The consequences of too much beer and meat and grass

I'm still trying to recover from last weekend’s effort. Although I didn’t get a chance to go to Kubokawa to see the fire tree festival, I still had a pretty good time yet again with the locals here. On Friday night after work, my BOE finally had a welcome enkai (party where everyone lets loose and gets blotto) which was behind the BOE in a shed. i know it sounds dodgy but we had BBQ out back there with lots and lots of yakiniku (fried meat). so we all sat around this BBQ sweating our asses off and trying to eat as much food and drink as we possibly can. One thing in Japan is that u can never expect ur glass to be empty because it isnt, even if u have had only half a glass theyll fill it up for u so its impossible for u to keep track of how much uve had to drink. anyways, after many beers and after we finished most of the food, people started going home at about 830pm. i wondered what the hell is going on, i mean u guys are getting me well pissed and now everyone is going home. but im starting to realise that this is very common here in the inaka. somehow i managed to go for more drinks with the head of the BOE and one of his staff members. all i can say is that the head of the BOE (kyouikuchou) is a legend. get him pissed and hes a funny bastard. so we were at one of the local bar/restaurants and quite literally in about half an hour my kyoikucho had made me drink about 2 bloody huge mugs of beer so it was pretty safe to say then that i was pretty gone, having been drinking non-stop since about 5pm that evening. had to leave due to the fact i was tambourined and did the stagger home, once again making a drunken fone call to the gf which i have no idea what i said, then passed out, only to have to go into kochi city to pick up the gf the very next day.

i woke up feeling like crap but managed to put on a smile and go see the gf who had travelled in from kobe. went to aeon and saw "The Fantastic Four" which was pretty cool before grabbing some food and going home.

The next morning got up bright and early to go up into the mountains even more than where i live and cut grass! The cutting grass part was fairly easy but the volunteers from the yakuba didnt tell me that we also had to clear out the debris from the gutters on the side of the road. Its safe to say that we all got very dirty and muddy (no sexual reference here) were very sore by the end. During this all i could think about was how nice a beer would taste after we finished because afterwards the yakuba put on another yakiniku party, where again much meat and booze was consumed. it is interesting how different some Japanese are after they have had a few drinks....even the quietest of guys turns into a legend. even the gf, who i have rarely seen drunk was hilarious. And as most japanese parties go, everyone left to go home at about 9pm so me and the gf continued on to enjoy a little bit of karaoke before going home and passing out.

I felt like crap the next morning due to the excess consumption of meat and beer from the weekend, but managed to wake up at a reasonable hour in order to take the gf and show her around kochi city. it was quite an exhausting day. we went to katsurahama (a famous beach here in kochi), then went and had lunch in hirome plaza before heading into Obiyamachi Shotengai (a long street of shops, shops, and more shops), then went to check out Harimaya-bashi (which is a sorry excuse of a bridge yet it is so popular here), and then went to Kochi Castle. This was enough for me and my hangover so did the hour drive back to the sticks in Monobe-son and then kicked back and watched a couple of videos from the closest video store to me (which is a half hour drive away).

Other than that, this week has been not very eventful at all. At school, everyone is practicing for their schools sports day so there havent been many classes so most of my time has been spent surfing the net and getting to know all my students. theyre pretty cool and i think im lucky i dont have to teach at a big school in the city. My Junior high and primary school is having a joint sports day this friday due to the fact that there arent many students. anyways catchas later!