Life's a little strange when you're a stranger

I don't know what the title has to do with my entry, but it is a line from a song in the movie The Lost Boys, which has popped up in conversation several times this week. So, it seemed appropriate.

Let's see, where to start. Ah ok how about on Friday? Sitting in my classroom with my two students around 3:30 in the afternoon. Hear a few sirens and whatnot, but figure no big deal right? Head downstairs to the lobby after class to see quite the commotion going on down the street. Apparently the ramen shop three buildings down had itself a wee meltdown. Back home that wouldn't be a big deal, but in Japan it can be a rather alarming thing, since there is basically no such thing as space in between the buildings. It'd take little more than a soft breeze to take the fire over to the next building and before you know it the whole block is gone. Fortunately only the one building was damaged.

Saturday was supposed to be a lazy day at home. Sleep in, no plans, sit around and watch videos kind of day. I ended up waking up sans alarm around 9am (wtf is up with me waking up early on the weekend I'll never know). Seeing as I was up I figured I might as well start going through my junk before I head back. This resulted in me dumping the entire contents of my closet on the floor of my apartment and organizing it into piles. I'm sure it didn't look too organized, but I got two more boxes of stuff ready to go home and can probably finish packing no problem now. :)

Later in the day my friend Hiro dropped by to see if I wanted to go check out our friend's band, playing at one of the universities. As a musician myself I couldn't turn that down. Miho's band was easily the best of the 8 or 9 we watched, certainly in terms of talent. Surprisingly they were the only group that had an original song. All the other groups were covers only, which isn't a bad thing, just surprising because most of the players were really quite good.

After the bands finished up they headed off to a local restaurant for a dinner / party. We were invited along, which again was hard to turn down. I mean, it's not like my videos couldn't wait another day or so. They weren't going anywhere. Everyone was really friendly (as always here) and I had a good time, not to mention more than my fair share of beer and snacks. :D Apparently they're having a party at the beach next month, which I'm supposed to go to. Hopefully it'll work out to be on a day I'm free...things are starting to get pretty booked up!

It's been raining a ton here since Friday night, and Monday was no exception. There have been flood warnings issued and all the trains are running behind schedule. That really threw a damper on Valerie and my plan to head to Kanazawa for some siteseeing and shopping. We eventually made it there (two hours later than we planned). The rain slowed us down but we had a good time and made it back at a decent hour. I didn't take many pictures because most of the places I'd already been to, but I had to get a shot of the water clock outside the station. It's pretty cool, because it tells the time (digitally) with a bunch of tiny little water spouts. Very nifty.

What? I'm easily amused sometimes...shut up.