Wow, that was definitely one of the bigger weekends I've had! It kicked off on Friday afternoon and was pretty much all go from that point on. I'd had a pretty quiet day at school, thanks to two of my classes being cancelled, so was able to relax for a bit and race out the door at dead on 4pm. Which was lucky, as I had a HAJET meeting before the beer garden started and only had just enough time to get home and get ready. I made it though, and we had just enough time to run through the beer garden and a few other things before the JETs started rolling in.

The Beer Garden itself was really good, as there was a massive turnout of JETs and I hadn't seen many of them for quite a while. We all hung out eating, drinking, catching up, reminiscing and saying goodbye until the party ended at 9:30pm. The time went by so fast! Towards the end I realised that it was one of those really ambivolent moments in my life, when I was so excited to see so many people I knew and hadn't seen for so long, but sad too because so many of them are leaving and I may never see them again. And I have to admit, I did feel a short pang of regret at not having gotten to know some of them better, especially those who lived 'close' to me. Anyway. I made sure I grabbed some photos of the people that were really important to me, just in case I don't see them again before they leave.

After the beer garden, most people were pretty drunk, but all headed out into Sannomiya anyway. I've been cutting down on how much I drink recently, so I was fine, and tagged along mainly because I was heading back to Goran's place to crash for the night. We all ended up in Trinity, which was ok, and Amanda, Goran, Dan and I zipped out at just before midnight to catch our last train home to Myoudani. We ended up doing our traditional konbini run on the way home, and I bought a big bag of fireworks which we set off in a big park near Goran's house. That turned into lots of singing and trading crazy stories, so we ended up getting home at about 3am, haha. We all finally got to sleep at around 4am.

We were up at around 10am on Saturday, which was a bit painful, as Goran needed to do some National AJET work. So Amanda and I quickly showered and headed out into Sannomiya to do a spot of shopping. Amanda wanted a new camera, so I went with her to check them out. I hadn't been keeping an eye on the compact digital market, but I figured Canon IXYs were still good, so recommended one of them. Amanda chose one and picked up a memory card and a bag, all for less than 30,000 yen. God they're cheap these days ;)

After that, we grabbed a quick lunch in a relatively decent Italian place and headed off on a shoe quest for me - the price I charged Amanda for helping her with her camera, haha. I headed to the shop I'd visited with Rachael when she was here, and immediately found the shoes I wanted. They're called Dragon Beard, and have a range of really funky styles. With Amanda's approval I picked up a pair with crazy Japanese patterns on them (check 'em out here), and was really happy. She also tried to help me look for some new clothes, but I wasn't really in a fashion mood and we were short on time. So after she changed quickly in SOGO and we stashed our stuff in a coin locker, we raced over to meet Goran and Dan in the Hankyuu Station, ready for a night in Osaka.

Goran's friend Misa was there too, who is really friendly and who I'd met the previous weekend, so that was nice. We all headed off to Umeda and then Shinsaibashi together, stopping quickly at an awesome little ramen shop to bag some amazing garlic ramen in preparation for Club Pure. Pure was holding another WhyNot!? Japan International Party, which are usually a really fun time. The party wasn't too bad that night, although it wasn't as good as some of the others we've been to. I did meet quite a few cool (and some strange!) people, though, and we all drank and danced the night away together. The most interesting person I met was Hitomi, a police woman from Kobe. I spent quite a long time talking to her because she was really interesting - she even did judo, which is really rare for women in Japan. Stupidly, I totally forgot to get her contact details, though, haha. Very 'Daniel' ;/ Oh, well! I might meet her again one day.

After Pure, which finished at 10pm, we all swaggered back to the train and home to Myoudani. We crashed Dan's place and I was so tired that I went to sleep almost straight away, although I did wake up at about 3am when everyone was shouting and laughing about some game, haha. Again, we were up at 10am and headed into Myoudani together for a Mister Donuts breakfast. Hehehe. Hardly my first choice, but once in a while is ok. About 1pm, Dan and Goran had to meet a teacher of theirs for lunch so Amanda, Misa and I went home. Misa lives two stops further from Sannomiya than Dan and Goran, which is great for them (as usual), so she went her way and Amanda and I headed back to Sannomiya.

In Sanno, Amanda decided to go straight home and I headed out to Osaka. I was supposed to go to an Alcapella performance that night, so figured I may as well get there early. I had wanted to do some photography in Osaka but the weather was awful, so I went to Yodabashi Camera instead. I'm doing a photo gig at the San-in Beach Party this coming weekend, and decided to replace my aging flash (thanks for the lend, Dad!) I picked up a Canon Speedlite 430ex for just under 30,000 yen and ended up buying a smaller camera bag, a tripod bag, some gloves and a few other random bits and pieces too. Good times!

After that I headed into Shinsaibashi for the concert, which was at a Chinese restaurant near the big department stores there. My friend Ann had invited me because she was in one of the groups performing. I wasn't entirely sure what Alcapella was before she told me, so was quite intrigued to see it. It turned out to be singing without music, which I was kind of suspicious about until I actually heard it working. And it worked pretty well! I guess mostly because a few members of the group sing harmonies in the background, or beatbox.

While the groups were good and some members were absolutely amazing, I have to say that Alcapella definitely isn't my type of music. That said, it was definitely worthwhile seeing it and having the experience. That's what life is all about, I think. Plus, there was a buffet dinner, hehe, and I also met a few of Ann's friends. Ann seemed to have a good time overall, which is the main thing. I was glad I could be there to support her. After dinner, there was another 2 hours or so of performances scheduled, which was a little bit too much for me. I was really tired and the music, while skillfully performed, wasn't really my thing, so I decided to head home. I was a bit disappointed as there were some interesting people there I would have liked to have met and talked to for a while, but such is life!

Back home I grabbed dinner at Minato-ya, did a few chores and headed to sleep. Thankfully I'd taken the opportunity of exams this week to book a day of nenkyuu to recover, which was very useful. I did a lot of chores, picked up a package from my parents (OMG real deodorant again, WOOHOO!) and generally veged out. It was good.

This week is looking to be pretty quiet as I have no classes. My ichi-nensei's have their English test on Friday morning so I suppose I will be marking 240 tests, haha. That sure as hell isn't going to be finished by Friday afternoon, and as I'm fully booked all weekend, I hope I can mark it next week :) And speaking of the weekend, it's the San-in Beach Party, woohoo! I'm heading up with the National AJET Press team as a photographer, which should be great. I can't wait to get some real camera work in as well as enjoy the awesome music and do a wee bit of partying too :) That kicks off on Friday night so I'm going to head up by train straight after school on Friday, w00t! Good times ahead.

Nothing particularly exciting happened this week, besides being super busy at school. It reminded me of some of my days back at EY in Perth - I was at school until 7pm on Monday! It was mainly busy because I'd had extra classes the week before, needed to write a test and had lots of marking to do. Not to mention the fact there is quite a bit going on with Hyogo AJET at the moment. It's all calmed down a bit though now, thankfully, as a few of my ni-nensei classes were cancelled in favour of the teacher running a revision class.

This was the case for my ichi-nensei OC classes too, so instead of writing a real lesson and having some classes ahead and some behind (which is a headache), Kurioka-sensei and I agreed to run a revision session. This proved to be ridiculously easy as I just busted out the 'soccer' game, which is awesome, and based it on questions from everything we'd studied. The kids seemed to love it, and were really genki. Although ironically, some parents were allowed to come to school and watch classes this week, and two showed up to the loudest class I have ever taken. I hope they don't think my classes are always like that :)

Thankfully though, my rather busy and boring week is giving way to what's shaping up to be one of the most awesome weekends since I arrived! Which is kind of ironic, seeing as it kicks off with the Hyogo AJET Sayonara party for all the Hyogo JETs who are leaving soon. We're heading out to the traditional Hyogo sayonara party spot, the big beer garden on top of the SOGO department store in Sannomiya - should be good! After that I want to head to Polo Dog but expect I'll get dragged kicking and screaming to karaoke instead, haha. Dan and Goran said it's cool for me to crash one of their places for the night, which is handy. I'm heading out on Saturday night with them too, so having to go back to Ako (at 10pm) would a) ruin my Friday night and b) suck in terms of travel time for the rest of the weekend :)

And speaking of Saturday night, we're heading to Club Pure, w00t! As Dan is leaving and we haven't done Pure for ages (and it was a super experience when we first arrived), we decided that we had to do it one last time before he goes. We're going to hang out in Myodani/Sanno/Osaka during the day and then Pure away at night. Then it's back to crash at Goran's again. I want to do some photography on Sunday to get back in practise for the San-in Beach Party the weekend after, so I might wander through Sanno and Osaka until my friend's Alcapella performance in the evening. I've booked a day of leave on Monday (hooray for exams) so I can recover and do some chores on Monday, hehe.

On Friday night I headed into Sannomiya to catch up with some friends. One of them, Michelle, had her parents staying, so we were all going to go out and give them a taste of Japanese cuisine izakaya style. Unfortunately the izakaya Michelle wanted to go to was booked, so everyone just decided to meet anyway and try to find somewhere. I got there a bit late because of ESS club and train times, and when I did I found out that they hadn't been able to find anywhere ;/ Michelle and her parents had gone back to the hotel to try to find something around there instead. I felt a bit bad about that because I'd said there were so many places in Sannomiya that we were bound to find somewhere that wasn't full, especially at 6:30pm. Gomen, ne!

So Cassie, Emma, Matt, Goran, Dan and I ended up in a little ramen place in the awesome little alley network just north of Sannomiya Hankyuu station. I'd often walked through there but never had the confidence to go in alone. The ramen turned out to be awesome though, and we washed it all down with $3 beers. Party times indeed! After that we went for a wander, grabbed coffee at Starbucks and then walked down towards the big covered arcade. There were lots of people dancing there, doing hip hop and breakdancing in front of the giant windows on the shops that became mirror like in the low light of the evening. One of the breakdancers was pretty good, so we watched him for a little while.

I had to return to Ako that night, though, which was a pain, so I had to cut my evening short and jump on the 10:20pm train. I was really tired so the 105 minute ride (I could only catch a regular express train) back to Ako was absolutely painful. I got there in the end though, and then consistent with the idiotic behaviour I've become addicted to, stayed up until 4am doing a whole lot of nothing. I kicked myself on Saturday when I woke up after mid day. I had wanted to go to Goran's school's culture festival but had absolutely no chance of making it. So I was in a bad mood, even though I knew I had nobody to blame but me. I really must try to change this stupid behaviour and start sleeping earlier. It's a bad habit that's carried over from some of my less enjoyable times working in Perth.

Anyway, I was a bit happier when I remembered that I was heading out to catch up with my friend Aimee for dinner, so got ready quickly and raced into Sannomiya. When I got there though, I found out that she'd been at (and was still at) Goran's festival and everyone there had decided to go to Matt and Emma's for dinner instead. They invited me along, which was nice, but not really appropriate seeing as it was a) at Matt's and Emma's house, b) Matt and Emma had to cook for everyone and c) it had started out, as far as I know, as a small 'going away dinner' for Cassie and a few others. So needless to say I was pissed off, having made solid plans only to have them come apart, leaving me having just arrived somewhere 75 minutes from home with nothing to do.

I tried to make the best of it though, by walking around the shops a bit, grabbing a coffee and reading some of the book I'd brought for the train. I figured I'd hang out for a while, grab a dinner and then head to Polo Dog, which was where everyone else was going after dinner anyway. I wasn't really in the mood for any of it any more though, so was thinking about heading home when I got a message from Matt saying it was ok to go to dinner. I was pretty relieved about that and jumped on the train to Tarumi.

Somehow I managed to find their house, hehe - I'd only been there once before. It turned out to be a really great party, too. It had been a long time since I'd caught up with the Perthy's in a small enough group and in the right kind of place to be able to have a really great conversation, so I was happy. Matt cooked up some Italian meatballs which were fantastic, especially considering how hard it is to get authentic ingredients ;) After dinner we hung out chatting until around 9ish, when we raced into Sannomiya to Polo Dog.

I'd heard of it before, way back when I came to Sannomiya on my holiday in April last year, but I didn't go there then and hadn't gone since coming back. It was actually a really great place, though. Admittedly it was a special night, as some JETs were playing there and it was their last performance before they return home. I saw a few familiar faces and met some new people, and the atmosphere was really great. The place was a little small, but that's normal for Japan, haha. Regardless, it was so much nicer than Tiger Pub, and it really made me miss having somewhere like that in Ako, or perhaps more realistically, Himeji. So Amanda and I decided to start one there one day, haha ;) Anyway, again, I had to leave early to get home on the train, but this time it was ok because I had Amanda and Suzie as company on the train until Himeji :)

On Sunday it was the famous Yukata Matsuri in Himeji, woohoo! I had to ride to the station so I didn't wear my yukata right away, much to the surprise of Yusaku who I met at Himeji station all decked out in his. We went straight up to our little shop to pick up our fans and they kindly let me change there. As I left a few students rode by on bikes and called out 'Kakkoi!' in surprise when they saw me, haha. That happened a few times, actually, lol. We had some time to kill as we'd met rather early and the Matsuri didn't kick off until 4:30pm-ish, so we grabbed a coffee and chilled out for a bit. Finally the others came and we met Emma, Matt, Amanda, Cassie and Ann at the Egret building. Everyone looked awesome in their yukata/jinbeis!

From there we pretty much wandered around enjoying the festival and getting rained on, until we grabbed some dinner in a not so waterproof festival tent. A little later we met Nate and went to a nice (but very quiet) bar called Not Blue, in the north east of Himeji. I couldn't make up my mind whether I liked it or not, but it was very clean, open aired, comfortable and non-gaijiny so I was happy :) We went for another short walk through the festival stalls and caught trains home just after 10pm. It was really great to be part of yet another cultural festival and wear a yukata ;) It really makes you feel like you're a part of the community, rather than a gaijin living awkwardly in it.

I was a bit restless on Monday night, thanks to a long and busy day at school. For some reason I remembered the fireworks I'd given to Kazu as part of his birthday present the day before, and decided that I wanted to play with some! Playing with fireworks alone is awesome (especially since it's illegal in Australia but fine here) but it's always better with other people, so I sent Yoko a message to see if she was interested. She was free, so she came and picked me up at 8pm and we zoomed down to a beach just on the other side of Ako Misaki. I'd never set off fireworks before so got Yoko to show me the ropes just in case they were crazy dangerous, but it was all pretty simple. They were really colourful and although they sat on the ground and only shot flames about a metre into the air, it was really enjoyable.

I really want to play with fireworks again, so I went and bought myself a massive backpack full of fireworks recently (5,000 yen!). Guess I'm pretty much set for the summer (or one night, depending, haha). I'm saving them for a Minato-ya crew beach BBQ we're going to do soon, though. Should be sweet.

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.

On Tuesday night I skipped Japanese conversation class in favour of going to see some fireflies! Naturally it was a Minato-san event (nobody else would think to tell me about crazy random Japanese things, haha), so I arranged to meet him and Nate in Aioi. We grabbed a quick dinner at Suki-ya before zooming out to Kamigori to meet some of Minato-san's friends. They had two daughters who were really cute, hehe. One was almost Kosuke's age and one was just a baby - she was fascinated by the fireflies :) Mind you, so was I! These little things, called hotaru in Japanese, live near the rivers in some sections of rural Japan and are amazing to see. I'd never seen fireflies before so it was pretty magical.

We visited a few places and generally just relaxed, watching them trace crazy random patterns of light in the air. We all gently caught a few too, and I tried to work out how they produced their light. It comes from the end of their bodies and looks almost like an LED light, it's really quite impressive. We gradually worked our way back from way out in the sticks to a place much closer to Kamigori, which was literally crawling with them, and spent nearly an hour there, entranced by the patterns. Eventually we had to head back and Minato-san was kind enough to drop me in Ako. I was really glad I'd gone to see the fireflies as they really were one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I'm so grateful to have a friend like Minato-san who keeps me up to date with (and takes me to see) all these amazing things :)

My weekend was fairly average, despite being extremely busy. Friday was fairly good though, with some excitement at school as four ichi-nensei students were caught smoking at lunchtime. Why on earth these retarded kids thought that they could get away with smoking not just at school but at lunchtime, I will never know ;) Apparently they said that they'd been smoking since junior high school and couldn't stand going a whole day at school without smoking any more. Idiots. Anyway, I'm very glad they were caught, and that they have been suspended for 1 week. Smoking is a pointless, stupid, virtueless habit and I won't stand for seeing kids throw their lives away to it. If they're not smart enough to make the sensible choice after they are out of my duty of care, then unfortunately that's their decision.

On Friday afternoon I had English club after school. We're doing a poster about Australian food for the upcoming school culture festival, and I brought in Vegemite and Cadbury chocolate for them to try. They were happy enough to eat the chocolate but I had to force them to try the Vegemite :P Both looked very unhappy after eating it, much to my delight, haha. The club wrapped up just before 5pm, giving me just enough time to zoom home, shower and head out to Himeji for Amanda's 'West Side' birthday party.

The party was at the 'dirty escalator' izakaya, where Amanda had booked a big room and set us up with a fixed course of food and nomihoudai - good times! As I mentioned, it was a west side party, meaning only people from the Aioi/Himeji area were invited. It was lovely to catch up with the local JETs again, as being in Ako I'm just outside their inner circle and don't often see them. So we spent the night catching up and of course, eating and drinking a lot of good food and beer. The only downside to the night was that about 5 people who had confirmed couldn't show up, and the izakaya (fairly enough) couldn't change the overall price for the set meal. I managed to get in touch with my good friend Kazuyo and got her to come down, which helped a bit, but we ended up having to pay about 4,300 yen each. Ouch! Anyway, after the dinner, about 6 of us went off to karaoke for an hour before catching our last trains home.

On Saturday morning I jumped on the train for the blessedly short trip up to Aioi to meet Minato-san and Nate. We were having a BBQ and had organised to meet beforehand to do all the shopping. We bought tons of interesting stuff at the massive supermarket and then headed for the park near Nate's house to set up. Minato-san, the machine that he is, was cooking within about 15 minutes of getting there, haha. I went to pick Kazuyo up from the station at about 1pm (I ran all the way there ... must be fitter than I realise!) and people continued to trickle in all afternoon. Around 3pm, Nate's friend Sean got a friendly game of Ultimate Frisbee going, and we had a hilarious time playing that for a few hours.

Eventually it ticked around towards 5pm and I had to head back home to shower before heading into Osaka at night. I'd promised Amanda I'd go to a salsa club in Osaka with her and some of our friends. To be honest, I didn't really feel like going. It was very far away, I was tired and I was having an awesome time at the BBQ and just wanted to stay and see the fireworks there at 8pm. But, a promise is a promise, so off I went. It turned out to be an ok night, after spending about 30 minutes trying to find the damn place, haha. The actual club it was at was really nice (not at all sleazy) and of course, it was great to catch up with Dan, Goran, Matt and Emma, who I also hadn't seen properly for months. I wasn't really in the mood for dancing, though. It turned out we'd missed the actual lessons part of the night, unfortunately, so we weren't really sure what we were doing! I tried my best at the start and Emma, who knew the salsa, gradually managed to teach us all some moves - lucky!

About an hour in, my stomach decided it wasn't very happy though, so I called it a night for the dancing and made a few phone calls outside while the others danced away until about around 11. We all had to head back home then thanks to the ridiculously early last trains. As I had a HAJET meeting on Saturday in Akashi, Matt offered to let me stay at his and Emma's place in Tarumi, which is just three stops to the east of Akashi. They had a nice apartment, and although I didn't sleep well, I was really grateful to them for letting me stay at such short notice!

On Sunday I headed to the HAJET meeting, which was about 3 hours long and only half the committee could attend (lol!) before looking around Akashi a bit and then heading back to Ako late afternoon. I was exhausted thanks to not sleeping well on Saturday night, so got to bed quite early. And that was my weekend. Surprisingly average, as I said. I guess I hate having nothing on so much that when I am double booked I tend to feel down about it ... it's like wasted opportunities, hehe. I want to go to everything or save up some events for the future! Oh well. I was happy with the choices I made at the time, and in hindsight I probably wouldn't have changed anything. Which is a good way to be.

I finally got through the week - just! I was really tired by Friday, much more than usual. I think it must have been all the judo. I had a really good training session on Wednesday night against my two teachers, a san-nensei student (who has now retired) and his replacement, an absolutely enormous 2nd year student. He's so big (maybe 100kg?) that I can't even throw him - I literally bounce off. So that took a lot of energy and I was sweating like crazy by the end of it. It was a great work out though, trying to push and pull him around. I ended up using some Wing Chun, which finally, and somewhat to his surprise, got him moving a little ;) Muahaha. I paid the price though - I'm still sore today!

School was good this week too, and has been in general recently. Most classes are quite good, although the ichi-nensei have settled in and gotten used to the school now, so they've become quite rowdy. The ichi-nensei teachers are quite soft on them, I think, compared to say Okamoto-sensei and Aso-sensei, which is a bit unfortunate. I have a very mild temperament and don't like conflict or getting angry, but it does piss me off when they don't listen to me when I'm talking. Especially since I try to minimise the talking and maximise the activities. I'll have to work on that. Thankfully my ni-nensei classes are really well behaved (kinda surprising, given that ni-nensei was quite rowdy last year, especially class 6) and Toda-sensei's class in particular are just wonderful to teach for. They leap out of their seats to volunteer, are quiet and listen when I'm speaking, are good at English, try hard and are just generally well behaved. I really couldn't wish for anything more in a class!

My week was pretty awesome! My good friend Yoko came over for dinner on Monday night, which was really great. We went shopping and cooked a carbonara for dinner, then listened to music and chatted away until I had to sleep. I haven't really entertained since getting to Ako, or really hung out with my local friends individually (besides Kazu) for that matter. Put that down to the somewhat bad experience I had when I first arrived here, haha. Anyway, as I said, it was a lot of fun and hopefully I can do it a bit more in the future.

In other news, I *finally* found out that I had been selected as an assistant for the upcoming 2008/09 JET Tokyo Orientation! The wait for that was almost as bad as the wait for JET itself, haha. So I'm off to the bright lights, loud noise, big crowds and never ending excitement of my most beloved big city - I'm totally pumped! My duties at the orientation are a little different to what I expected, but it all still looks good. When we applied we were told it could be pretty random, so I suppose I wasn't really that surprised. At the moment it looks like I will head up to Tokyo on Friday July 25 ready for the orientation orientation on Saturday, and then I'll be going out to Narita Airport to meet the newbies on Sunday, w00t! I didn't realise I would be welcoming them at the airport - that's so exciting! I remember catching the bus into Tokyo last year really well, hehe. Good memories, indeed.

Apparently I will also be doing Information Desk (i.e. Q&A), Hospitality Centre (i.e. lunch duty) and possibly a presentation. I wasn't selected to assist with a CLAIR presentation, which I was a bit disappointed about, but I might still get to do a National AJET one. Good enough ;) There's also the possibility of taking new JETs to, and even attending, the Australian embassy event on Tuesday night (which sucked last year, but hey, it was a free dinner :D). Aside from that I don't know what else I'll be doing. I suppose I will probably head to the training sessions too, in case there are any questions about real JET experiences. With any luck, I might also get to hit the pool - I never got around to it last year, hehe ;)

And finally, Minato-san and I cooked up a Vegemite Cheese okonmiyaki on Thursday night which was delicious, and organised our big BBQ for Saturday night. I also took my PS2 and Katamari Damarcy down and got it going on the projector. It was fun, and I think the game (which is Japanese) even managed to freak Minato-san out ... good times!

Saturday was a bit of a dead day, as I was so tired from the week that I slept in quite late. Damn you judo! :P I was a bit disappointed about how late I got up (as I am most Saturdays, hehe), as it meant I missed the Himeji Yatai Matsuri ... or so I thought! I later found out that it had been postponed due to bad weather, and was actually on on Sunday instead. So I was pretty happy about that :) I mucked around on Saturday afternoon and then headed out at night to Himeji, to catch up with Yusaku. We headed to a new yakitori place I had found, and downed some great chicken and a few beers. Afterwards, we wandered for a bit before ending up at Tiger Pub. I don't drink so much these days, so by about 10:30 I'd had enough and headed out with Yusaku to Doma Doma for a quick late night snack, before catching my last train home. It was good to catch up with Yusaku again as I hadn't seen him for a while and we always learn a lot of English/Japanese from each other.

Also, while I'm speaking about Tiger Pub I don't think I'll be going back there very often from now on. While I have some great friends there, like Andrew and Avi, there's just something about the place that really puts me on edge. It's very dank and dark, and looking around when I was there on Saturday, it felt even more run down than ever before. And while, like I said, some of the company is good, a lot of it isn't, and I'd really rather not be involved with some of the people that come in. Overly conservative? Perhaps, but I've learnt to trust my sixth sense over the years. It's a shame, because there aren't a whole lot of other options in Himeji!

Anyway, moving on, Sunday was a fun day too. Somehow, I'd been conned into playing in the Mitsubishi Social Club 'Grand Golf' tournament in the early morning, haha. Hiro and Julie Ann had invited me, as Hiro works for one of the many Mitsubishi divisions with operations in Ako. So I dutifully turned up at the Chikusa river at 9am, to the usual semi astonished stares from the workers and their families ;) I met some of Hiro's good friends, one of whom, Nozaki-san, was very amusing. We eventually started playing, thrashing our way through the long grass on the big field we were playing in. Grand Golf is much more like croquet than golf, and it was actually pretty hard. Mostly thanks to the long grass, haha. It had just been cut but not cleared, so there were massive piles of it that either made the ball jump, go in random directions or stop it completely, haha. Definitely a good challenge.

After the game, everyone took some time to wander the field to collect rubbish while the judges collated the scores. This was part of Mitsubishi's environmental iniatives, and it was heartwarming, as rural Japan can be a little feral in certain places at times. It was lovely to see that some people actually do care and want to help keep Japan beautiful. The area we were in was actually surprisingly clean, but I managed to find a good amount of rubbish hidden away in the bushes. Julie Ann won the day, however, when she found a bike in some reeds, haha. After we'd walked the length of the field, we returned to base to dump our rubbish, pick up a cold drink and sit down for the prize ceremony. My team, Mabu Tofu (AKA Team International thanks to it having a member each from Japan, China, the Phillipines and Australia), ended up coming third overall. For our efforts, we were rewarded with two big boxes of cookies each - good times! We then played bingo (LOL!) for the remaining prizes. Apparently it's pretty popular in Japan. I didn't manage to win anything from that, but most people on my team did, which was nice.

After the golf wrapped up a couple of us headed for lunch at Kappa Sushi. I had to go past the bank first, and as I did, I chanced across a big Matsuri right in the main street of town. Of course, nobody had told me about it and I had no real way of finding out otherwise, so it was a pretty big surprise. The festival, which was something to do with the salt heritage of Ako, took up most of the main street, throughout which heaps of food stalls had sprung up. I didn't have time to look around then, but after lunch, Julie Ann, Hiro and I came back for a quick gander. As Minato-san says so perfectly, it was 'nothing special', but I'm a sucker for any type of Japanese festival :) After a quick wander through the stalls, chatting to various people we knew, we called it a day.

Back at the ranch I got in touch with Kazuyo, who I'd arranged to meet at 2:15pm in Himeji. Unfortunately lunch had ended much later than I'd expected and I couldn't make it to Himeji by that time, so I arranged to meet her at just before 4pm. To my delight, she said the Yatai Matsuri was still going, so we raced up to the castle and were able to catch the end of it. The festival itself is a relatively new one, and is a parade of the 'portable shrines' from the various shrines all over Himeji city. They are quite large and brightly coloured with beautiful, intricated carvings all over them, and are carried by hundreds of fundoshi clad men. There's lots of drumming and shouting too, which always makes for a big crowd and a good time. It was all very Japanese, and lots of fun to watch. While we were there, a Japanese guy standing near us decided to start talking to me in English, despite the fact I was speaking Japanese with Kazuyo. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy, though, so we hung out and chatted for a little while before Kazuyo and I wandered off to get some coffee. Perhaps most amusingly he introduced himself as 'Eric', from memory ... interesting name for a full blood Japanese.

After coffee at Carma, one of my favourite little cafes, Kazuyo offered to help me through sorting out my mobile phone problem at Softbank. Admittedly I was hoping to get a completely new one thanks to the insurance, but the lady said that Softbank is now able to 'repair' water damage to their phones. Pfft, yeah right :P I think by repair she meant that they actually rip all the insides out and replace them with new ones, but keep the original case because it's marginally cheaper that way ;P I was a little disappointed, but hey, as long as I get a phone back I'm fairly happy ;) Unfortunately, I will lose my entire phone book because it was only saved in the phone memory, not the SIM. That is the price you pay for foolishness, though, I suppose! On the plus side, at least I will only put people back in that I really do speak to often.

After a quick trip up to Bon Marche to pick up some gaijin food for ESS club on Friday, I said goodbye to Kazuyo and headed back to Ako. I went to Minato-ya for dinner, which was great. I was the only person there so we chatted away for a few hours. Minato-san decided to close early and was in a very genki mood, so he hauled my bike into the shop and gave it a quick overhaul. No more squeaky chain, yeehaa! It's also much easier to ride now. I figured that the dirt and squeaky gears meant I was having to work harder, but I never realised just how much it was slowing me down - possibly up to 4 or 5km/h! That's what you get for not doing regular maintenance, I suppose ;P I really should be cleaning it down every month, or at least after each time I head to the mountains.

And that was my weekend! :)

My Friday ended up being a surprisingly good day :) Classes went quite smoothly and I also had ESS club after school. This is always fun, and was especially good that week as it meant a break from the exhausting judo club ;) School is holding a cultural festival soon, and ESS club is going to make a big poster in English! We decided to make it about Australian food, so I told the kids I'd bring in some Vegemite and Tim Tams and other nefarious Aussie foods for them to taste and write about ;)

After school, I didn't really have anything planned (surprisingly quiet two weeks, actually!) and was just thinking of heading to badminton. I didn't really feel like it, though, and had half a bottle of wine from Minato-ya's dinner the night before, hehe. So I took a gamble and decided to invite the Minato-ya crew to my house for an impromputu wine and sushi night. I wasn't expecting much because they are usually really busy, but Yoko, Ewan and Kazu all said they could come. So we made it happen and it was very cool.

It was just Yoko and I to begin with, and we ended up talking about music. When Ewan dropped in, he joined in and we jumped onto Youtube to listen to some of his new favourite artists. He has really broad tastes and is always into something interesting. New Zealand reggae, at the moment, it seems. This gradually digressed into crazy videos like Hard Gay Ramen, The World of Golden Eggs and Takeshi's Castle. These were accompanied by some great Australian wines (2003 McWilliams Chardonnay, 2006 Apple Flats Merlot and another red that I can't remember) and plenty of food.

Eventually Ewan had to shoot off to pack for his trip to Australia the next day and Yoko had to head home as she was getting up early the next day, so Kazu and I decided to go check out Sakoshi beach for a while. I guess some part of me is still a kid because I started jumping and climbing around on the rocks there, as I always do, haha. Unfortunately this time, it cost me my mobile phone. I was using the light to see where to step, and lost my balance. I caught it easily, but in doing so had to swing my hand up and lost my grip on my phone, which flew in a perfect curve straight into the shallow ocean near the bottom of the rocks. Needless to say, it didn't work any more, haha. Oh well.

Anyway, aside from the phone, it was a great night. We all agreed we should do more little impromptu things like this, so hopefully in future we will! :)

The week I joined judo club was pretty crazily busy even though I didn't really get up to anything 'exciting'. I played judo from Tuesday to Thursday, and gradually got better at waza and ukemi. Admittedly I got a little annoyed with the injured students who were teaching me, as I felt they were getting very frustrated with me when I couldn't do something. I had to keep reminding them that it was only my 2nd or 3rd lesson, and they seemed to be ok after that. I also got a little frustrated with myself when I couldn't do certain things, but again, I'd barely started so I couldn't really expect to be good. I just tried to keep a positive attitude :)

On Wednesday I went to play badminton after judo, and actually played pretty damn well. For the first few games, anyway, hehe. I played well in the final one too, but the majority of my shots hit the top region of the net, which was extremely frustrating. I suppose at least I'm getting the shuttle in about the right area. I still need to focus on drives, serve return and baseline shots, but I'm really happy that I'm finally getting better, at least in my very critical eyes.

Thursday night was Minato-ya night, although it was quite different to normal. I'd invited my new friend Tomoko, who for some reason decided she was going to pick me up from my house. I wanted to ride my bike so that I had the freedom to leave whenever (I was exhausted from judo/badminton etc.) but as she didn't know where Minato-ya was, I agreed to let her pick me up. So I raced home after judo to take a shower, only to have her turn up 5 minutes early. I know I shouldn't have felt bad because it was her fault for coming early, but I couldn't help it. I'd been delayed the previous time I met her too, thanks to the rain and school. Things out of my control, yes, but I still felt pretty bad.

Anyway, we got there eventually and walked in to find Nate and Miho watching a movie on Minato-san's projector. I has noticed it a while ago and asked about it, but he never really showed much interest in using it. I guess Nate decided it was time to do something with it, haha. So we vaguely watched "Mr Baseball" with Tom Selleck (lol) and chatted away while we ate. Tomoko ordered an umeshiso (sour plum and shiso leaf) okonomiyaki, which was actually surprisingly good. After a while we were joined by Mitsue, Yoko and Ewan, and I broke open the bottle of wine I'd brought. It was Ewan's last Minato-ya for a few weeks as he was off to Australia, so I thought we'd make it a good one.

Once the movie finished, Nate put on some Michael Jackson music videos, which were hilarious. He's totally bonkers, but he's got serious talent. At just after 10pm we called it a night and headed home. I'd left my mama-chari at Minato-ya about a month before and felt I should move it, so I rode that home instead of catching a lift back with Tomoko. Ah the joys of having bikes spread over the city ;)

I finally started judo club on Tuesday! :) After working out how to wear my absolutely enormous and inflexible judogi, I managed to robot-walk my way to the judo dojo for my first lesson. Along the way, I surprised a lot of my students and they got very excited at the sight of me in judo clothes :P I heard a few 'kakkoi!'s (handsome/cool!) and laughed my head off. Kakkoi? Yes. Absolutely any idea how to do judo? Definitely not! I guess maybe you don't need to have skillz to be cool after all? :P

When I reached the dojo, the judo club students went nuts as well, which was amusing. One of them got me an obi (belt) to wear, and taught me how to tie it. After that they kicked off the training session with a simple run, although it rapidly progressed into stuff I couldn't do. After the stretching, they started doing insane rolls across the floor, including one where they go into a handstand, hold and then tuck their head up and roll down from that position. Important, yes, but a little beyond my level at the moment :P So I just watched and tried to remember how to ukemi. The kids managed to convince me to try one, although it was more a falling-over-attack than a smooth roll.

They then started sparring, which I definitely couldn't take part in, so some of the injured students took me aside and started to teach me some waza and ukemi. They taught me how to do a simple throw by stepping up to the opponent with my right leg, kicking past them with my left and then whipping my knee back against the back of their knee and pushing them down. They also tried to teach me a simple roll, how to fall over backwards and then the basic 'safe' position. I managed to get the left version of the safe position down ok but the backwards fall and roll I had more trouble with.

I've never really done anything like that before so it's certainly not easy! My problem with the backwards fall is that my legs are extremely long. Even when I squat down before falling over, I'm still a fair way off the ground and it's very hard to land softly. Practise makes perfect, I guess. As for the roll, it happens so fast that it's hard to see exactly how the kids do it. Kyoto-sensei dropped in late in the session and cast his expert eye over my flailings, though, and pointed out that the hand of the rolling arm needs to make a line parallel to the direction you want to go in. I think this might be the key to why my rolls weren't working :) So yes, very exciting, anyway! I'm looking forward to training more.

As I mentioned, the weekend was pretty quiet. I missed out on a beer garden on Friday night and a thing or two during the day on Saturday. Thankfully I escaped school at dead on 4pm though, so my Saturday night wasn't completely ruined. My new friend Tomoko had invited me to a BBQ at her house and had even arranged to pick me up at Paone, as her house is a little way out of Ako. Unfortunately, it started bucketing with rain at just before 4pm and despite my raincoat, I got drenched! I managed to find Tomoko but was feeling pretty crap thanks to the rain, so told her I needed to go home and have a shower first. I felt a bit bad about that as she'd been waiting just for me. She didn't seem to mind though, and arranged to pick me up a little later in the arvo.

The party was pretty fun, overall. My friend Devin, another ALT, was also there, and I remember thinking how rare the situation was. Not only because we had been invited into a Japanese house, but because we were also having a party in one and there were two of us gaijin there at the same time ;) A very rare occurrence in Ako! ;) And on the topic of Japanese houses, I was really glad of the opportunity to finally be able to bust out my full collection of Japanese house culture! The shoes thing is completely natural now (I'll probably still do it when I return to Australia, hehe), but I got to say a few new things - the customary 'ojama shimasu' (excuse me for disturbing you) as you enter the house and 'tsumarani mono desu ga' (it's a trifling thing, but ...) as you give the little gift you're supposed to when you visit someone's house. Very cool!

Tomoko's house was really nice, too. It was an older style house, but very well made and still beautiful. Perhaps the best part was that the large tatami room that we sat in to eat had wonderful bamboo sliding doors that opened up to reveal a small verandah, a beautiful little garden and the greenery of the mountain just beyond. Fantastic! Thanks to the rain streaming down outside the window, we couldn't do a BBQ after all though. Instead, Tomoko's mum cooked up a storm of takoyaki and yakisoba - yum! As we sat and ate, I met Tomoko's family, who were all there. She has a younger brother who studies at the local Welfare University and a younger sister who seems to be either in late elementary or early junior high school. Her brother's girlfriend and some of his friends were also there, and it was interesting to get a glimpse of what people that age are like (again, a very rare opportunity for me). Basically the same as my high school students, haha, but without the strict rules. So they all had died hair, pierced ears, grungey/revealing clothes and so on.

Finally, her parents were pretty cool too. Her mum is very kind and an awesome cook, and her dad was a total riot. He was pretty drunk and would continually call out 'Sensei mo!', grab Devin's or my hand, and ask us all kinds of bizarre questions. I was ok to translate initially but as he got more and more drunk I had absolutely no idea what he was saying, hahaha. So poor Tomoko had to act as drunken speech translator, hehe. The whole party was a really good chance to practise my Japanese, actually. Any situation where you have someone who can't speak English and someone who can is excellent, because you can try your best to understand and communicate with the former while having the latter as backup. You can learn heaps that way, I think. Communicating with people who can't speak English tends to be fruitless from the point of view of learning anything new - it's hard to learn when you can't get an explanation of what has been said if you don't understand it!

At just after 7pm, Devin had to leave and so I decided to head off too. Tomoko seemed disappointed but I didn't want her mum to have to make yet another trip out into Ako later that night just to drop me off. She probably would have (she seems to have infinite patience, as she waited around for Tomoko for over an hour last Tuesday night when we decided to go out for dinner after the Japanese class) but that's beside the point! Back at the ranch I didn't want to call it a night yet, so gave Kazu a call. He wasn't doing anything so we whacked on our raincoats and headed down to an izakaya on the main street of Ako for a later dinner. After that we spent some time searching for a new bar to go to, but lucked out. In the end we wound up at Selfish, a 'safe' snack bar that we know, where thanks to the rain, we were pretty much the only customers. After a few drinks and some karaoke, we called it a night.

My Sunday and Monday were really quiet. I was exhausted after the long week so slept in very late on Sunday. When I got up, I finished Assassin's Creed, went to see Minato-san for dinner and then borrowed some movies from GEO. On Monday I installed my last new game, Bio Shock. It's an incredible game and admittedly I spent most of the day playing it. I did a few chores in the late afternoon and grabbed some dinner at Kappa Sushi. I got a 'hisashiburi!' from one of the staff, which was nice, as I hadn't been there for several weeks. And that was my weekend done. Pretty quiet, but given how busy I'd been, it was great to have a good rest.

The rest of my week was pretty normal. I played tennis with the teachers on Wednesday afternoon, which was fun despite the fact I played pretty badly, haha. I hadn't played for nearly 10 years, and having taken up badminton, found it really hard to control the ball. Not really surprising, I suppose :) I played badminton on Wednesday night and actually played surprisingly well, winning most games. So that was good. Thursday night was Minato-ya, and Friday I had to take it easy thanks to having to go to school on Saturday. It was the very exciting annual general meeting of the Parents and Teachers Assocation (PTA). It was decided that the students should also come, and do their Monday classes. Not sure why, but that's life, hehe. I wasn't involved in the PTA meeting and have no classes on Monday, so it was a little bit of a bummer as it really mucked up my weekend plans and made for a very tiring 6 day week. At least we got the Monday off, though, and then a 4 day week to make up for it :)

The only other exciting thing that happened during the week was that my infinite patience in waiting to get my judogi finally paid off, when it arrived on Thursday! I came back to my desk after a class to find Kurioka-sensei standing there with it, wheee - I was really excited. And at a whopping $300, so I should be! I decided I'd better be hitting the judo club as much as I can, hehe. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so much, but such is life - 'real' gear for Japanese sports/culture/etc is really expensive. Anyway, Yamamoto-sensei, the teacher in charge, said I could start the next week and should just go whenever I could. Which I think meant I should be going every day, but that I had gaijin privileges :)