.

I'm still a little worried about the old man on the side of the street, but he looked plenty well off and I imagine the police will stop by there soon if they haven't already. I think most of their job here is dealing with drunks, so...

Random Bits Not Big Enough for Post of Their Own

Miscellaneous interesting things that happened to or around me today:
- First off, these two pictures wouldn't fit in the Obon post, but I took them there. They're two of my favorites, so I couldn't just leave them out.
- Tried out some bug repellant that I got from Shari. Instead of getting gnawed to death, I was actually playing with the mosquitoes, and they wouldn't get within two or three inches of where I had put the repellant. Next time, I might leave one spot for them to land, just so I can swat them. I got at least four or five while I was checking my email today.

- I have never before been patted encouragingly on the butt by woman. Or rather, I hadn't. I don't know what that means. Thanks, Chen, now I will worry about that for weeks.

- Ran into Alessandra and company at the Obon festival. Alessandra is the Italian girl I've been chasing all semester and summer break. I have had no luck whatsoever, and she's leaving in two or three days. Well, that's normal for me, you know?

- Got a haircut. First time in Japan. It doesn't look so good, but... He did what I asked, so I have nobody to blame.

- I saw the police, uh, handling a drunken guy on my way back. I was making pretty good time (considering I was crossing 80-90% of the city's diagonal size), but stopped in Omiya to watch the drunken guy. The police were trying to get him to take a taxi, and had to rather forcefully wedge him in the taxi at least twice. I think the driver wasn't comfortable with the idea, so the cops called for a cop-van-mobile and they shoved him in that instead. They were really polite to him the entire time and the most physical force I saw them use was to keep the guy from falling on the ground again. See, at first they underestimated his drunkenness, and he fell into the street simply by epic walking failure.
I've never before seen someone roll down the street.
Anyway, I had hoped to congratulate the cops on handling it so well, but the four of them (two came in the cop-van-mobile) left the police box unmanned - yes, locked; yes, I checked - and took him away. Dunno where to, but he didn't seem to know where he lived, if "Where do I live?" and "My home? Where the hell is that?" are any indication of that. Have some pictures, but I was trying to be discreet, which is hard to do in a well-lit intersection.

- Was there, but not involved in, the creation of a new standard of beauty: long ass and tight legs. Little too much sangria for some people? I dunno. It was pretty funny, though.

- Went farther to the East than I have previously, to the point where many of the main roads simply stop existing. Hung out with Ana, Waii (sp?), Chen, Eileen, Jonas, and some other people whose names refuse to come to my mind in it's groggy state of dogged fogginess.

- Ate a strawberry jam mochi pan which was basically a strawberry jam sandwich.

- Was very glad I had an extra shirt, 'cause the one I was wearing when I got to Chen's place was... pretty damp. It was so wet, it was difficult to take off, and when I went to dry myself off a little with it, I couldn't find any dry spots.
It was not a good-smelling thing.

Some More Cops

I was using the Internet out by the mall for a while, and there were some cops (actual cops!*) patrolling the bike parking area I was in. Once I was done with my email and whatnot, I went over to talk to them.
I was surprised to find out that they don't know the caliber of their own weapons, only that they're revolvers. He said that both their revolvers carried five rounds, which says to me that they must be pretty large rounds, 'cause the cylinder's about the same size as my mom's Ruger GP-100 chambered in .357. For common police rounds, that leaves pretty much just the .45, I think. I mean, there's .40S&W and 10mm, but I think those're only commonly used by American law enforcement.

Anyway, this surprises me because Japanese tend to have a small frame to being with, and using a compact pistol will increase recoil due to the reduction of weight. In addition, a revolver won't lose any of the recoil to the action like a automatic does.

But they also said that not everybody carries the same gun or uses the same ammo, which surprises me to some extent, given the Japanese need to have everybody be the same. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down", right?

I also asked them both why they decided to become police officers, and they had the same opinion there "To arrest the bad guys", and one guy said he saw a documentary on Japanese cops and from then on knew he wanted to be a cop.

We talked about other stuff, but all I can remember is that I must've had an off day, because they kept complimenting my Japanese, which is a sure sign you're making headway on epic fail. Or at least, for me.

A Narrow Escape? Nah.

I was just stopped by cops for the first time! I was out using the Internet at 4AM and - purely by coincidence - was wearing mostly black: black BDU pants, a black ACU top, and my big brown desert Marine boots. To top it off, I was wearing a hat and had on my black photo gloves. Truly a suspicious sight indeed.

If I were going to commit a robbery, I certain wouldn't dress in all black. Would you?

On the other hand, I was out there for about an hour and I don't think I got a single mosquito bite. And I got to talk to the cops, who were surprisingly easy to understand.

One of them - of three! - triggered his siren (on accident?) about three blocks away, which gave me a bad feeling and I was thinking I should pack up, and I could've been out of there if I had hurried, but I think that would've just made things worse. So maybe the siren was on purpose to spook me if I were doing anything actually questionable? Dunno.
As it was, they came up and I think I might have greeted them before they said anything. I greet cops whenever I see them, so that's normal for me.
Anyway, they asked what I was doing, and I responded that I was using the Internet. I explained how it was close to my apartment, and my rather suspicious location (by a dumpster, in a dark corner!) was due to the relative low number of mosquitoes*. At some point, I explained that I was having trouble with the "Internet company" because my credit card is foreign, so the company says the numbers are wrong. I *think* they asked, but I might have just been too stressed and said it.

*For some reason, no matter how many times I talk about animals, I am completely unable to to use the iru verb form. I kept using aru which is the verb of existence for things that don't that don't move perceptibly, like plants and inanimate objects. Say, a chair.

I was patted down and they checked all but one of my pockets, which I thought was pretty weird; I was surprised they missed my only pocket that actually had stuff in it. I mean, one of my cargo pockets had my card wallet in it, and they had me pull out a couple of cards at random. Then he found my left-front pocket and apparently thought my changepurse was suspicious. I was so nervous at this point that I opened it to show him and managed to launch a $1 coin onto the ground.
Then he he checked my rear pockets, while saying something like "We're men, so it's okay". Strangely, they didn't check any of my jacket pockets, though I was careful to use those in front of them.
They also checked the pouch I keep my dictionary and insurance information in, and I guess checked my insurance to see if it was all in order. Presumably, they found the bandages I had stuffed in it.
*The reason this surprises me is because they were pretty thorough, so it seems odd that they would miss the one pocket that almost everyone would have. Also, in that pocket was my only vaguely dangerous object, a pen.

They didn't seem suspicious of my flashlight, though one of them got a little bit concerned when I reached to my waist to pull it out. I guess I could've as easily been drawing a weapon, though, and he would've been out of luck: anybody can shoot from the hip at 2m and get a solid hit, and none of them reacted enough to do anything about it, had it been a weapon.
My jacket had been covering the flashlight until that point, so I doubt it's the case that they knew what it was. They didn't check anything above the waist at all, thinking back on it.

They also searched my bag, though they didn't check the main compartment or any of the small ones, which seems odd. They checked the laptop section and two of the miscellaneous crap pockets. I have to wonder what they were thinking as they saw the what I was carrying with me.

In addition, they wanted to know what I was using the Internet for. I responded that I was checking my email and reading comics. They didn't think I could really be out here using the Internet, so I showed them that I had had my email and comics open and pointed to the balloon tooltip and translated for them. I think one of them said "Ah, it was Gmail!" at one point.

So while all of this was going on, one guy hung back out of reach and at a different angle and watched what his partner was doing, and a third guy checked my bicycle and foreigner registration information. I don't think the second guy ever said a word, and expect he may have been trying to go unnoticed, which would make sense.
I learned that the radios they have apparently have long enough cords to reach at least a meter in any direction. Never know when that might be useful. At least two had firearms or firearm-shaped things (but probably normal pistols) on their belts, but I never saw the third guy at an angle to be able to see. I expect they all had asps in addition, and beyond that, I didn't note anything about their equipment, as it was all in leather (I think) cases. Japanese police officers have their firearms on coiled tethers, by the way.

They escorted me home and hung around for a few minutes at least, and were still out there five minutes later when I went to check to see if I'd left anything in my bike. I want them to still be out there so I can maybe get a picture, and to see why they didn't search my jacket, but I don't think they are.
They're not, but it's been nearly an hour.

I asked right before I went inside the first time why there were three instead of two, like normal, and the guy that had been interacting with me the most responded that they usually work in groups, but they're sometimes on their own and sometimes in groups of up to four. As they were leaving, I apologized for causing trouble and thanked them for their hard work.

Even though it was stressful, it was fun and it's an experience I'm glad to have had. I should've asked more questions, though, as it's usually really hard to get cops to talk to me.

Well, for as long as this post has been, the entire thing probably didn't last fifteen minutes. And it's nearly 5:30AM, so I'm calling it a day.

[When I went to actually put this online, two cops walked by and I greeted them. I've never seen cops around here with the exception of the past 24 hours.]