about last weekend...

Alright…this is really like work. I:ve been so busy that I haven:t had time to email, book a hotel in Tokyo for this weekend, plan my upcoming trip to Thailand or write a bit on the site. I:ve even taken to drinking caffeine packed green tea by the liter so i:m on high speed at work. [all these late nights aren:t helping. now i understand the american office coffee dependency] Sorry. So here:s what:s been goin: on…
[note* i:m on a Japanese computer again so there:s no apostrophe.]
Friday:s my early day off so after work Melanie came over and we ate lunch together and worked on planning our trip to Tokyo. Thursday is a national holiday and we:re taking Friday off. We:re gonna hop an overnight bus on Wednesday, which leaves at 10:30 and will arrive in Tokyo at 4:30 Thursday morning, with 4 friends. [Liz isn:t going cause she:s being fiscally responsible. Boo.] the highway bus is the cheapest, 9450 yen [about 94.50$] and slowest way to get there.
Friday night I did dinner with a few of the brits at a rowdy Japanese pub and then to karaoke for a friend of a friend:s birthday. This spot gives each party there own room to hang in. There were about 15 of us in all…everyone pays the same no matter what you drink or how much you sing…that:s the standard Japanese way. So for 2500\, about 25 bucks, we drank and partied from 9:30 till 2. the best deal I:ve seen yet.
Saturday Liz and I hit the international food market which is a 35 minute bike ride or so away. i:m on the verge of renting a car for such excursions because the ride home with enough Mexican fiesta fixin:s to feed 6 people plus beer and tequila was not pretty. We played badminton for a while until the girls came over and we absolutely gorged ourselves. We even found pepperjack cheese at the market, 5 bucks a block, and sour cream [woohoo!!].
Here's Lizzie cooking it up in her nice roomy kitchen...note the budweiser in a bottle [which was all strange. really heavy with a small opening] we paid about 2.50$ for them at the international food shop. not bad.

lizzie hates this picture. she thinks it's horribly unflattering. she wants everyone to be aware that she doesn't really look like this. let it be known. word.

Later we rode bikes to a club downtown but we were a few short so some of us perched on rear fenders and axle pegs. The police stopped us and told us they didn:t like that idea [we think]. One of the girls took quite a nasty spill. She:s the reason it:s technically illegal to ride bikes drunk here.
Sunday was glorious. I packed Liz and I lunch [Japanese style, which means lots of little portions. Two types of fish cakes, some strange white cheese, shrimp balls, seaweed salad, pickled cucs and radishes, edamame, krab sticks and rice] and we headed to Takada park, about a 6 minute ride or so from my place. There:s a castle there, beautiful lotus flower ponds, lots of stuff to play on and plenty of people watching.
We basked in the sun, studied some, played a lil: badminton [one of my new favorite pastimes] and watched some kids play soccer. Later we cycled a bit before hitting the town. We took the train to Naoetsu to check out a little restaurant i:d seen with turntables and awesome décor. The menu was entirely katakana, which is neither of our strong suits. The food was great, but expensive. We tried snails, shimeji mushrooms and octopus sautéed in butter and garlic which was as good as it sounds. Also, deep fried white fish salad which was nothing like we expected. Turns out these white fish are like little minnows they deep fry whole, beady eyes and all. The taste was actually alright and they were fried so crispy they doubled as Japanese style croutons. We gathered that chorizo sausage was in one of the dishes under the stir fry heading so we went with that. They delivered a plate of three horseshoe shaped whole sausages that were battered and deep fried like tempura and smothered in a sweet asian sauce that was balanced perfectly with chili pepper. We definitely overdid our cholesterol intake for the day considering we mopped that plate clean.
At that restaurant we saw a flyer for a dance party that night and off we went. Oh culture shock. We needed money first so we headed to the post office which we:d been told is 24 hour. Well, the door was open but none of the atms were on. Then to a gas station…no atm. By the bank…nope. Then to another convenience store where there was an atm but it kept spitting my card out. I finally got brave [read irritated] enough to pick up the phone on top of the atm, they all have them. The man speaks only Japanese, I did well and managed to gather that it was simply too late. Back to my place to count coins. Barely enough to get in. we head to the club on our bikes. Awesome. It was packed and we were the only foreigners around for sure. We talked with a few people but were self-concious about dancing because we were such a spectacle already. Liz left early, her eyes were killing her. After all, this club was simply a small box on the second floor with no windows or ventilation and dozens of chain smokers. The show only got cooler. Four guys rapping over two djs entirely in Japanese. Then a dance exhibition of breaking, popping, robotics and hip hop. Later, the night went all Japanese reggae.
Monday was respect your elders day, a national holiday. A friend picked me up in his new leased car [jealous] and we rounded up Melanie before heading to a complex called Cowboy. Several home stores like our lowe:s, pier one and home depot. A huge used clothing store and another trendy clothes mecca where I scored an incredible crushed blue velvet blazer. We also hit up the second hand bookstore, the hyaku yen shop [equivalent of the dollar store], an awesome winter sports shop [snowboarding, here I come] and a crazy large market.
What a long winded account this is. Figured if I can only find time to write every now and then I should cram in as much as possible. Missing you all. Compensating by staying incredibly busy. Love, love.