Dansu shitai!

Saturday I dropped my mom off at Kansai airport and headed back to Hiroshima. I'll post some pictures and details of winter vacation some other time. So, after 8 hours on the train, I hopped off in Hiroshima, locked up my suitcase in a pay locker (which ended up costing me $12, bastards), and headed to meet Julie and Travis at Kemby's, a popular gaijin bar. I got a little lost, and just when I was feeling hopelessly freezing and annoyed, it started snowing. I've only seen snow once before, last New Years in NYC, so this was pretty cool. The remaining 5 minutes of my search for the bar was thoroughly enjoyable as a result, and when I finally found it I was nearly giddy. Travis and Julie were already drinking, so I joined and split some surprisingly decent nachos with Julie. When we finished there, we taxied it to a mod bar that Travis had raved to us about. It was amazing. Granted, there were only about five people there, all Japanese guys, and no one was dancing, but for the first half hour, the music was enough to keep us happy. Then one of the guys brought us over some sake and wanted to chat. One by one, we eventually met everyone there, and managed a somewhat detailed conversation in Japanese. I was proud of us. The music finally got to Julie and I, and we had to dance. We bounced over to the miniature dance floor and busted a move. Within 10 minutes, all of the guys were dancing too. The rest of the night progressed like that, with occassional conversation and sake breaks. In the picture above from left to right: Haku (an okonomiyaki sauce salesman), me, Jules, Trav, and married guy whose name I cant remember. Married guy's wife was in Kobe about to give birth to their daughter. I'm not sure what he was doing in Hiroshima. Anyway, there were a few other guys not in the picture. One of them told us his name was Tom, but later confided to me that it was something else... something Japanese... despite the fact that he made me repeat it like 15 times to remember, I forgot. His story was interesting: he just broke up with his gf of 4.5 years at the request of his company. You see, his gf was a common girl, and that just doesn't fly in his company. They told him he has to marry someone connected with the company, like a daughter of an exec or something. What kind of bullshit is that!?!? Anyway, he took a bit of a liking to me, I think because I mentioned I had just broken up with someone around the same time. We danced a little, and I told him if his "common girl" girlfriend was dame (X), then I would imagine an American would probably get him fired. He then proceeded to be charming in Japanese, which was kind of exciting because I understood it. Around then, Travis and Julie wanted to head out, so we did. It was about 4 am, and we had to wait for the 5:41 train. So we wandered around in the snow, eating conbini food, and finally made it to the station. A great night. All the guys want us to come next weekend, when the club has its official "mod night", so we'll probably go. Unless we go skiiing. Julie wants to head up to Tottori, see some friends, and ski it up. I might just go for it, because I could see Angie and have my first ski experience, all in one trip.

Last night was pretty cool, too. Travis, Julie, Hirahara and I went out for pizza, then met up with Chizu, Brian, Hessen, and James for drinks at this swanky little bar that Hessen and I passed one day and wanted to check out. It was fabulous. The drink menu was the entire bartender's cocktail book. Fantastic. I ordered two random oishi-sou drinks, both of which tasted like rubbing alcohol, but delivered quite a punch for the meager 600 yen they cost. Eventually, we headed back to my place and picked up some beers on the way from 7-eleven. Brian and Chizu slept over, which was fun. We made Chizu a myspace profile. This morning, Brian left for band practice around 11:30, and Chizu and I laid around and talked for like 3 hours. Then we went to the paint shop, and I bought some paints, brushes, and a practice book. I've decided to try paiting. I've been feeling a lot of overwhelming emotions recently, about which this is not the place to explain, but I thought painting might be a nice outlet. I tried it out tonight. I can't say I made anything of aesthetic value, but it was a pretty cool feeling just to be able to vomit colors onto page without thinking. I think I need to write more, too. For all of my loyal readers (hi mom!) you might expect more frequent blogging from me in the near future. Sometimes you just need to express yourself, you know?

Love you all. Oh, and akemashite omedetou (happy new year!)