Long Weekend

As I’m sure everyone in the world knows, yesterday was Marine Day, so we had a three-day weekend. I mean, why WOULDN’T we celebrate Marine Day?! I’m not sure what exactly it’s supposed to mean, but they often rename former Emperor’s birthdays random-ass names and take the days off, so I am guessing it is one of those. Either way I didn’t have to work, so, er, yay ocean?

Friday night Sean, Jenny, Cindy, Jenny’s school’s Portuguese/Japanese teacher Jessica and her friend and I went out for drinks and dinner in Ota. We went to Typhoon first, then to our new trashy dive, the kick-ass Brazilian bar afterwards. It has yummy drinks and yummy food (well, yummier last time when we were extremely drunk, but still good) and trashy western-style karaoke! Fortunately it’s never very crowded so it isn’t too embarrassing. Plus western-style karaoke lets you make friends! We bonded with these two guys who were as bad as us at karaoke! One of them brought their family with them?! Like his wife and two little daughters were there, and the daughters stayed out later than me!!! Um, sad! Anyway, there was plenty of karaoke to be had, and we even busted out some songs with the Brazilians! It was muy fun, even if our confidence was shattered a bit by the girls covering their ears during a particularly dreadful song. Oh, also, drunk Brazilians love sharing food with strangers, which I believe is a great custom that should be adopted by all.

Saturday was the day from hell because I believe Japan was actually HOTTER than Hell that day. Holy shit, it was SO HOT. It was 35 degrees (95 F) and 80% humidity. Um, COOL. Anyway, Emily, Ann, Cindy and I went to Veronica’s school’s festival to see our girl dance in the “Black Dance” club (haha, only in Japan). It was fun! V was of course the best dancer :) The festival was really impressive….all of the school clubs had booths selling food to make money. Hello, I’m more than happy to give money to fundraisers involving food! After that Cindy and I went to Baskin-Robbins to cool down. Mmmm, ice cream. Then we went to the Tatebayashi matsuri. Matsuri are Japanese festivals that mostly only happen during the summer. Each city/town has its own matsuri and they are ALL THE SAME. They have the same customs, same food, same everything. But it’s nice to see various people at matsuri, so as a result I am going to at least one matsuri every weekend for the next month. Um, I’m gonna be sick of okonomiyaki and yakisoba by the end of August!

Anyway, Tatebayashi’s matsuri was pretty fun except for the fact that it was raining throughout the whole damn thing. Also, for some reason they went mikoshi (portable shrine) crazy and had like 500 of them! A buncha drunk men (and a few girls) lift them (they are FUCKING heavy) and carry them down the street….I’m not sure why, but ‘tis tradition. By the end there were too many on the street, nowhere to walk, and I got cranky and bitched out an old Japanese man (well, as much as you can in Japanese). Yes, I’m a bad representative of America, but he was being an asshole! Also, I do enough good things, so maybe they balance out. Hehe.

To be continued later!