Weekend Update

This has been a fairly busy week/weekend. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because a lot of it was fairly typical, but since Wednesday I've been to several JET events.

Wednesday: Julie's birthday party in Niyodogawa-cho. Dinner and drinks at the local bar with a few friends, then a sleepover at Julie's. We all took Thursday morning off to give us time to drive back home and get ready for work.

Friday: Party at the home of one of the new JETs. Barbeque/potluck style. Met a bunch of the new ALTs, but I can't remember all of their names yet. I'm guessing it might take me a while.

Saturday: Fireworks and dance party in Shimanto. Ingrid, Julie, Sasha and I drove up to Shimanto for the festivities and stayed at Colin's apartment for the night. I think about 11 people stayed at Colin's, actually. His apartment is pretty large, but even so, every flat surface was covered with futons. The fireworks were great, and we got to eat a number of delicious things such as corn dogs and grilled bacon-wrapped onigiri. We also chatted with a group of guys for quite a while; two of them were Japanese and one was Filipino. After the fireworks, the JETs moved on to a dance party. Part of the time I enjoyed it, but after a while I got somewhat bored and tired. I think we were out until about 3 am.

Sunday: Some of the JETs floated down the Shimanto River today, but Julie, Sasha, Ingrid and I opted to drive home instead. Along the way we stopped at an onsen for a scrub and a soak. It felt great to get the smoke smell out of my hair and then relax in the warm water. Tonight I may or may not be going on a date with Fuuta, one of the Japanese guys we talked to at the fireworks festival. It's still kind of up in the air. It's not a terribly responsible choice since I'm already somewhat tired and tomorrow is my first day back at school after summer vacation. But I don't get asked on dates that often, so I think it's probably worth it to go out tonight and suffer the consequences tomorrow. Of course, that's assuming we actually manage to meet up. Right now it's looking a little iffy. In any case, I'll let you know how things work out.