My weekend was a bizarre mix of good and not so good that pretty much averaged out to a flat ... average. Haha. It didn't kick off very well, with my finding out at the last minute that Hide couldn't go drinking in Himeji after all, despite confirmed plans earlier in the week. I wasn't particularly impressed, but I'd accidentally done a similar thing in the past, so I figured that made us even :) I thought about going to badminton or the new bar I like instead, but I was really tired. So I was a bit naughty and took a night off. I just stopped off at Paone on the way home to pick up some dinner and alcohol, and just ate, drank, watched TV and played a few games on my computer. A real 'neh' kinda night.

I slept pretty late and woke up just in time to head into Kobe to meet Junko K (as opposed to Junko M who is now in Nagoya). I hadn't seen her in a long time, so it was great to catch up. The weather was beautiful, the sun was out and it was actually somewhat 'not cold'. After grabbing a quick lunch in a simple teishoku restaurant on Ikuta-dori, we decided to check out the cable car up into one of the nearby mountains. Unfortunately it was closed due to strong winds. There certainly weren't any at the base of the cable car, but the clouds were moving extremely fast, so I guess there were some up the mountain. We were close to Kitano, the 'foreign district', so decided to wander through there instead. Despite being so close to Kobe, Junko has hardly ever been there, so I got to play tour guide :) We bought a multi-entry ticket and wandered through some of the foreign houses that had been converted to museums. Not really my cup of tea, but it was fun to just wander around and take it easy for a change.

After that we climbed to the 'lookout' area at the top of the shrine in Kitano, where I'd been with Goran, Aimee and Dan many months ago. The view was very beautiful, as there wasn't too much smog. After another quick wander, we ended up in a Danish waffle cafe for coffee and food. I hadn't had waffles for a very long time, so it was cool. While we were in the cafe, Junko gave me a really cool chocolate (just giri :D) for a belated Valentine's Day gift. It was an extremely detailed, beautifully made frog. I'd never seen anything like it, so it was a wonderful surprise.

It was beginning to get dark and there was a little snow in the air, so we quickly hurried to China Town, the last place Junko wanted to see. I'd never been there properly, and was surprised at how nice it seemed. I recall that Lonely Planet said the food there is in general, terrible, and it's probably certainly not the best Chinese food around, but it looked ok to me. The ambience alone was worth a trip there, especially at night when it's lit up by a myriad of different coloured lights and lanterns. Junko bought some nikuman (what the Japanese call 'bao') for her colleagues, to prove she'd been to Kobe (is that a big achievement, from Kyoto?! :D) and we grabbed some extras to eat ourselves.

Finally, we stopped off at The Hub, a 'British' pub in Sannomiya, for a cheeky beer. They'd renovated the bar, but ironically they'd made the layout worse and the service was still shocking, haha. Some things never change, I guess :) The Guiness was still Guiness, though, and we had a good time watching the first half of the soccer game between Japan and South Korea. SK scored a goal early in the half and Japan hadn't equalled by half time, when we left, so I was a little worried. Thankfully, I found out today that they'd drawn. Good. Gotta support my country, now :) After the beer it was nearly 9pm and Junko needed to go, so we headed our separate ways. Junko is going to work in Canada for a year soon, so I don't know if I'll see her again before she leaves. I'm sad that she's going (yet another friend here who is leaving Japan), but I think she really needs the adventure, and it'll be really good for her.

Unfortunately for me, the train from Himeji to Akou was delayed by 25 minutes (wow, once in a blue moon kinda thing!!) so I couldn't go to Kappa Sushi for dinner, wah. Instead, I went to my new bar, arriving covered in snow from riding through a sudden, very surprising and relatively heavy snow shower. There weren't many people in there, just two guys I didn't really know. Turns out that one of the guys has a sommelier licence (how random!) and is pretty crazy :D Some of his feats, which he took great pride in telling me about, include jumping into the Chikusa river from the bridge I ride over to school, sledding down the stairs at Akou train station and something else impressive that I, rather unfortunately, can't remember. Very amusing! After that it was back home and straight to sleep for the badminton tournament.

It snowed rather a lot overnight so it was freezing and a little slippery riding down to the Jounan sports centre, but I made it there on time to meet Funamoto-san. There were stacks of people there, and I found out to my dismay that we were only going to be playing two games (assuming we didn't win any, which was a fairly safe assumption, hehe). My dismay deepened when Funamoto-san said we'd be playing at 9:30am and then again at 2pm, which is worse that a uni timetable, lol. I wasn't really bummed about this because I had other important things to be doing, but sitting around a freezing cold badminton court for 4 hours with very little to do wasn't exactly my idea of fun!

Still, I kept my attitude positive and had a lot of fun in the first game, even though we lost in straight sets. I didn't play too badly, and learnt quite a bit. It's just putting it into practise that's hard :D The game ended at just before 10am, meaning a 4 hour wait until the next one. In that ridiculously long period of time, I tried my best to keep busy. I watched a few games, met Funamoto-san's wife and son, hung out with the Ako BMC people and chatted to Daiichi, who dropped in. That was all great, but I really was pretty out of it thanks to the lack of a common, fluent language. This is a statement, not a complaint, as I knew full well what I was signing up for when I came. I do really miss conversation though, and meeting new people. There were some pretty cool looking people around, but I simply wouldn't have been able to maintain a conversation with them even if I'd tried. Another incentive to keep on learning Japanese...ganbarimasu!

Thankfully the monotony was broken at about 12 when we headed out for lunch. Daiichi drove us down to a konbini out in the industrial sticks of Akou, where we picked up onigiri, bento and other nefarious foods and drinks. This turned out to be rather amusing for me (and kind of made up for the tournament meaning I couldn't go to Club Pure last night), as the girl behind the counter was totally surprised when I walked in. When she noticed me, she stared at me, said 'Oh!', and grinned enormously :D Muahaha.

Back at Jounan, our second game finally came around. We lost again, in straight sets. Again, we kept our spirits high, but I couldn't help but feel kinda crappy after Funamoto-san and I walked away from the game. It wasn't being completely trounced and possibly the worst player there that did it (I knew I'd tried my best and I was satisfied, especially having never played in a tournament before), it was just the sheer amount of time I felt I'd wasted. If I could have played my two games in the early morning, I could have gone to the museum with my new friend in the afternoon, or done something else useful. Finishing up at around 3pm (after doing line judge duty for losing, lol) really smashed my Sunday. I couldn't help but comment to Funamoto-san that I felt we'd had to wait too long between games and that it'd annoyed me, and somewhat to my relief, he agreed. He invited me to play in another tournament in two weeks, in which there'll be far fewer people there and we'll have more games. I enjoyed the actual playing at the tournament, so I eagerly accepted. Good stuff! And then from there, it was home to washing, cleaning, dinner and TV.

So overall it was a very average weekend. I'm hoping this coming week and weekend will be much better. I'm catching up with a few friends, heading out for a couple of dinnrs and checking out an art gallery or two. Should be good times. Hopefully, anyway, as I'm going to need something to balance what could potentially be the most boring week of school this year. The bulk of uni entrance exams are tomorrow, I think, so there isn't going to be any more san-nensai English practice for me correct. Boo hoo, it was a lot of fun! :/ Also, final tests are coming up for ichi and ni-nensai, which means no chance of any classes for them. So, it looks like I'll be translating Japanese on My Happy Planet and trying not to beat my head on the convenient brick wall just across from my desk :) Thankfully, there's graduation on Thursday/Friday, which should be a nice distraction. And once final exams are over, it's 'free' time at school for the last four weeks, woohoo! As a result, I've been promised a few classes, so I'll see what I can come up with. Only another month until the new school year, thank god! I really, REALLY hope I get those extra classes as promised, or I am seriously going to go crazy. Or simply just have to start doing my own thing (programming, reading etc.) until someone finds me some work!