Last Monday was spent doing some light cleaning and resting up for some overtime on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday evening's shift was busy but I got to work with a couple friends so the time went by pretty quickly. Wednesday I was the only "native English teacher" at web school wich wasn't too bad, again, because I was pretty busy. I stopped off at my favorite little hole-in-the-wall bar on the way home and had a drink with some of the local guys and a nice Austrian couple who were in town for the winter holidays.
I spent the day Thursday buzzing with anticipation for the evening when I went over to the couple who set us up's house with my girlfriend for a belated Christmas dinner. We ordered a whole chicken from KFC and made stuffing and salad to go with it. We also made spring rolls, both in the traditional style and one of my own design stuffed with leftover chicken and mashed potatoes. After dinner we sat around and talked into the evening.
Last Friday was the one year anniversary of meeting my girlfriend and to celebrate we went out for yakiniku (Korean BBQ) with the same couple as the night before. We went to a reasonably priced yet somewhat famous place down the street. I was glad we'd made reservations as there was a line out the door when we arrived. Unfortunately the smoke vent above out table wasn't working and ll the smoke from the grill blew into my face on it's way to the next table over's vent. The meat was good and unlike last year no one seems to have gotten a horrible case of food poisoning this time. Following dinner we adjoined to a karaoke box for a few hours of singing. My girlfriend had to catch the last train down to her parent's house to help her brother move over the weekend so we called it an early night.
Saturday (New Year's Eve) one of my friends swung by midday in a rent-a-car and we went to pick up some other friends (the couple I'd eaten dinner with the past two nights.) Once we'd gotten everyone collected we headed down South to Wakayama. Aside from one little traffic jam it was a fairly smooth 4 hour trip to Shirahama (A beach-front community in Southern Wakayama famous for it's (imported) white sand beach.) Once in Shirahama we found one of the famous rock formations out in the ocean and snapped some pretty sunset pictures. In the first incident of the evening one of my friends slipped on some wet rocks and racked his back pretty hard. The next stop (after much driving around and discussing) was dinner. We found a cozy little roadside pizza place. While waiting for our order we were joined by another friend who had rode down after us on his motorcycle. After dinner we spent quite some time looking for a parking spot close to the beach. Car and bike safely stowed we went to look at the 'illumination' (Christmas lights) out on the sand. Chilled from walking around next to the ocean in the middle of the night in the winter we stopped off in a hot spring to warm ourselves. For being a town famous for it's hot springs we had a bit of trouble finding one that was in walking distance (as we really didn't want to move the car.) We settled in a cheap local one but had to go to the store and buy our own towels first. After all this it was still only 10 o'clock so we walked around a bit more looking for someplace to wait until the countdown started. We eventually found a nice cafe and chatted over warm drinks. Around 11:30 we went back to the car and got our traps and blankets and went back to the beach to wait for midnight. Finally at the end of the countdown we got to see the fireworks show that's we'd come all this way to see. All three minutes of it. A bit bummed out by the short show we went back to the car and dropped off our gear before heading over to a local shrine the cafe owner had told us about. The shrine was packed with people doing their hatsumode or first shrine visit of the year. We lined up and got some free mochi (rice cake) soup and even got to try our hands at pounding some mochi too. Things were going well, almost everyone had gotten their fortunes for the year (everyone in our party pulled "small luck") when one of my friends put her leg in a ditch she though was a step and took a huge spill onto the ground. Whimpering that her leg really hurt we had her sit still and called an ambulance to be safe. The paramedics came and checked her out and nothing seemed to be broken but they took her away to get some x-rays to be safe. Two friends went with her while I followed in the car and the other friend followed on his motocycle. Luckily the x-rays showed that nothing was in-fact broken. At this point we had a long conversation as to weather we'd stay out and wait for the first sunrise or call it a night and head back to Osaka. The consensus was that our beds were calling so we left out friend and his motorcycle behind (it was far too cold to ride at this point) and made the trek back North. After dropping friends off and finding a parking spot I got home and dropped into bed at about 5:30 in the morning.
Unfortunately the friend who banged her legs up was the same one who rented the car so it fell to me to get up and return said car in the morning. I did manage to get four hours of sleep in before I had to move thankfully. I stopped in the convenience store as I walked home from the rental place and bought some breakfast. It was fully daytime on the first at the is point so I decided not to go back to bed and to move forward with the day. Not that I did much other that watch movies and play video games though.
I still have a few days off this week but after last week's excitement I think I'll need them to recover. I got some new board games for Christmas so I'm having friends over this afternoon to try some of the out. Should be fun.
I hope everyone had a good "Year Of The Dragon." Happy New Year!
Happy New Year Mike! Hope it's a good one.
ReplyDeleteThe Molls