Despite still (!!) being tired from Yuki Matsuri, I decided to go out last night and had a really good time. Just before I left school, I decided to message my good friend Kazu. I hadn't seen him since before New Year, but he's only free on Thursday nights and we'd always alternately been busy recently. Thankfully, he was free last night, so we were able to catch up. I suggested we head down to the Daikichi (a yaki-tori AKA chicken on a stick place) near Minato-ya.

When I met him outside, he countered by suggesting we head to an izkaya on the main street. I didn't even know it was there, it was another closed-door-no-windows scary place. The possibility of there being a good izakaya on the main street was totally awesome, so I eagerly agreed. To my delight, it turned out to be a really nice place, too. It had brand spanking new tatami mats on the floor, and the food was pretty damn good too. Fairly typical izakaya fare, which thankfully never seems to get old :)

As we hadn't seen each other for nearly 2 months, we both had quite a bit of news. It turns out Kazu had been busy recently as his dad was admitted to hospital a short time ago. He somehow caught pneumonia, but is recovering, thankfully. Although the language barrier means we can't really talk all that much, I'm going to go visit him as he has always been very kind to me. I hope he can fully recover!

Eventually the conversation turned, as it usually does, to things to do in Ako. This started with me noticing some extremely well dressed women eating dinner in the izakaya too, one of who was wearing a beautiful kimono. She was extremely made up so I had certain suspicions and Kazu confirmed them - she was probably working at a 'snack' bar. A bit of background - snack bars are basically expensive places where men go to be entertained by beautiful women. It's nothing too dodgy (that's saved for the 'soap lands', of which there are none in Ako, thankfully) - usually it's just witty conversation/banter and, as I was informed by a grinning Minato-san, maybe a little bit of 'very light fun' too, depending on how good the man's conversation is. Very Japanese :)

There are actually a lot of snack bars in Ako. I only realised this the other day, talking to Minato-san. On my random travels around, I often passed by two places very near to each other that looked very interesting. One is a very nice looking place with a sign of a blue seahorse out the front, and the other is a place that is simply, and very amusingly, called 'S&M'. I asked Minato-san what they were and that's how I found out what snacks are. Thank goodness I was anally retentive about not wandering into random places when I first arrived here :) Certainly not the kind of place I want to be, especially as a teacher.

Anyway. Kazu said he'd recently been visiting a bar in Ako and had met some cool people there, and gotten to know the guys who owned it a little better. He'd taken me to this bar early on in my time in Ako, but I'd forgotten where it was! When I finally found it again, there never seemed to be a good time to go - I was busy on Fridays, usually out of Ako on Saturdays, and drinking on a 'school night' is not something I like to do too much. However, I felt ok last night and we hadn't had too much to drink at the izakaya, so I suggested we head to the bar. Especially when Kazu said the guys who owned it remembered me and wanted me to go there. Gaijin desu :)

So we wandered down and had a lot of fun chatting away, talking rubbish. One of Kazu's friends, Miyo, dropped in a short while later. She was really genki and a little crazy, which was fantastically refreshing. I was beginning to get a little down about just how subdued a lot of Japanese people (especially women) can be, in general. It wasn't long before she jumped behind the bar to make Kazu and I drinks, and perhaps most impressively, got involved in the conversation that resulted from Kazu telling the owners about the 'S&M' bar. Naturally, conversation turned to S&M itself, and of course, to which everyone would prefer 'if they had to choose'. Looks like some conversation patterns are the same in Japan and Australia :) Miyo jumped right in with no hesitation and stated that she'd prefer to be the sadist, haha. Needless to say, it was a very funny conversation.

I had to leave just after 11pm as I was really getting tired, but I said I'd go back again tonight after badminton. I'm so glad to have met some more people! Hopefully I can make some friends there, but hey, even if I can't, it's a great to practise my Japanese! I probably won't stay too late though, as my weekend is looking relatively massive and I really need some sleep! Tomorrow my friend Suzie and her cousin are visiting Ako for lunch and the 'grand tour' (haw haw) and then it's Hadaka Matsuri at night. That goes all night so I expect Sunday will be recovery and badminton if I feel up to it. Alright! Party on :)