Cannibalized Chinese and Japanese Girlfriends

Remember how I said this weekend could either be awesome or horrible? It was most definitely the former. It was so nice that I didn't even really mind working from 9 AM to 11 PM on my day off for follow up training with less than three hours of sleep.

First up was Australia Day on Saturday night.

A small sampling of the food available. It tasted better than it looks... That really gross-looking one behind the brown ball was some kind of fudge brownie with nuts. So good. Not pictured was the kangaroo meat that I got to eat. I thought it would be tough and stringy, but it was actually really tender and delicious. Cross one more animal off my "to eat" list :D  PS: opinions may vary. Masashi, for example almost puked when he ate it and now can't stand the smell.

The serious dude is my manager. I was really surprised he actually came. I got to trick him into letting me buy him a beer by insisting I was best friends with the bartender so I got drinks for free. Definitely never been to the bar before in my life. The girl is Wakiko (from the takoyaki party). Forgot to take pictures while my student (Wakako... not confusing at all) was there :(

It's Mika!

They had quite an impressive array of TVs around the bar. This was the biggest. We got to watch rugby for a bit before the Asia Cup final round came on (soccer. Japan vs. Australia)

This guy is Mac. Or Big Mac as he is called. We are the same person, and it's scary. He's from near San Francisco, about as tall as me (although bigger, thus Big Mac), and the amount of similarities we have extends to our exact preferences on things like Final Fantasy games.

That, of course, meant we had to take a mugshot together.

It's Masashi!

These guys. Oh man, these guys. Okay.... where to start. The first one of these guys I met was the dude in the brown coat. How did I meet him? Well, about an hour or so before this picture, I went to the bathroom. I had to wait because he was puking his guts out in the guy's bathroom. When he finished, he shook hands with everyone in line... I was really glad to be able to wash my hands. Oh yeah, he also grabbed my ass at one point in the night. I was one of at least a half dozen victims >< After that, the dude in the grey coat came up and started talking to me. Entirely in Japanese except for the occasional "MY FRIEND!" followed by a handshake. Yeah, they were drunk. We exchanged numbers and he asked about five times if it was okay to call me. Of course, he hasn't and I don't expect he will. But that didn't stop him from buying me and Mac a couple of beers. The second one was around the time I was going to be leaving, so I just chugged it really fast. Apparently chugging a beer is another thing that really impresses Japanese people. The guy in the brown coat was dangerously wasted though. He was leaning against a wall near a table for most of the night. During that time he almost knocked the table over twice, broke multiple bottles, and tried to pick up the glass shards and put them back together. Mac and I were actually holding him up during this picture, which we didn't realize until afterwards when he fell on his ass because we let him go. We had to physically pick him up and help him lean against the wall again. He was still drinking when I left.

The game started at midnight (no fucking clue why it started so late), so the soccer fans started to show up around 11:30. The place was already super crowded for Australia day, so for an hour or so it was almost impossible to move. The cheering matches between Australians and Japanese were interesting. For a while, all that could be heard were alternating battle cries of "Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie, Oy Oy Oy!" and "Nippon! Nippon! Nippon!". I joined in with another guy in the crowd shouting "USA! USA! USA!"... it actually stopped everyone from cheering as they turned to look at us funny :D I had to wake up at 9 the next day, though, so I left at about 2 AM. Stopped by Massashi's bar to pick up the PS3 he's lending me, and the head female ballet dancer was there. Kinda sad that I didn't have time to stop and chat :(

Next day was potential date time. It went far better than I had any right to expect it to. Had some delicious sushi, then went to Matsue castle (finally), but it was fucking freezing. I want to go again when I have more time. I think I've mentioned before that it's one of only twelve castles in Japan that hasn't been reconstructed, and it really shows. So much different than Hiroshima and Okayama, and the stuff inside is way more impressive. The top floor actually had some snow coming in through the cracks, and most of the comments in the guestbook read "Samui" (cold). Watched a movie after that, which is always nice. It was a lot of fun, but a really long day. It also helped to clear up the confusion about the whole potential part of the potential date considering we are actually going out now.

The next morning had me waking up at 7 fucking AM, and I barely got any sleep the night before. Maybe 2-3 hours, with no more than 20 or so minutes being consecutive. I was also greeted by another snowstorm that had blown in overnight and left us with 20-25 centimeters of snow. Almost missed my train, forgot my Dramamine, and didn't remember my initial training manual (not that big a deal, but still embarrassing). I brought my camera to take pictures, but it didn't work so well. I was worried it would be too blurry, but that wasn't the case. Instead, the speed of the train with the one or two second delay on the camera meant that I had to try to forecast where I needed to aim the camera to get what I wanted in the picture. I gave up after a couple of attempts. Suffice to say that everything in the countryside is freaking gorgeous, especially with snow everywhere.

As proof, this is the only decent picture I got. I saw it on my first trip in from Okayama too. It's in the middle of a lake, and it appears to be an abandoned shrine on a small, rocky, island covered in trees. I want to go explore it so bad that it hurts.

Nothing much to say about training really. It wasn't bad I suppose.

Random stuffs!:
1.) I was approached by a girl while walking to lunch on one of my breaks this week. While waiting at a crosswalk, I looked over to see her staring up at me. Assuming she was just one of the more obvious starers, I ignored it. Then she moved into my field of vision clutching a newspaper and asking something I couldn't quite understand. We talked for a few minutes, and I think she said she was a student at the local university. She was obviously asking me something, but I kept telling her my Japanese wasn't that good, and eventually I made up an excuse that I had to meet someone and left. In retrospect, I think she might have been asking me to translate the newspaper for her since it was in English. No idea how she expected me to do that when I obviously couldn't communicate...
2.) Best student mistake ever: "If I was in Hong Kong, I would eat many Chinese."
3.) The way Japanese women say koala is fucking adorable. My heart melts a little each time I hear it.

Think that's about it, folks. Sorry for the late update, but I was so freaking exhausted when I got home last night.