The weekend after arriving in Japan several of my dorm-mates and I were taken out to Shibuya by our Japanese friend, the Mayor (imaginary nickname), who we met that day. Our group was fairly large consisting of maybe 8 or 10 people. Unfortunately, the Mayor arrived late to meet us at our dorm and we arrived at Shibuya later than we had expected. Also, we were still new to Japan and didn't realize that we were missing the last train back home. We ended up going to a bar and participating in "nomihoudai" (all you can drink) for two hours. Since we had missed the last train, we decided that it would be best to do karaoke until 5AM, when the first train starts.
A few hours later, we headed back to the train station. It appeared that many other people had missed the last train and were either heading towards the train station or sleeping outside of it on the street. As we followed the Mayor to where we could buy our tickets, one of our group, Rob, gets into an altercation with two, suspicious looking Japanese men in their early twenties. Most of the yelling was done by one of the suspicious looking men. The Mayor then went over to attempt to reach an agreement between the arguing men. Although the discussion appeared to just get more heated. When it it seemed as though the arguing was done and the groups were separating, the Mayor turns around, flips off the young Japanese men, and spits on the one nearest to him. The young Japanese men then motion to the Mayor to take him outside and fight. Only once one of the girls from our group pulls the Mayor away, does the dispute end and we head towards our train. As we get on the train the Mayor starts laughing and says to Rob, "Yeah, I think that was actually your fault."
Rob had attempted to buy his train tickets at the wrong ticket machine. Usually, this wouldn't matter at all except the young Japanese men had been using the machine and left it for a moment. Rob pressed a random button and that was when the young Japanese man began yelling at him.
Ironically, I visited Shibuya at a later date and I witnessed another altercation involving a foreigner at the same exit. Except this time, the foreigner was the furious one. He even went so far as to yell at a group of policemen.
Perhaps this sort of thing happens so often in Shibuya because of the amount of foreigners who go to visit this area. Since these tourists do not know Japanese, then it is only natural that they would experience misunderstandings with others in the foreign country they are visiting.
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