One day during the Golden Week holidays I decided to go to Koenji railway station and catch up with some of the locals and some students who were still working. I usually wake up early, cannot sleep in, and I needed some exercise so why not say “good morning have a nice day” and kill two or more birds with the one stone.
About an hour after I arrived and while I was talking with one of my pupils I felt someone was looking at me. So I turned myself in the direction that I thought the person would be and sure enough there certainly was. A good looking muscular and very tall guy was watching me with an “I can’t believe it” sort of expression on his face. I nodded to him and offered him a flyer and he came over and said “Ken” I said yes and he said “I am Junpei’ still with a shocked look on his face.. Well Junpei as it turned out was the first tenant to stay at my Surfers Paradise apartment in The Moroccan. He was in Australia on a working holiday visa and when I met him he worked at a Japanese restaurant (izakaya) called “Umi” which, as it was in the building next to my unit, I visited quite often. It was a well known and popular place with Japanese tourist because it had an interesting menu with food such as crocodile, kangaroo, emu, snake etc as well as you’d expect edamame and fermented soya beans.
What are the odds of meeting a former (at least 7 years ago) tenant in the largest city in the world who I thought lived in Hiroshima and who in fact now lives in the same suburb as me. I must say I’d never have recognised him. He looks so different.
We had a quick conversation, as he was heading to a training session. He managed to tell me that he is a professional basketball player. and as he was much taller than me I can understand why. In any event I find it unreal that we could meet again in this way. What are the odds of it happening?
He also told me that he would be playing in Tokyo (Yoyogi) the following week and he invited me and some friends to watch the match. So I gave him my mobile number and said as I’m on holidays I would love to go to a live basketball match as I had never been to one before. When I last saw him in Australia it was when we had a drink at The Clock (in Surfers Paradise) with his very attractive girl friend which as I mentioned ealier was about 7 years ago. He was in a hurry to go to training so I didn’t get a chance to ask about her.
The next I heard from him was on the Thursday morning of the match and he arranged for me to pickup tickets from the reception desk at Yoyogi Daini which I did. We had a great view of the match which was very fast but I was unable to identify him on the court, which I learnt after the first quarter was because he was not on the court but came on in the second quarter. He looked smaller as I remembered looking up at him at Koenji station and I’m about 185.5cm but compared to most of the other players he looked insignificant. He soon proved that he was a valued player and by the time the game was over he was the hero of the night and it was obvious that he is a first class player maybe even a champion. He undoubtedly is extremely popular.
The crowning glory was when Junpei received the ball around 30 seconds from the end, when the scores were tied at Grouses 81 Apache 81, and after passing it around a few times he eventually buried a three pointer with just 6 seconds remaining on the clock..
Wow! it was a tremendously exciting match and a game that I could easily become a fan of if I was free to attend matches on a regular basis.
We went down and joined the club and team member’s kampai and one of my students and I had a photograph taken with the club’s idol Junpei Nakama who is 191cms tall and looked small because many of his team mates are over 200cms.
What a shame that the return match the following day was won by the Grouses 72 – 71 but it obviously proved a memorable encounter for both teams – they played their hearts out.
Junpei is on the road at the moment but when he comes back to Tokyo he wants to have a drink in Koenji so I’ll try and organise a few students to join us. What a thrill that will be.
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