Sorry for the huge post dump, haha. I've been saving them up and finally found some time to post. As usual, here is a link to easily view all of the recent posts. Enjoy! ;)

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.