Best weekend ever! We went up to Nagano on Friday night (long drive by the way, about 6 hours). We meant to leave at 7pm, but due to many complications it was about 9 when we finally took off, and therefore almost 3am when we rolled in to the hotel. We were staying in a hotel with all the other ALT soccer teams from across the country, and it was loud. After a short night's sleep we were off to the fields, in our fancy new uniforms, bright and early. We played 3 games on Saturday, and actually didn't do too bad! We lost our first one, 1-0, tied the second (0-0) and then lost in penalty kicks, and won the 3rd 2-1 in penalty kicks. Saturday was my first soccer game ever, so I was pretty terrible, but I think I improved over the weekend, and it was alot of fun. On Saturday night we were tempted with a huge dance party with all the teams in our hotel. I bought ume shu (plum liquor) to drink and didn't like it, so I ended up trading drinks of it for many different types of liquor. A bad mix by the end of the night, to put it lightly. So much fun though. So we wake up hungover on Sunday and have to play another game. Running while hungover is NOT my favorite thing to do. It really sucked, but we lost, so it was our last game. Nagano was beautiful, we were on a ski resort (no snow though obviously) so there were mountains all around us while we played.
On Monday I had the most random night yet. After taiko practice I met up with some friends at an izakaya in Matsu. My friend Nigel has some friends visiting from China (they're Canadian, just teaching in China), so we were out for their last night in Japan. I drank 3 big ringo chuhais (apple coolers...sort of) in a bout an hour and then we decided to go back to Nigel's place to play darts. Drunken darts, what fun. Nigel made the losers (me and Doug) shoot whisky, and that was the end of us. When we got back to Doug's place, we (well, he really) decided to take us to a nearby bar and buy us Guiness. None of us could even drink half of it. Definitely the drunkest I've been on a school night. Luckily I was at Doug's school on Tuesday, and as we have our own office, and neither of us had classes, we napped all morning. Doug actually stretched out on the floor of our office and slept. Man I love this job. I watched tv on my computer too. Can't believe I get paid for this;)
Last night I started a Tuesday tradition. After getting back to Taki from Doug's school, I only have about an hour before Japanese classes, so the past two weeks I've been eating dinner at Kura, the local izakaya. The first time I went, the owner/chef sat down with me and explained everything on the menu for me (it's all in kanji, so even him reading it in Japanese to me is sooooo much easier than reading it myself). He's a really cool guy. So this time I get there, sit at the bar, and he shows me an english phrasebook he bought with phrases you need in a restaurant. So he's learning english to help me out, and we had a good chat in Japanese too. He asked me if I'm going to come every Tuesday, and I told him probably, since it's so convenient, and he's great to practice Japanese on. Gets me in the mood for class:) I'm getting really excited about speaking Japanese here now.... I'm alot less shy about it than I was when I first got here:)
Anyways, I'm out for now. Miss you:)
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