My weekend turned out pretty well after all, although I have to admit I wasn't awake for much of it, hehe. On Friday night I wandered home and played some Neverwinter Nights 2. I was really tired from the week and still recovering from the virus, so ended up sleeping right through my alarms on Saturday and well into the afternoon. Which was probably for the best - rest is good! Not a big problem, either, as frisbee wasn't on and I had nothing else important to do on Saturday morning/afternoon anyway, haha. At night, it turned out that my long awaited party times with Oscar and Becky were still on after all, so I quickly got ready and raced out to Sannomiya. After a bit of searching, we finally found a decent place to have dinner and ate, drank and talked until just before 10pm.

To my dual relief and disappointment, they had both had an enkai the night before so didn't particularly want to party all night. As I had enough time to catch a train back home, we decided to call it a night and catch up again another time. After they very kindly gave me a couple of road sodas (cans of Asahi, hehe) for the journey home, I jumped on the train and was soon back in Himeji. As I'd only woken up late in the day, I wasn't very tired. So I fired off a message to Avi, one of my Australian friends living in Himeji, to ask if there was anything good going on there. She let me know that there was an event at Roxy (basically the only nightclub I know of in Himeji) and quite a few people also hanging out at Tiger Pub (one of the few pubs/bars) as well, so I decided to check it out. It meant that I'd have to stay up all night in Himeji, but I was prepared to risk it, hehe. The party scene in Himeji may not be thriving, but at least it's close to home!

It turned out to be a good decision, as I bumped into a whole heap of awesome people at Tiger Pub and we had lots of laughs and good conversation. The first person I met when I got in the door was my new mate Andrew, who I'd met on the Nagoya Toyota Trip. We chilled for a bit, mainly just catching up on what we'd both been doing since the trip. While we were talking, a girl I'd met a few times came running over and joined us. I didn't actually recognise her at the time, hehe - whoops. She works at Tiger Pub occasionally and I had actually met her a few times there before. So we all sat down and drank and talked together until they decided to go to Roxy with Avi and her husband. I wasn't really in the mood for dancing, and my friend Mokoto from Ultimate Frisbee had just walked in, so I stayed and chatted to him and some of his visiting friends. Who were, naturally, from Perth, haha. Good times!

A few drinks and hours later, Andrew and Hisako walked back in and we hung around chatting until Tiger Pub closed at around 4:30am. I had to wait until just before 6am for my first train, so I picked up some breakfast from a handy konbini and walked up to the castle to watch the sun rise. It was really good, actually. Although I was tired, it was beautiful being one of the few people on the otherwise normally very busy streets of Himeji. I found a chair in a park and sat down to eat and watch the sky get light to the east. Finally, around 5:30am, I wandered back to the train station and caught the train home.

I fell asleep on the train and was woken up by one of my students, hehe. Otherwise I would have ended up in Maibara, as the train turns around as a special rapid once it gets to Ako - scary stuff! So I asked him if he was going to school, but he said he was off to Himeji to play kyuudou. At 7am? Ouch! From the station, I rode down to my favourite bakery on the offchance it was open, but was de-nied :/ I checked out a few other places, but even at 7am, most of Ako is still asleep. Thankfully Paone was not, so I bagged some breakfast and wandered home to eat it and then headed to sleep. I woke up mid afternoon and just hung out, did some chores and generally rested before another busy week at school.

Overall, I'm glad I stayed out in Himeji. I very rarely do all nighters, and certainly wouldn't want to do them too often (especially now I'm teaching properly), but it was definitely a good night. I've kind of shunned Tiger Pub a little, like I do most gaijin bars, but the people there really are good value and it's certainly not all gaijin. There are usually more Japanese than gaijin in there, which is great. Realistically, a night out in Sannomiya or Osaka is just too far away, especially when considering the long, painful journey home on the first train. Not to mention that from what I hear from my friends, those places aren't necessarily a lot of fun unless you go often and know the good places/have good friends there, anyway. So maybe I should pay a bit more attention to good old Himeji. Now if only the trains ran past 11:25pm :D