Party in Honjo/Ine/Inaka/Your Mom

Party in Inaka; 6,000 Found Dead.

This weekend was a celebration of nothing in particular. A month ago I had decided to throw another party (the last party being Rachelmas™ back in December). Most of my good friends could come, which was good. A few couldn’t, which was too bad. The most interesting part was the RSVPing, which was usually acquaintances telling me that they ‘probably wouldn’t make my party unless nothing better came up’, which is always a delight to hear. Well, the turn out was a good number of people to the food and liquor that we had prepared. I have more liquor left over in my house than I could ever drink in a year.

Let’s go back in time to Friday, where I drove to Nishi-Maizuru to pick Ian and Megan up at the train station. What a great place to pick people up! It’s only an hour and 15 minutes away from my home and there are no tolls! I believe it’s also quite thrifty for the train passengers, which makes it an ideal Inaka-pickup place for future weekends. We immediately went to Karachi for curry and followed it up with a donut or two. After a lovely drive home (accompanied by Easy-E, as per usual), we watched cartoons and slept in the downstairs tatami room. We didn’t even need the heater! Kirby was pleased to see his favourite guests back in the house. The guests were equally pleased to see Kirby, who is now as big as a wild boar and twice as chubby.


Saturday I left around 1030 in the morning for Yagi (Greg’s town) which is about 30 km from Kyoto as I understand it. I got there in about two hours time and met Greg at the train station. We trained it to Nijo to meet Zara (who was visiting from Kyushyu after dropping her mother off at the airport). We all went hanami-watching [a term used to describe looking at blossoms] in the city while I did errands. Pet food, coffee, etc. The blossoms were indeed lovely! I shall have to plan a proper hanami picnic for next year, but I got my fill of pink flowers, which was my goal anyway. Two hours, one ice coffee, and a subway ride later, we met John ‘Nowun kan oonderstand me’ Blakeney at Nijo. He looked as though he’d been hit by the party truck. He immediately asked if he could have a shower at m house, and we jumped on the slowest train in the world back to Yagi. The ride back was quick and painless with a quick stop off at Miyazu’s most famous beauty spot: MIPPLE. An unbelievable load of snacks and booze and we were back in the car and driving to Ine.


The party was lovely, as I have mentioned. A great group of people came over, plenty of liquor was imbibed, and nobody got so drunk that they threw up in my house or yard, which is always a plus. I am always touched that people will drive all the way up to my town for a few hours of standing around in my kitchen eating pizza and chatting. It’s no small trek.

Around 3am, we called it a night and went to bed. No hangovers the next day, which was fantastic (and VERY different from Rachelmas™). The first problem in the morning was the realization that there was NO MILK. How did we drink a gallon of milk in one night? The answer: we COULDN’T HAVE. Someone had most certainly pilfered my milk. I drove some of the kids out to the Nishigaki about 20 minutes away to get milk and veggies for omelets. Zara made omelets and smoothies for us and we enjoyed them while forcing John to watch “The Little Mermaid” (my work here is done). Eventually it was time to go down to the train stations and get Zara and Greg home.



The only problem was that my car seats four people and we had six. Simple solution, three HUGE boys in the back (all being tall and or bootylicious), Megan in the front seat, and Zara curled up while sitting on Megan’s lap. [PEOPLE IN THE CAR] Zara is also about 16 feet tall, so that worked out as well as it sounds. A dangerous car ride to Amanohashidate saw Zara off! We then drove down to Ayabe to drop Greg off at the station which would save him money. He of course ended up on the SAME TRAIN as Zara. The earth is so small.

• The remainder of the lot found ourselves eating yakiniku and being ripped off on kimchee. Those bastards. Then an ice creamy goodbye and everyone hopped a train or two home. It was a very lonely trip back up to my inaka home, but all in all, a very satisfying and bank-draining weekend. Let’s do it again!

Kyushyu Mini-Holiday Part 4 - Christmas Eve, a day for Driving and eating fried foods

On Christmas Eve, Zara did a lot of driving. We took the coastal road instead of the mountain road back towards the ferry. We stopped by to take pretty pictures of pretty things! Here are some.

Also, we took a break in Kumamoto, a city in a prefecture that means "Bear Tree", which made me really happy. We grabbed lunch at a little restaurant and they gave us apple juice! Afterwards we hopped over to Kumamoto Castle, which is supposed to be really awesome but was actually mostly boring. Without the flowers or trees in bloom and everything under contsruction, we mostly just wandered around taking ridiuclous pictures and then hung back to the city area for some ice cream.

Afterwards we found our way to the ferry and went back to Nagasaki Prefecture. After some more driving, we got back to Zara's and got some Xmas Eve dinner at her local izakaya (or tavern). It was really delicious food. The best was by far the chicken wings stuffed with gyoza pork dumpling filling. Ughghghg so artery cloggingly delicious.

We celebrated the rest of X-mas eve by watching "the Queen", which I really enjoyed, and then we fell asleep.

Kyushyu Mini-Holiday Part 3 - Samurai Village, Ryokan, and some very large eels indeed

I woke up this morning to the thought, "Today is the day I didn't lose $900." The day was already better. My bruise had turned an interesting shade of green, while keeping its purple highlights.

We left the hotel and grabbed breakfast at a nearby Starbucks. I had a crazy delicious coffee and hot sandwich thing filled with cheeeese. It was a good morning already! Zara mentioned that she felt optimistic about the day, and I couldn't disagree with her crazy-smiley face. She is definitely a morning person.

On this day we saw many beautiful sites. One included a place that said "World famous Eels!" It was just a little hut by a dock full of eel tanks. Granted, the eels were quite large. We then drove through the mountains to a place that has a name, which I cannot remmeber. We also stopped off at a little themed area called "Samurai Residences", which was a little area with some old houses and gardens in a beautiful area of some random valley.

After that, HUNGER came! We looked for kurabuta ramen (a specialty of the area made with a special kind of black pig), but it was 3pm and we found nothing but Hokahoka bento (a chain of made to order bento places) and scarfed down decently delicious bentos. Afterwards we went to a really cool onsen to be buried in warm, semi-volcanic sand and follow it up with a traditional onsen. Zara was privy to see my amazing technicolour bruise, and complimeted it.

Afterwards we found our ryokan (traditional Japanese overnight stay house) and hung out watching bad TV while I played some video games! We then ate way too many courses of yummyish food and soaked in the little onsen for an hour or so. It was nice girl-talk time, and I had forgotten my woes and was actually enjoying myself properly.

As it was Christmas eve, we hunkered down and watched the "Happy Christmas Show!" on TV. They had a bunch of terrible Japanese singers and Enya! Weird! It was fabulously bad and all of the narration was in English for no apparent reason. It was also nice being in a place for the evening that was not really really cold. I appreciated that aspect of this Southern area of Japan quite a bit.

Kyushyu Mini-Holiday Part 2 - "Disaster Strikes by bus, Kagoshima comes by ferry, Relief comes by Naan bread

I woke up at 0605, 10 minutes before my bus was meant to roll into Omura (where Zara lives). I scrambled my things together and prepared to get off the bus with the rest of the departing passengers. Only thing was, I was the only one getting off the bus. Everyone was stil stretched out, and my seat was in the way back, so there was no way for me to exit the bus without something standing. Nobody would! I had to scramble OVER someone finally because the bus driver wanted to leave! As I got off the bus, I realized my wallet must still be on the seat b/c it was no longer in my jacket pocket! So I turned around to let the bus driver know, but at that moment the bus sped off and wouldn't stop. I didn't panic. It's common for everyone to carry a lot of cash in their wallets because nobody uses credit cards in this country. I also knew that theft in Japan is very rare, and that my wallet was tucked away in the very back of the bus. So I let Zara know I had arrived, and that I had left my wallet on the bus. She came to pick me up and told me not to worry and that we could call the bus company when we got back to her house. She then told me more about the breakup with her boyfriend and that he had to take on a second job to support his car payments and never had time to see her, so he broke it off. She said she was in need of a fabulous vacation, and we prepared to leave!

After grabbing breakfast at a lovely bakery in her town, we received a phone call from the bus company saying that my wallet was not found. This is about the point where I died inside. No wallet? Granted, my important things were tucked away in my rucksack. But important things aside, I was now missing $900 and upwards. There was nothing I could do but pray that someone would somehow turn it in. This however, was not to be my luck.

The rest of that day is somewhat a blurred combination of sleep deprivation, massive cash loss, and a swirl of Zara talking about her exboyfriend and the injustice that was currently following both of us. I agreed, probably. We hopped a ferry to take the two of us and her car over to Kagoshima, the southern area in Kyushyu.

Aside from being mostly dead inside that day, the two of us arrived in Kagoshima city and put our things away in the business hotel Zara had made a reservation at. Lucky for me, they took credit cards! We then walked around the busy town to the aquarium, where we were lucky enough to see some of the biggest, most amazing fish I had ever seen! So big! We saw a whale shark, some huuuge guitar sharks, groupers, some weird Amazon fish I forgot the name of, and dolphins, otters, and weird sea snake things! It was a blast!

We then decided to walk around "Dolphin Pier" or whatever it was called, which looked like a typical Californian outdoor venue. Very nice, indeed! We purchased souvenirs for our coworkers back home.

We then found our way to a fantastic Indian restaurant (complete with actual Indian chef!) At the Indian place we dined next to three couples. All of them involved one caucasian male, and one or more giggling Japanese women. Oh lordy. Zara felt a might bitter, I expect, and I drowned my new financial despair in naan bread and spiniach potato curry. Mmmm.

Afterwards we wandered over to do some purikura (funfun Japanese picture stickers), followed by some beer and swift karaoke. We then retired to the business hotel to shower and sleep in an actual BED! It was then I realized the extent of my "falling down stairs" injuries. The bruise on my back was enormous and a beautiful gradient of blues, blacks, and purples. It was pretty fantastic.

I believe I slept really really really hard that night.