Another weekend in the cities

Friday night after driving down from Tango with Leigh, I joined Megan and her buddy Kelly in Kameoka for the evening. After much ado about losing an expensive, cult item -- tortillas were made by the semi-Mexican Kelly (and consumed by all).

Saturday I went to Osaka with Ian and Kelly. I had my rolling suitcase with me because inside it was my semi-broken iMac! Rolling that around was far easier than taking it in the original box. Also, I looked even more like a tourist than usual! Always a plus. We arrived at the Osaka Apple Store! With the help of Ian and Kelly, I managed to describe the computer problems to our helpful 'genius', and he whisked it away for repairs. I will be picking it up in two weeks time, and hoping meanwhile that they are fixing all the right problems! It would be really nice to have an electronic escape weapon for those long afternoons after school...
With some serendipity going on, I ran into Anthony on the train to Osaka, Simon and Lyle around the Shinsaibashi area, and Lauren O. with a bunch of gaijin buddies not long after. After a while, the three of us (tryst, if you will) met up with Megan and her friend Doug of Gifu.

We all had dinner and drinks at the Outback Steakhouse. Outback in Osaka is kind of like Disneyland for English teachers in Kansai -- I don't honestly know why. Our kindly server, Yuri, managed to put up with us for 2+ hours as we drank too much beer, ate too much meat (why did I order so much, again?) and booby-trapped Ian's plate with sauce.

After an amusing train ride back to Kameoka, we left Ian for dead and sang lots of Japanese songs at karaoke. As to say, the three of them did and I drank cocoa! I also sang me some "Dust in the Wind" because I was tired and it was the only song I could manage. Accompanied by Kelly's crunking. The perfect evening.

Sunday
Sunday was mostly laziness. Megan, Doug and I dropped Kelly off at Kyoto station and went down to the Sanjo/Teramachi area to walk around the river. It was a beautiful day! Families were out enjoying recreation, the birds were enjoying the sky (from what I could see), and there were heron everywhere! I tried to take some pictures... mostly the day was so pretty it was hard to take a bad picture, but I believe I managed. I also remember that we had Indian food with Amy, Ian and Lauren as well and that it was delicious. I did, however, have a fabulous late night road trip back to Tango with Leigh and we caught up on our weekends!