Posted by CP on 11/26/2001, 9:51 am Second lady: Comes in and sits down to PH's right, with one stool between them. (I am to PH's left, at the "bottom" of the long "leg" of the "L".) She looks mid- to late-30s, dressed really fashionably, with some kind of long scarf if memory serves. Asks for an ashtray almost as soon as she sits down. After getting her drink (cocktail, PH?), takes out her cigarette case. Looks silver; PH may have more details. Kind of a small case as cases go, but very nice and suited her well. Takes out a cigarette, an all-white (found out later to be Mild Seven 1mg). LIghts up no hands (yesssssssss :-) Inhales for an ungodly length of time. Even with a 1mg cigarette, this impressed me greatly. But she never once exhaled a great deal of smoke. She had a long delay. I mean _long_ :-) And then she had an obvious attempt at an exhale, with the mouth forming the exhale shape I need not describe to you guys. But not much smoke came out then. Later, when she started talking to us, I noticed some more smoke would seep out of her mouth after that first exhale attempt, during the course of her talking. PH, who talked first? I believe it was her, know it wasn't me, but could have been you, PH? Anyway, we all ended up talking sometime after she had finished her first cigarette. After we had been talking for a while, she (finally!) lit up again. I say finally, because since PH and I were not smoking, I feared she might not smoke her second one for a long, long time. She asked us what we were doing the next night. Don't think we really gave her a definitive answer. She then gets up to leave and on her way out throws down (very uncharacteristic of Japanese) one of her namecards to both of us. One side is just her picture. First time I've ever seen that in Japan. The other side has personal information, such as when she finished junior high school, HS, college, and when she started her first couple jobs. Again, very un-Japaneselike! Easy to figure her age from her card; turns out she is 40, give or take a year. Oh, forgot to mention she spoke entirely in English with PH and I. (Except for a little Japanese with me, if I recall; your typical "let's see if he can really speak Japanese" test that I sometimes am on the receiving end of. Her English was very fluent, as she had graduated from a uni in the U.S.! And, oh BTW, she tells us to call her. (Of course her card has her phone number and an address, though we didn't know at that time if it was her work or home info.) We did end up calling her; but info on how that ended up will have to wait for another post. Please be patient Okay, so we leave not long after her. The night had started off wonderfully. We walk, looking for a snack to drink at. As we are walking, I notice a young lady approachin our way, with a cigarette in her hand down by her striding leg. I tell PH in a low voice, "We got a walking while..." He notices too. Then I say something that included the word "snack" . Just then, the girl is just in front of us, almost abreast of us, and I see her kind of smile. We keep walking past, in opposite directions. I then wonder why on earth did she smile, even if it was just a slight smile. I turn around. At the exact same time, she turns around a little and looks at us, with a happy face, and continues walking! Thinking only something good could come of this, I tell PH to come with me as we approach the girl (now about 20 meters away) from behind. I speak to her in Japanese, tell her that PH and I are looking for a place to drink, especially a snack or place where no foreigners are likely to be. She puts her cigarette out on the sole of her shoe (PH, did she take a puff first? I seem to think she did, and then exhaled away from us, polite little thing.) She does this while kind of kneeling, and just to be playful, I kneel also and continue the conversation, pretending to not notice she' s kneeling to put out her cigarette. She laughs when she sees my head down at the same level as hers, and tells me she's only stubbing out her cigarette. (God, if they only knew that's the last thing we want them to do...) Now get this part. She informs us that she is just going home from her snack! She says she will be glad to take us back there. I have small concerns about going to a snack without knowing what kind of building it is in (which can affect price, but not always), how many customers are there, etc. etc. But I know there will be at least one smoking female there, and a very friendly one (and foreigner-friendly, too) at that, so I don't hesitate to say "Great, take us there." It does turn out to be a fairly high class place, as snacks go. And I am a little concerned when I notice the word "snack" is not on the sign for her "snack" either at ground level (where signs for all the bars in the building can be found, nicely lit up if open and unlit if closed) or on the door of her place of work. Well, she seems like a decent girl, so I kind of look at PH as if to say "What the hell" and I think I tell him something like I sense we can trust her. (Turned out later I was quite right. Or maybe quite lucky?) We get three stools at the long, straight counter, down on the left side away from the door. I on the far left, Natsuko (our 24 year old "guide") to my right, and PH on her right. There is one table behind us, with a 40-ish looking guy and a lady. As soon as we sit down, Natsuko takes a cigarette case out (what kind PH?) She lights up an all-white 100, which later turns out to be a Bevel Flair. (Japanese brand I believe?) She has the most incredible "normal" smoking style. Super long and deep inhales. Then a super long delay. And then a super long stream exhale. Followed usually by talking secondary exhales if she is talking. PH and I don't say much to each other, not knowing the English ability of everyone there, but we made eye contact or something to say "Did you get a load of that?!" I wait for her to finish her first cigarette, but I don't waste much time after that in taking out the cigarillos. They get the normal amount of "oohs" and "ahhs". I notice that Natsuko is smiling while oohing and ahhing and input that into my SF "she might well like one herself" equation somewhere in the bowels of my noggin. After I let her handle the pack of cigarillos for some time, as well as the lady behind the counter, I take one out and either Natsuko or the counter girl lights me up. (I usually remember things like that, but let me tell you I had a "rough" four days ;-) Immediately, the women say how sweet the smoke smells. Natsuko is still smiling a lot. I offer her one and she hestiates not one bit. I take one out and give it to her in its plastic wrapper. She kind of fumbles with it, not noticing where it says "Pull". I take it back, point out where it says "Pull" and we both laugh, and I open it for her and give it back. I light her up and then comes the moment of truth. I figure one of three things will happen. First possibility is she will be overwhelmed by the tar and nicotine (which are not written on the package but must be _significantly_ more than her Bevels. ), and she will either put it out soon after that or alternate between smoking it and her own brand the rest of the night, never really inhaling on the cigarillo though. Or two, she will smoke it straight through, but again, not really smoke it. Or three, and the least likely given her relatively young age and thus lack of hardened lungs, she will really smoke it like her cigarettes. And the answer is (was) ..... Number Three She smoked that thing like nobody's business. The same exact style. Long deep inhales. Long mind boggling delay, often tested by my asking her questins in mid-delay, all of such tests which she passed with flying colors BTW. And always the long stream exhale after that incredibly long delay. She smoked it straight through. Never complained once. Never said anything about how strong it was, did she PH? Said several times how sweet and delicious it was. She gave it to the lady behind the counter, mid- to late-20s (?) to try and she liked her one try at it. God, I think I was so mesmerized by Natsuko's smoking, I didn't even think of offering one to the "working" girl. It was that kind of a four day weekend. Well, guess I've done my best to jinx the board. I'm sure that now that I've written such a long post, Boardhost will have another big problem and you'll soon find this post missing. Day Two when I get the time. PH, please at least fill in the missing blanks in my memory if you can. And of course feel free to start Days Two through Four without waiting for me. I can jump in anytime.
Well, I am too pooped (tired) to write all the smoking details today, but I spent a marvelous four days in PH's city here in Japan. The first night, a Thursday, two lovely 30ish ladies smoking at a small bar with a mixed Japanese/foreigner clientele. Actually, there were more women smoking there, but we sat at the small L-shaped counter and "settled" for these two ladies. First lady: incredibly long inhales, bordering on cheek hollowing the entire time. A fair delay.... and then the nice stream exhales, usually right in the face of whichever bartender, male or female, happened to be behind the counter at the time. She was using a case, but maybe PH can supply brand ID. (I think he has seen her there before...)
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