Jo and Hiroshima; reunited at last

Weekend activities;

• Eat delicious okonomiyaki with old friends
• Sing karaoke
• Drink copious amounts of alcohol
• Wear cow hat
• Dance until the sun comes up in a rather dangerous and unco-ordinated fashion.

Yes I managed to squeeze all these things into my weekend in Hiroshima. Seeing old friends was the best thing ever. One friend dedicated her whole day to me! It felt so good to just talk to someone in Japanese who wasn't a stranger, so I could be informal and just struggle through telling a story in crap japanese and they didnt mind because they got the gist and worked with it. Really the only way to learn to speak the language well is to just keep struggling through even if you don't think you have the ability to properly explain, because you usually find out that you can do it, plus your friends will tell you the words to use next time to explain your drunken stories fluently!

It was fantastic to see Hiroshima again, it kind of feels like my home away from home. The Japanese have a word they use to describe the feeling you get when you experience something great that you haven't experienced for a long time (well, that's part of what it means) natsukashii. I said that a lot. I "accidentally" (by which I mean I deliberately did all-you-can-drink but I accidentally drank 3 extraordinarily potent cocktails crafted by an Englishman thereafter) ended up being quite positively drunk and went dancing at a bar called Mac. I was rather ambitiously thrown around the dance floor by an evidently equally drunk friend and ended up with several rather nasty bruises (and may have given some innocent fellow-dancers some too) as a result, but it sure was fun at the time! In fact, as far as the barometer for measuring a good night out goes, oddly placed and fequent bruises are a high score. I have a lot of bruises. I recall at one point playing samurai with umbrellas, so perhaps that may have contributed...

Sunday morning was rather messy but by the evening, even after the arduous train journey home during which I hopped on the wrong train and ended up having to double back, I was feeling good. I think I needed that big night out to be hypoactive with, since that kind of overactivity is usually frowned upon here at work. Next weekend will be dull indeed by comparison.