Other Assorted Updates

So, what else happened?

Well, I went to go see one of my most revered and sanctified musical legends, Asakura Daisuke, at a club night and then at a live. In the club event he played most of my most beloved songs from my mid-teens, and laughed at me singing along to his mix of Madonna’s Hung Up.

I went with Nola and Kaoru, and we had a jolly time of it.

Miles and I also went over to Rei’s for a movie night and nabe party – on our own, as Rob was out.
We watched Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat while Tera and Yukako cooked the nabe – which, for the uninformed, is a tradition where you pretty much bring a bunch of ingredients and put it in a pot and hope for the best – and then some films that Tera had brought along (Friday the 13th – the original one,with Jason’s mother, meaning it was hilariously bad) and Scary Movie. And Scary Movie 2, which was awful. Melanie was there for the beginning of the night but then left with Yukako to catch her train to her sister’s place.

After we had finished up most of the movies, I, Miles and Acchan headed for home.

Except we’d missed the train.

‘Well,’ Rei said, trying and failing not to look too ridiculously over-eager, ‘You guys could stay. I mean, Tera’s just gonna be cracking dirty jokes. Asuka, too. And Wataru and his girlfriend will just make out. I mean, it would really be better if you guys stayed.’

‘Well, okay,’ we said.

So we stayed over at Rei’s, where I kicked Tera in the face the whole night by accident (sorry, Tera) and we listened to Rei tell scary stories in Japanese that I half understood and half didn’t. It was pretty cool.

We also went to both Disney Sea (Miles-less, sadly, as he went back home to see his family for that break) and Disney Land with Soul Run.
The first time (Disney Sea) it was soaking wet and there was only a small group of us. However, spirits were lifted by us being Soul Run. Soul Run are always happy. Plus, it was DAI-CHAN’S BIRTHDAY AAAAAH (Dai-chan in this case being Masaru, not…Asakura Daisuke).

(It wasn’t really his birthday, he lied. But it’s okay, I lied about it being my birthday when we went to Disney World.)
Disney Sea and Disney World are both a lot different to their American counterparts. They’re a lot less expensive, for one, and a lot cleaner; the rides are fewer and it’s a little disconcerting to have ‘worldwide food’ served by an assortment of Japanese people in different styles of national dress.

But the parades are amazing.

Somewhere before and amongst all of this, we had exams. Before I broke up for the break wherein we did all the Disney World and Disney Sea adventures, my teacher took me aside and asked me about whether or not I want to proceed to JLP5.

‘Yes,’ I said. Instantly.

‘Then you’re going to have to revise a lot over the holiday,’ she told me.

I did, but I also went to Kansai to see Peter for a week.

Kansai is without a doubt where I should have been placed. The second I’d gotten there and slept I felt just how more relaxed and happy it was as a place; Tokyo is wonderful, and I adore it, but Tokyo is definitely as to London as Osaka is to Liverpool.
And I’ve always liked Liverpool more, so I suppose that’s that. The dialect here is different, the people are friendlier and more sociable, the food is better.　There aren’t as many suicides.

While I was there, Peter and I ventured through scary shops that sold questionable things, visited Nara (but surprisingly saw no deer), ate delicious Ohsho gyouza, and went to the Yasaka shrine in Kyoto that miraculously turned out to share a name with an obscure bullet-hell videogame character.
Believe it or not, I didn’t notice this until I noticed that lots of people had drawn her on their ema (small, wooden placards that you hang up at the shrine with a wish written on them).

Speaking of Touhou, we also played that at an arcade.

I may as well write here I returned to Osaka mere weeks later to watch the Professor Layton movie for the first time with Peter. And I will probably return there again, because I love Osaka, and miss it.
More updates tomorrow as I have written far too much tonight.

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