It was Kazu the Greatest's birthday a while back, so I decided we should throw a big party for him! Ewan was in Australia for the actual day, so we organised to have the party the day after he got back (Sunday). Originally we wanted to go to Sakura-gumi, the crazy popular Italian restaurant in Ako, but it was ridiculously expensive. So I got Yoko to help me out and she suggested Budo-ya, a great, slightly odd izakaya near the post office. I really like the place - it's great for parties and their food is pretty decent too.

I decided to make a big basket of gaijin food for Kazu, so picked up some stuff in Himeji and some from 47 Liquors too, and threw it all into a basket from the 100 yen store. I also chucked in some fireworks that I happened to notice in the 100 yen store, haha. Somehow I managed to ride to Kazu's house with it all, and was really happy at the surprise on his face when he saw it, lol. He was really taken aback that we had organised a party for him and received a gift, as he said that his family never really did it. So I was extra happy that we had, as he's one of my best friends in Ako and a great bloke.

It ended up with six of us at Budo-ya (Mitsue, Yoko, Nate, Ewan, Kazu and myself) which was groovy, as except for Kazu the Gay, this was pretty much the Minato-ya crew :) After dinner we went to Saion for a few drinks and then it was home to sleep for another busy week!

On Saturday I went yukata shopping in Himeji with my good friend Yusaku. We were going to the Yukata Matsuri the next weekend, but didn't have a yukata! So we grabbed lunch in Subway (haha ... I felt like gaijin food and wanted to see what it tasted like, and it was a good compromise between Yusaku's favourite, McDonalds, and Japanese food). After that we hit Miyuki-dori with a vengeance to check out all the stores. It turned out to be much more difficult than I thought, as men's yukatas are extremely drab, especially when compared to women's. We went all through Miyuki-dori and Nishotengai but didn't have any luck. Finally, as we grabbed a coffee at Starbucks (yes, it was a very gaijin day), Yusaku noticed a Uniqlo in the basement of the Forus building.

Talk about ironic. Uniqlo is a really cheap clothing store, but it's immensely popular and their stuff is actually very good quality. Not to mention that they have a surprisingly good range and usually have almost anything you want. Recently, they introduced a line of Yukata, too, which were perfect! It was as easy as that. All that walking and looking in 'real' shops was defeated by a massive chain store which offered yukata sets (with an underbelt and obi, too) for 3,990 yen.

After Uniqlo, we went up to a watch shop to get Yusaku's watch fixed. The middle aged lady behind the counter started talking to me, as they usually do :) Which inevitably ends up with me being asked me how old I am, haha. When I replied that I was 24, she was very excited and told me that her daughter was 24 too. She stressed (with actions) that her daughter was a flight attendant with Singapore airlines and wore a 'very tight uniform', haha. It was all I could do not to a) laugh and b) run away from yet another person trying to set me up their daughter, hehe. The man who fixed Yusaku's watch also got involved in the conversation as he came back to give him the watch, and said his son was going on exchange to Perth soon. So I gave them my mobile details and said if he had any questions he could call me. Let's just hope I don't get a call from a flight attendant instead, hehe.

As we walked out of the store, Yusaku and I realised we still needed some shoes to wear with our yukata. Not wanting to go back to the first shop we'd been to to get some, we found a new, small yukata shop just up from the Family Mart konbini in Miyuki-dori. The guy in there was really funny, and helped me choose some great geta (wooden shoes). There was an obaasan (old lady) there too, and she was totally awesome. She taught me how to tie my (Uniqlo!) yukata and chatted away to me as she did it. She also helped us choose a fan, which we ordered in to pick up the next weekend. We ended up spending over an hour in there, which was great.

From there we grabbed dinner at my favourite 'hole in the wall yakitori basement restaurant' which was packed, as usual. We jumped onto a table with two middle aged ladies (look out!), who ignored us at first. Half way through dinner though, I was 'sumimasen'ed and asked if I knew what 'nanpa' was, hehe. For those that don't know, nanpa is the 'art of picking up', and although it's usually done on street corners, it can basically be done anywhere. I think this lady was trying to nanpa me, hehe - yikes! As I expected, the question about my age came out, and of course, the woman's friend had a 24 year old daughter too who I should definitely meet. Lol. Twice in one day was a bit much, hehe ... poor Yusaku, he has no idea what life as a gaijin can be like. Similar to the time Kazu came with me to the university in Ako and his jaw totally dropped when he saw everyone staring and calling out to me. Haha, good times.

So, that was an exciting day. A yukata and geta, two sets of gaijin food and two pick up attempts by middle aged women on behalf of their daughters. Life is good.

After riding back to the station with Iwaie-sensei it was past 6pm, so I decided to head straight to dinner. I wasn't sure where to go as I felt like Kappa-sushi, Minato-ya and Ako-pan, but in the end decided on Minato-ya. It turned out to be a lucky choice, hehe. I was chatting with Minato-san and running around behind the counter (muahaha) when a couple of guys came in that I vaguely recognised. They recognised me (of course) and waved a vague hello, so I returned the favour and accidentally guessed one of their names by asking 'genki desu ka' rather timidly, and having him say that yes, his name was Kenta. Hehe. You definitely win some.

A while later a few more people joined them and I found out that they were all teachers from Jousai primary school. Most were early to mid twenties too, which was amazing. It turned out I'd met Kenta before when he had come in for dinner previously and Minato-san and I were reading my 'Dirty Japanese' book. That was a funny night, and Minato-san later told me Kenta had bought the book on the Internet as soon as he went home that night, lol. Crazy times. Anyway, I was tired and stinky from school and didn't want to interrupt the group, so I just sat there and talked to Minato-san. He was up to his usual games, of course, and listening in to him talking I managed to work out that he was asking the girls there if they had boyfriends, hahaha. Cheeky bastard.

Anyway, eventually Minato-san told me they wanted to speak to me, so I went and sat with them all and we all chatted away in Japanese and English. They can all speak a bit of English because they teach it at school, and one girl in particular, Sayaka, could speak really well as she'd studied overseas. Eventually, they headed off to karaoke and invited me along, which was very cool. Unfortunately, one of the girls got rather drunk and they had to call her parents to come pick her up (lol, never good) so that put a rather early end to the night. Still, it was great fun while it lasted :)

One of my favourite teachers at school, Iwaie-sensei, came up to me very excitedly on Friday afternoon and told me that she'd just been out to lunch with her friend, Kometani-san. At first I had no idea what she was talking about, and then I remember the conversation we'd had where I'd asked her if she knew anyone in Ako who might be able to teach me some Japanese. She mentioned this one friend of hers, and said she would ask her when she saw her next. Apparently her friend, Kometani-san, was quite eager to learn English too, so they'd decided to ask me for coffee that afternoon. Naturally I couldn't go until school was finished, so Iwaie-sensei went on ahead and told me to meet them at Briar Gate.

After getting majorly lost, I finally found them and met Kometani-san, who was really nice. Her English isn't too bad as she studied at an ikawa for many years, but she has an amusing habit of getting very nervous and breaking out into Japanese in the middle of her sentences, hehe. We both agreed it'd be great if we could do language exchange, so I organised to meet her for an hour every week at her house in Ako (which is on the way home from school, yay!) every Wednesday. Good times - now I can finally practise Japanese the way I want to, every week! :)

I've been getting a bit more involved in the local 'International Friendship Association', AIFA, recently. I went to the volunteer meeting for the first time the other day, which was fairly interesting and very challenging. It's basically a group of mostly older people who volunteer to help out with AIFA activities. A lot of them can speak a small amount of English, but nobody is really fluent. Which made for a very interesting meeting, haha. I couldn't fully understand most of what was said, but I caught a hell of a lot more than I used to.

The guys who chair it now, Sekiyama-san and Nakamura-san, are really nice, but nowhere near as active as the previous chair, Yuuka. She was awesome and really pumped it up in the community, organising heaps of events and advertising them. AIFA isn't anywhere near as active any more, but it does still do a few things. I managed to work out that they are having an Indian day (cooking classes, food tasting and so on) in early July, which should be great for the local people. Unfortunately I can't attend as I'm going up to Tajima to play Ultimate, though ;/ The team also wants to do an Australian day, so I suggested a BBQ (including making and cooking damper) and cricket extravaganza down near the Chikusa river! They seemed pretty excited about this :) I had to promise them I would take a recipe for damper to the next meeting, haha.

So all in all it was quite a good experience. It was great to practise my Japanese listening and speaking skills, and I met some really interesting Ako 'elders' (they're mostly in their 60s and 70s but look mid 50s). One of the ladies, Horie-san, has the most amazingly thick, dark hair (like a geisha, seriously) and it turns out that her son runs the local karaoke place we go to sometimes. Small world! I was also glad to meet Myoujin-sensei, who turned out to be an AIFA Japanese lesson volunteer. I haven't made up my mind about him yet, but he seems determined to teach me Japanese, which is great :) And finally, another lady whose name I forget (whoops!) grabbed my contact details and said that one day she would invite me to her house to learn how to make sushi. She hasn't called me yet, which doesn't surprise me given the 'hollow invitations' that are quite common in Japan, so we'll see I suppose :) Anyway, definitely a good night out and hopefully the beginning of a road deeper into the Ako community.