wow, pretty cute

There's this couple living together in the same shoebox-sized room in my guesthouse. I couldn't imagine sharing my room with someone. It's tiny.

The more amazing thing is that he's some combination of Asian-Australian and his native language is English. She's Korean, and doesn't know a word of English. And, of course, he doesn't know Korean. I found out last night that they both learned Japanese so that they could be together. Neither of them is totally fluent in Japanese, but they can communicate well enough to be in a relationship. As my friend Chani put it, that is pretty frickin' romantic.

It was awkward when a bunch of us went out to dinner last night though. The guy's girlfriend came for a bit and we were all speaking in English. None of us can speak more than a few phrases of Japanese. When I found out she didn't understand our conversations at all, I felt kinda bad for her. I know how it feels. I remember that time last summer when I went to an Izakaya with my boyfriend and like 10 friends of his from middle school that he hadn't seen in eight years. None of them spoke any English except one girl who knew a few of the usual important phrases like "I'm a student." The whole night I just sat there pretending to follow the conversations around me. What else can you do in a situation like that?

Anyway, I find it amazing that they learned Japanese for each other. What devotion, man. It's a tough language.