late nights and early finishes

Well, the weekend held much more promise than the week and lived up to it! Having made lots of plans I headed down to the city on Saturday where money flowed like oil from a sinking tanker. First thing was to meet Fiona for dinner and catch up after her holiday to Malaysia and Singapore ("Did it have anything that Japan didn't?" I asked. "Good shops, a wide variety of foods on offer, many different entertainment choices, English speakers and a mix of nationalities", came the reply. So not much then...) After we had a good feed Fiona headed home kindly taking my bags, and I headed to the Red Moon for a salsa night where, if it hadn't been for the dance classes I attended, I'd have been convinced Japanese people can't dance. The ones at the club couldn't. Indeed, even a conga "circle" managed to not move anywhere. And have you tried conga-ing on the spot? It doesn't work. After chatting a bit with a few people and having a few drinks, I decided that the heat was way too much, so I left to go to a small bar full of people of a similar condition to myself (if you know what I mean). I stayed there till around 2:30 and was quite smashed when I left. D'oh. Saturday was looking like hard work already.

So on Saturday I had to get to Ibara, a place I've never been before. So I asked the attendant at the train station. It's what you would usually do, and usually you get a speedy, efficient answer. Not today. The guy was on his own trying to serve 6 people at once. And once he'd gotten rid of all the others he came back to me. And then wandered off again. And came back. And wandered off. He decided to show me how to use the ticket machines (I already know). But he didn't know how much a ticket to Ibara was, so in very fast Japanese he told me to buy a four hundred yen ticket and pay the rest at the other end. Only he didn't tell me how to get to the other end. D'oh! So after a quick phone call to Rach I was on my way, and having bumped into two of the new ALTs on the train, I was pretty much laughing all the way too. And getting stared at for being too noisy on public transport (any sound louder breathing is too noisy apparently).

Arriving at Ibara we met Amy, Rachel and Dave and Ilana and Ben and headed to the Soundwood music festival (which Ben had told us all about). The festival was held on the side of a mountain where the seating area was the mountain slope, and the stage was on a small area of level ground, but the view was grand. You could see for miles- mountains and trees and amongst them, the low level towns. So, having spent at least 2 minutes admiring this, we got down to the usual business of the day- drinking. Although in the 34 degree heat we were taking it easy. A succession of local bands came on, singing in Japanese and English, and all were really good, until a funk band came on playing Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke". The music was fabulous, but the vocal's were more Geri Halliwell-after-a-stroke than Stevie Wonder. Shame. It was a great day of chatting and socialising and eating freshly made naan breads from one of the food stalls, and fortunately Saddam turned up in time to enjoy at least one whole half hour of it. D'oh! Having been delayed, she arrived at 8, and to our surprise it finished at 8:30, so we all headed back to Ben's for more talk and drink and food. By the time we left it felt like 3am, but it was in fact only 11:30, so Saddam and I stayed up at her's chatting. And then we heard Mark and Soren calling Sarah from outside, so they came up and we ended up talking until 3am. Oops. So we went quickly to bed with a decision to wake up at 10:30.

Well, 10:30 came and I was awake, but not wanting to get up. Two late nights and I felt like my head had been squashed between two bricks. So I decided not to go to day two of the festival. It was the head issue and the three hour journey home that swung it. So after Saddam's place was visited by Kieran and Kelly, we split and I headed home via the city and Starbucks and a shoe shop. Double oops...

But I had a nice early night on Sunday and another on Monday. Tonght I shall be up late to call LeeJay, so I must finish now and catch some zeds (how do you pluralise 'z'?) at school before home time... Cheeky cheeky!