Hilarities

What an excellent weekend to pick up my spirits. Friday, Rosie hosted a fondue party at her house. Cheese and chocolate are a girl's dream when she is fairly upset. That sure brought up my spirits. She had all the trinkets to make it a proper fondue party. The food was good, but the company was the best. I love my northside family. Can't beat it.

Saturday brought Kat and Lauren's birthday. What a celebration! First we went bowling and I PRed with a 108! I usually score about 50, so this was a great improvement (thanks to Dan's coaching and cheering from Paul, Tori and the rest of their team). After that we headed to the Red Lantern for yakitori. This is where the beer started to flow. I was at a lovely table of all girls having some intellectual conversation. A few tables down girls were getting a little "girls gone wild" LOCO! I managed to pick up two J-guys. Shinya and Yusuke. They were pretty funny and really interested in going out with a bunch of westerners for the first time. We really motivated them to study some Eigo. We went to El's Ditch then were kicked out after one beer. We headed to Bar Nine which was a lot more accomodating for 20-30 loud, fun-loving westerners. This was one of my favorite bar experiences in Japan. All it needed was a little music and dancing and we would have been golden. Had some great conversation with Paul, Tori and Selene rating celebrities and JETs on a 3 point scale (snog, shag or throw off a cliff). After that we headed to Punky Brucester's for sleepover central. We were all snuggled in our futons and sleeping bags when I just couldn't shut my mouth. I don't quite remember what we were chatting about. Then Tom and Lee came bounding through the door deciding whether to go home or stay. We convinced them to stay, that invited probably another 2 hours of inappropriate conversation. I think I remember daring Tom to sleep naked next to Chris, but he wouldn't. He made sure to button up his pants in order to not pop out. I wish I would have had a tape recorder, I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time.

OK, so the next day came around a little too quickly (8:30am)!!! We went to the onsen in Kudamatsu and then for sushi. We were lucky enough to see some yakuza (japanese gansters) which was a very exciting first for me!!! I wish I could have spoken with them. After that we went ice skating, which was the highlight of my JET career. Now, you all think Tom can't skip, you should see the boy on ice skates. It was hilarious. There were about 4 or 5 jouzu skaters so we got together a game of tag. I nearly plowed over 3 little girls. Had I plowed them over they probably would have died. So luckily I have the agility of a fish in water so I dodged them. After that we had a nice ride home. We stopped at a log cabin in the mountains for delicious hot cocoa and pie then for some ramen... Excellent weekend, indeed.