Reporting from boring weekendland

I don't like report-style blogs, especially since this has been a weekend that I can afford to forget.

Stayed late at school on Friday, trying to get all my pictures scanned. Caught the train back to Yonago with Ogura-sensei and Sakasegawa-sensei--it's enkai time!

Enkai, as far as I could tell, means simply drinking session with co-workers. Along with Ogura and Sakasegawa, Honda-sensei and Kyoto-sensei(v.p.) were there at Doma-Doma as well. Lots of drinks and little morsels of expensive food. 4 hours later, the four of them paid 5000en each--it's my welcome party so I drink/eat free!

I like the Japanese way of drinking. Not once did I have to pour myself a drink. You pour for me, and I pour for you--it's such a simple formula to good times I wonder why no one else had thought of it. Ogura-sensei got really, really drunk, which somehow did not surprise me.

Afterwards we hit the same karaoke bar. Kyoto-sensei and Honda-sensei were around my parents age and listened to the same English oldies, and they were very surprised that I knew and could sing along on just about every song they picked. Good times.

Then the party broke off. I met up with Tyler and the Tottori crew and hit some "sports bar" in Asahi-machi. The "sports" stands for 1) dartboard and 2)TV with sports programs. I had 2 beers there, 1000 yen. The TV was showing Olympic wrestling, and I got excited and wrestled Tyler in the streets. He was out of breath before I even got warmed up.

Then we hit--where else--Pimans. I spent 2000 yen there. There was this guy from somewhere corn-rotten mid-west town who not only talked like he's hard but also tried to start something inside the bar, completely out of tune with the reggae theme. After the party broke, I got separated from everybody else BUT this clown and some non-descript chick. I did not want to spend any second with him so I asked him where everybody else were. He said, "I'll get you there, don't worry about it homeboy." I replied, with subdued wrath "Don't call me a homeboy" in dead-seriousness. Then he said something like "you'll never get around this town without me" or something to that effect, and I just turned around and walked. Maybe I should of just decked him right there, as no one of consequence was there to witness my potential flip-out except for the non-descript chick. I'm still fuming about it.

So fumy that I called Manjinder at 3am just so I can vent. She probably thought it was a booty call.

Woke up the next morning too late for the train to Misasa. There was a town-organized zazen tour at the local temple. I had wanted to go but 1)woke up too late 2)woke up too hungover 3)can only be there for 1/2 of the weekend as I needed to be back at school on Sunday morning 4)there like a combined 3 hour of meditation all weekend and 5)people are BRINGING ALCOHOL FOR SATURDAY NIGHT--WHAT!?--you are bring booze, for a meditation retreat, to a Buddhist temple in the middle of the mountain!? Though I am dissappointed that I missed it, it was most likely a joke anyway.

Woke up Sunday morning at 5:45am, and Nishiyama-sensei picked me up at 6:15 to cut grass and meet the parents at school. Gave my speech, cut the grass, got itchy all over and left around 9am. Nishiyama-sensei visited his brother-in-law and showed me the Suzuki Alto that was available for purchase. It was 200,000yen, 9 years old, white, 2 door, automatic kei-car with shakken until October 2006. Not a bad deal, but I still want to see the other car first: 150,000yen, 9 years old, red, 4 door, shakken until June 2005, kei-car, manual AWD kei car Suzuki WagonR. WagonR looks cooler and I'm excited to drive a manual AWD in the winter, even if it is only a kei-car.

Spent the rest of the day holed up in my apartment doing nothing. TV was fixed and I watched some Olympics. They showed the trash time of the Argentina-Italy game, and showed the women's handball championship between Korea and Denmark. Between the two of them they have won the past 4 Olympic gold medals in handball. It was a super exciting match. Both sides were physical (it seemed like the only defense options in handball are either drawing a charge or shove the shooter on her ass), injuries on both sides, multiple cruchtime big goals and momentum turners, and neither team lead by more than 3 points for the whole game. Denmark had better range on their shots and was more physical then Korea, but somehow Korea kept getting open looks at the goal and kept the game close. The score was tied at a back-and-forth 31-31 after the 2 overtime periods. Then, in typical Japanese Olympic TV fashion, they cut off the game and showed the reply Japanese guy losing the gold-medal match in 66kg wrestling. WTF!?