lovely weekend, a shame about the liver

At long last, a weekend at home. And I'm not sick anymore so I took near-full advantage. I ran into one of my good friends after work one day this week, and it turned out that her band and a few of my other mates' bands were having a charity concert. She gave me a ticket and we were off to the races.

That was Saturday night. The concert was fun, or as much fun as a Japanese audience made up of retirees and preschoolers can be. Lots of sitting still. Not so much my style. Ah well. The singing was good, the playing was excellent, and I knew most of the people on stage. 楽しかった、ね！

From there it was dinner at the conbini -- Seicomarto for those of you who are keeping score at home, and then a right bender at the local bar. I didn't stumble home until sometime in the vicinity of 4am... I had a ridiculous amount of fun -- especially singing requests for Mama-san, Ai-chan and Yoko at the end of the night.

This morning I was up early (because who needs more than four hours of sleep?) with plenty of time to continue the great weekend telephone challenge:

Call everyone you know and catch up within the limited amount of time presented in one weekend when timezones come into alignment. It was great to talk to everyone I got ahold of, and for anyone I missed, I'm sorry.

This afternoon I went out again with the Romance crew for more eating and drinking. Hey -- after a 10 hour drinking break, it's time to start again, right?

We headed for the hills to the local cattle farm for an all you can eat/all you can drink two hour set. Less than nutritious, but delicious nonetheless. Gorgeous weather, gorgeous setting, fabulous peoples.

I thought that was all, but then I remembered I was in Japan, and a ni-jikai was in effect. So we trundled off to town fireman's housing to continue the afternoon at my friend Keiji's house. Japanese single men seem to be much tidier than single guys back home, although there was still the moment of "wait a minute while I make sure the toilet is clean...". It's pretty rare to be invited into a Japanese person's home it seems (I can count on one hand the number of non-gaijin homes I've entered), but this is a super chill group. And they are doing their best to convince me to stay in Japan another year.

Towards the end of the evening, someone pulled out a foot pressure point board which told everyone that there were problem with their reproductive organs and their livers.

My liver was not surprised and continued to threaten abdicating. I told it to shut up, seeing as I've been on a break this month, and besides, enkai season doesn't start until nearer the end of the year. Right?