Ask Mr. Tanaka about Javasscript

Today I woke up at 12:00 in the morning. Then I asked my colleague Mr.Tanaka what I didn’t understand about web production, and he showed me how to do it using GSAP. He spent an hour showing me how to do it, which I would have had to pay for, but he did it for free, so I really appreciated it.

I told him that the only thing I could do for him is to share my adventures and English study methods, so I said “if there is anything he didn’t understand, he could always ask”. I really learned a lot from Mr. Tanaka.

Finally, my first date in Georgia! I met a girl on Tinder and we decided to walk around town.

Today I was contacted by one Latvian girl I met on Tinder, apparently she was going on a hiking trip today and asked me, “I’m free this evening so maybe we can meet?” She said.

I thought it was indeed too sudden, but that suddenness thinking is a Japanese brain, so I threw it out. “Of course! Then let’s go somewhere!” I told her. I asked her where she lived, and she told me that apparently she lived far from the center of town, so after she got back from her hiking trip, she would change her clothes and take the 30-minute train get to come over. I thought that apparently she might be a nice person. Or maybe she is light on footwork. I heard that she likes the outdoors and nature, so I thought she is probably light on her feet. So we decided to meet at the nearest station.

But she said, “It will be around 7:00 p.m., is that OK? I thought it was a little too late, but it was no problem. But I hadn’t eaten anything, so I got hungry around 5:00 p.m. and wanted to go to McDonald’s for dinner. But I try to wait. Then I asked her if she wanted to go to a wine restaurant near my house, which is very interesting. She said she was not hungry, but wanted to eat ice cream while walking around town, so I decided to do exactly that.

To my surprise, she told me that she still did not have a SIM card and that she would not be able to contact me once she left home lol. How can she live like that! lol.

I prepared the dating plan.

I searched for a specific location on Google Maps and sent a message to meet here. We met in front of the station.It’s been a while since I have gone somewhere with a foreigner. So I was very nervous. Of course, when I was in Russia, I went to museums and many other places with someone. I even went on dates with my girlfriend and teachers.

However, I was really nervous because there had been a blank of 9 months until today.

Besides, it’s really the first time for me to meet someone on Tinder and then meet them immediately without talking to them. I’ve never met Japanese people either. In terms of difficulty, I’m more likely to meet a Japanese person because I’m too new to it.

So I was really nervous because usually I have a path to meet someone in real life, talked to them for about a year, and then met them for the first time in person. But this was the first time for me to walk around the city with someone I had met two days before without talking so much. And I felt a little bit of empathy, or perhaps a sense of familiarity, since she also told me that she had just arrived in Georgia and had not yet bought a SIM card.

Let’s go!!

So I headed to the station, listening to Doris Day’s Dream a little Dream of Me with my SHURE ICONIC5 earphones in. My heart was racing. I make up my mind when I walk. Smile, smile, smile. As if I was shining.

Then I arrived at the station and went to the meeting place. But she was not there. So I waited for about 5 minutes. Then someone who looked like her came there. I approached her with a smile and hugged her. Finally, we started walking. I felt like I was back to my normal self, and asked her how her hike was today. Anyway, it was okay to be myself. You know, you don’t have to be liked by someone. So I just asked her what I was interested in.

She said why she came to Georgia and why she is doing volunteer work. She came to Georgia for two weeks in the summer with the Erasmus program. At that time, she was impressed by the people and food in Georgia and she thought, “Oh, this place is so nice”.

So she decided to stay in Georgia for a year because she heard that there was a work experience program in Georgia, like a volunteer program. So she arrived in Georgia a week ago from Latvia. The flat is for three people, but it is really far from the center of the city, and she herself doesn’t know what she is going to do yet.

She came to Georgia for work experience, apparently.

It seems to be her first job this Wednesday, and she’s going to do some training at a day care center, and anyway, she’s going to get involved with Georgians and learn the business. She said something like that. But she wasn’t sure. She said that the flat she lives in has three people, but only two rooms. That room is currently only two members, but when the number of people increases she will have to sleep on the couch. She was talking about how things are really troublesome. I kept laughing.

She is very talkative, really outdoorsy, and not at all shy. I really respect her because she has a big voice and she really speaks her mind. I knew I liked this kind of person. Of course, I don’t see her as a romantic person, but I feel comfortable with someone who has this kind of personality. Really. I don’t have to think about it and I respect her more when she says what she thinks clearly and openly.

Walking toward an ice cream shop

We walked toward the ice cream shop. It was quite a distance, but it seemed to come naturally as we walked. And her walking speed is very fast. I was impressed by how fast she was walking. Then we talked about visas. She told me that she could stay in Georgia without a visa. And since Latvia is in the EU, she can go anywhere in the EU.

She had been to many countries in her life, including Paris, France, small towns, Spain, Copenhagen, and many others.
The route we were taking was really the same as the one I had taken to explore on my own. We arrived at the ice cream store, walking where I had walked alone, as if it was a preview of our date.

I bought vanilla ice cream.

I ordered vanilla. She ordered caramel. So, the ice cream was crazy cheap. It was only 2.5 lari. At the current exchange rate, that’s 150 yen. When it was 30 yen per lari, it was 75 yen. How cheap, I thought. I was asked if I like this ice cream. I told her that I was a little surprised at how different it is from Japanese ice cream, but that I like it.

We arrived at Freedom Square and walked all the way there. I didn’t even know where we were. We just kept walking. I guess we were going to the top, the view was really beautiful. We decided to go to a park on the way to the top. It was as beautiful as the night view where the Terminator appeared naked in Los Angeles.

I felt like it was so romantic. So we looked at the stars and the night view together. I was tired, so I asked her to sit on a bench, and we sat together. The night view was really beautiful, but it wasn’t so nice because of the fence. She told me that it was like that because someone had fallen to death there in the past. I kept looking at the view and feeling romantic all the time.

Romantic view. Very beautiful.

A Ferris wheel standing on a hill.

See the glowing church and the Ferris wheel. There’s a Ferris wheel up there, but is it very far up there? How much does it cost? I asked. She told me that she had been there in the summer and it takes about 50 minutes by cab. It is very far away. But I really want to go there. She said she had ridden on the Ferris wheel, but she said the glass was dirty. We talked about how that was a problem.

Apparently, she already knew Georgia’s Tbilisi well. And we were talking all the time about how the people in Georgia are really nice. So I think that’s very attractive. I’m a little disappointed that I haven’t met them yet, or that I don’t have any friends in Georgia, or that I haven’t gotten a sense of the nice people yet. Not only her, but many people say that Georgians are nice people, and I really want to feel that. I think Russians are very nice people too.

About her favorite European country

And so on and so forth, talking about the Ferris wheel. Then she asked me, where are you going to go in Riga? I told her that I didn’t have any plans. I was going to Riga to meet someone I met through Tandem online.

We talked about her life too. She had been couch surfing and had to wait 8 hours at the airport and the hotel was very expensive, so she was wondering what to do. It was a really interesting and adventurous story.

Then I asked her what her favorite European country is. And then she said, “Paris, Copenhagen, and Prague. And Vienna, Austria”. This is where my favorite movie is set. She said that Europe is almost the same, but especially Prague in Czech Republic is different. She also said that I would probably like Paris. She also told me that Vienna in Austria is also a nice place, and I felt that I really want to go there.

Then we sat on a bench near a beautiful night view and talked about Riga for a long time.

A place with a panoramic night view. Romantic.

We sit on a bench near here and talk.

She is from a rural town far from Riga, so there is a lot of nature there. She told me that Latvia has no mountains, only forests, so Georgia with its mountains is very attractive. She also gave me some city recommendations and told me that transportation is very cheap.

What a surprise, a place that takes about an hour to get from town by airplane. I was really surprised that it seems to cost only 12 euros by train to get there.

A story about prices, rent, and salaries in Japan and Europe

I also showed off my currency conversion apps for rent in Japan and Europe, and told her how much she would get paid if she worked at a theme park. I told her that the starting salary is about 230,000 yen. She said, “Oh, Latvia is even lower, less than half of that. And Georgia is even lower.”

I told her that I am a web designer, and that I had actually studied biology at university, but that I thought I would not be able to travel the world and fulfill what I wanted to do if I continued to work, so I became a freelancer and now traveling the world without finding a job.

Why Georgia? I told her that of course I wanted to enjoy wine in Georgia, the birthplace of wine, and that I wanted to eat Khachapuri and Khinkali.

I told her that since she was on a working holiday in Georgia, she would probably learn how to make Khachapuri and Khinkali, and of course she do. But these cuisines can only be made in Georgia. The cheese used in it is sold only in Georgia.

I heard that flights are cheaper in Scandinavian countries.

‘Flights from Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki and Oslo are all cheap! So I highly recommend it!” She told me. She told me that living in Scandinavia is expensive, but flying is very cheap, so it is much cheaper to fly from Helsinki or other Scandinavian countries than from Switzerland to Germany, the next country over. That was very good information. Thanks for letting me know.

Walking the streets at night together

So, it was getting a little cold, so we decided to walk again. I had no idea where we were, but she seemed to already know the town, so she led the way. As we walked, she told me about her experiences.

Apparently, Turks love their nights out.

She was talking about how there are no nice Turks, and the Turk who let her stay with them on Couchsurfing was the nicest Turk in history. So much so that all the Turks she has met so far was bad, with many of them suddenly wanting to have sex with her, or touching her for her body.

But I asked her if they were not allowed to have sex until they decided to get married because of their religion. But she told me that they can choose their religion, so non-Muslims can have sex with non-Muslims.

But I told her that it was just a youthful indiscretion and that it happens all the time. She also told me that she doesn’t drink, but when she was working on a project with them before, we were all staying at a hotel, and one of the girls got drunk and went into the Turkish guy’s room. She was talking about that.

I have also heard from some of my other friends that they have received strange photos from Turks, or that they have been asked out in strange ways.

We are walking back to station.

We were talking together and arrived at the station in no time. So she was talking about how she has to take 30 minutes to get home now – or something like that.
So we hugged, and I said, “Thank you so much for today!” We talked about how we would see each other again, and said bye-bye. At the end she didn’t make eye contact with me. Maybe embarrassed? Or sad? Or character (humor)? LOL. It would have been great if it was the third one.

And so ended my trip with her. I really enjoyed it. I was happy at the same time. I also had a new experience. I met someone online and then in person, someone I hadn’t talked to much. Now I see that she is gone from Tinder, so it was really a miracle. In such a short period of time.

I asked her if she had graduated from college, but to my surprise, she said she hadn’t! I was surprised to hear that she had just graduated from high school. I thought she had already graduated from college, so it was only natural that she would just let nature take its course and come to Georgia now.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, and this thrill is still the best feeling.

After I said bye bye to her, I went into town to buy some khachapuri, 4 lari. I gave the clerk 4 lari worth of coins from my heavy wallet. It was already cold, so I couldn’t say it was good, but it was tasty enough. I was really looking forward to eating a real Khachapuri.

By the way, her name is Estere, and I think this experience may have helped me to feel more at home in a foreign country. I realized once again how important it is to talk with people outside of Japan. Really. I think I am really living a new experience for myself. I was nervous at first, but this nervousness is what is important, and after I got over it, it was not a big deal in most cases. Besides, the thrill is the best feeling.