Party Up

The weekend in Niigata was definately the best I've had since being here. Eri & her friends invited us (me, Rick, Altun & James) for a weekend of skiing and drinking. This being my 3rd time on a snowboard on the first day on the slopes I finally got the hang of it and practiced my turns until late with Eri. Then we walked back to her pad for a Nabe party and some drinking until early hours. This time was much more fun for me because english was the language of choice and Rick brought the party with his ridiculous antics. A particular quote I like is "I've got my pants off, havin a good time, loving life!"... indeed.

The second day we headed to a different resort which was much bigger and had great conditions. It was real cool going around with friends and my favourite lady. Unfortunately my camera is not suitable for such activities so I have no photos with snow in it. But you can use your imagination, Japan mountains covered in snow are epic and I finally understand why people enjoy skiing so much. I could have done without my face being pushed in snow during a little tussel with Rick, but it's all part of the fun. He was trying to teach me about Canadian culture I think.

Then it was back to the pad (via maccas) for some swimming, spas and onsen to cap off a perfect weekend. Big up to the whole crew, it was a special time for everyone I think and hopefully we can do it again this season. Peace, love and all that.

Niigata Slopes/Sports Mansion

I Love New Tokyo

Cheers to my American buddy James (JIMBO!) for sending me this video. It's an authentic representation of the Tokyo life in under three minutes, made me emotional about the place and I haven't even left yet.

Jazztronik & KJM

On the weekend I met my old buddy from high school Chai and caught up a bit. He's here for an internship with UBS which sounds very lucrative. Makes me think about how I can make the big bucks like these finance guys.

Me & James took him to 'The Room' in Shibuya with some other housemates to check out Jazztronik and Shuya Okino from Kyoto Jazz Massive play for a cd release party. The Room is small but friendly so I always meet new people and have a good time there. This time was no different and I left with a bunch of email addresses. I also tried my first 'suicide' where you snort some salt, do a shot of tequila and then squirt lemon in your eye. It is retardedly stupid, but not as painful as I thought it would be... cheers Chai.

I'm trying to organise my flight to Sydney, but it looks like all the cheap tickets are booked out and I can't afford the expensive ones. So I'm not sure what will happen, hopefully someone will cancel and I will get a seat, otherwise I will have to delay my trip to the non-summer month of March. We'll see, fingers crossed.

Sumo you know?

Finished my first week back and picked up an extra shift on Sunday, so only had time to go out on Saturday for the sumo at Ryogoku with James, Ish and his significant other.

We bought the cheap unreserved seats and just sat in the empty good seats, which meant that we would have to do the "walk of shame" everytime the rightful owners arrived. We sat in four different places and I left my precious camera at one of them (due to the drinking), so I only got to really watch about an hour of sumo and then spent an hour and a half running around trying to find it. After the last match and the people cleared out my camera was returned to lost prFrom what I saw it was pretty cool, very ceremonial and dramatic, but also a tad slow. I look at sumo as the Japanese version of cricket, because it takes all day, is kind of boring but is fun to go to and drink with your mates.

After the sumo finished and the people cleared out my camera was returned to lost property to great relief. Only in Japan that would happen, my first thought when I lost it was "I hope a gaijin didn't find it".

I've started back at the junior high school for the home stretch, 5 weeks to go and then I hit Sydneys sunny shores for a holiday and then it's back to Nippon in March for my 24th birthday and to try and forge a new career path. Gambarimus.

Ryogoku

Keepin it Brief

Spent new years eve 06/07 in downtown Singapore with my mum (which was nice, but not so exciting). Saw some fireworks, relaxed for a day, then made a solo mission to Kuala Lumpur for a day, saw some birds, had a shitty time trying to get around (transport is f**ked there), came back to Singapore and said goodbye to the folks; as soon as I arrived back in Japan I caught the bus to Nagoya to meet Eri for the weekend; spent most of the time in the hotel but we did see a castle. Nothing too interesting to speak of; all the places I went to felt like the sticks compared to Tokyo so I'm glad to be back.

I finally got properly homesick so I'm planning on making a trip back home in late February for two weeks. Very exciting, the Dave Quest tour comes to Sydney! Will everyone still be there? If not holla at me so I can organise the best dates. In maybe 5-6 weeks I'll be back home and you better believe that I expect full attendance and participation at my welcome back party. There will be no slacking off. If I'm only gonna be in Australia for two weeks in '07 I wanna make them friggin good ones. Prepare thyself.

I gave my blog a bit of a spruce up by adding a cool flickr badge to as well as these nifty snap previews so you can preview the linked pages. I also put a shitload of photos from the trip onto my flickr account, so feel free to check them out. Hope everyone had a better new years than I did. Peace.

New Years/Kuala Lumpur/Nagoya