Ooh, it hurts...

The non-drinking stance of the beginning of the year seems to have fallen out of favour to be replaced by a making-up-for-lost-time stance. This began last wednesday with dinner at Nao chan's after teaching at the neighbouring school during the day. The school day was great, the kids were lovely as usual and the 6th graders threw a thank you party for all the teachers. Plus a certain foriegner-starring TV show was shown throughout the school at lunchtime. Mildly embarrassing? Mildly...

So Nao chan demonstrated the art of flour-free okonomiyaki (which also means a more vegetarian style- until, that is, you throw in the squid and prawns and fish cake), Oji-san bought a trawler's worth of delicious sashimi and Papa-san brought on the beers, so after another evening of conversation where all but Nao chan ended up trolleyed it was home time.

As if to give the liver a chance to reaccustom itself, Thursday was a civilised evening, an evening of good company (the lady from the flower shop), good food (tasty pizza) and Audrey Hepburn. "Sabrina Fair" is an hilarious film, I had forgotten how much so. It must also have a remarkably simple dialogue as I was able to read and understand most of the kanji in the subtitles (must practice at home) . And to end Thursday there was only one way- stay on the phone until close to midnight (thanks to Nickname Pending for her support and assistance in this matter) and indulge in a St Patrick's day-break lenten-fast-breaking chocolate feast. Spending an hour eating chocolate probably isn't the best thing to eat before bedtime, but I am more than accustomed to it.

And then came Friday night. Breeda was having a St Patrick's day party, and being part Irish attendance was essential, so I headed to Kishimoto (in Tottori) as per her instructions and parked by the pensioner's bus). Breeda met me and led me to her rather stunning 70's house (with an open staircase, lots of wood and lots of geometrical panels- it's almost perfect) and pretty soon the party was in full swing. Most of the crowd from the ski trip was present- Katherine, Alex, Steve, Virginie, Jess and Caroline as well as more, but with the help of Bombay Sapphire and Breeda's baby guiness' it seemed like there were hundreds. By 11:30 we were bumping and grinding in the lounge, dancing with Virginie, me swinging Katherine around, Steve trying to swing me around and Alex and I got to know each other a little better.

Saturday was a thankfully slower day as none of us had gotten too much sleep and after a late lunch at Giardino's we headed off to start the evening. Plans had changed and we were all heading to Caroline's to relax and watch American Idol which is the thing to do when you're in Tottori. We got pizza, drank, and settled in, some Japanese friends of the group joined us and we were having a good time. And then Steve said the magic word- karaoke. So at 12 o'clock we all headed off to karaoke, and having made print-club stickers we must have started singing at around 1o'clock. Thanks (again) to the remainder of the Bombay Sapphire (two thirds of a litre- shared may I state) I don't remember many of the songs that were sung, more just lots of jumping up and down, falling down and rearranging pictures. But I do remember doing Baby Love with Jess and it was lovely. And hurting my jaw as I opened my mouth ridiculously wide to hit the high notes in Independent Women. Although it could have hurt from the time we spent in karaoke- we left at 5! FIVE! AM!

On Sunday things were beginning to hurt. Not so much a hangover as a shaking and a strange pinching inside. The fortunate thing was that the drive home was only 50 minutes, although a stop was made for oden which was difficult to eat given the shaking and pinching. But on arrival at home I remembered a prior arrangement- to meet with the deputy of the group for whom I did the English seminar last weekend and his brother to practice English. And jolly kind and friendly they were too. Except with only a small voice and not much energy at all I wasn't able to be as entertaining (or indeed human) as I would have liked. And soon we were sitting down to dinner at which point a beer can was thrust in front of me and I could feel my liver pushing against my skin to try and escape...