Kirikos come out at night, you know.
So Friday before last we had our midterm exam and absolutely no one felt silly calling it that even though it's only been three weeks. Really. After the exam, we were told we could watch a movie about a dude who went to be a cook on the South Pole, OR we could just go home. The movie actually didn't sound that uninteresting, but since talk of karaoke was afoot I decided to get in on that instead.
And thus, my class did go and do karaoke and one of my classmates was revealed to have teh sexay baritone and there was much rejoicing as we did a Grease medley.
We also got nomihoudai. Which is to say all you can drink. We got it for one hour, and, we decided that we absolutely HAD to make it pay off. So we drank like five mugs of beer. Because who CARES about your liver when there is a deal to be had! Then we went to kaiten sushi, where possibly I got food poisoning. And that is why Saturday was kind of unpleasant. Fortunately, Monday was Umi no Hi (Marine Day - a national holiday in honor of the Meiji Emperor) so I had a while to recover.
Unfortunately, the combination of epic hangover plus sudden random onset of sore throat plus possible food poisoning meant that I basically felt awful the entire weekend and well into the week. I say possible food poisoning because I refuse to believe that a hangover could last that long and the kaiten sushi place we went to WAS the suspiciously cheap one...
On Sunday, I was still feeling kind of icky, but! I got in touch with Seika. Yay Seika! So that made me feel better. What made me feel even better than THAT was getting Seika to bring me a thermometer thereby revealing that I did not have a fever, that meant I could go on claiming that whatever was wrong would go away by itself and not have to visit a doctor.
Since I didn't have a fever, I could totally go to the kiriko festival that I mentioned earlier in my write up of the visit to Sojiji. One of my classmates had also evinced interest, so we went together and MAN was it insane. The line of food stalls stretched as FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE. We counted like, TWELVE okonomiyaki stands, not to mention a bunch of takoyaki, more fried chicken than I could be bothered to pay attention to, and a stall that just gave out giant bowls of mashed potatoes. (seriously HUGE, I have pictures). There were also blue chocolate covered bananas, which sounds like it MUST be a euphemism for something. I guess I've never really experienced a festival in a town, because I was really surprised by the amount of people there. It took us a good half hour to make our way through the line of stalls lining the walkway up to the temple and into the temple grounds themselves (which is where the kiriko were). There were three kirikos in increasing sizes, with the littlest being a good head shorter than me, while the largest was probably the largest of the ones there which would make it, according to Seika, 11 meters tall. which...doesn't sound right, but ok! It was definitely a good 3 stories tall.
When we got there, they were trying to move the big sucker, but it really didn't seem like they had enough people for it because MAN did it weave around. We watched it for a while, but got freaked out about being crushed after a while and left. Then we had some okonomiyaki. But this was not ANY okonomiyaki, this was some crazy okonomiyaki taco looking thing! mmm, okonimyaki taco....We stayed around long enough to watch the gojinjo daiko which seemed to have less oomph than it had had previously, also it went on for longer. I wonder if they told them to take 30 minutes and they were like "oshi- we only have enough material for 15!" After that there were fireworks, but we hightailed it out of there in a (successful) attempt to beat the crowds. All in all, the festival lacked quite the drunken antics that I am used to, but it was still quite fun. And VERY nostalgic.
Monday was spent recovering from Sunday and doing my homework so yawn. But Tuesday, ah Tuesday, Tuesday I met Seika for MEAT TIME. Also known as going out for yakiniku. Oh glorious meat. I love you so. Coincidentally, some dudes from the Noto were up here for vacation so we met up with them and it was all very nice. Then we went out for karaoke. Yay!
Friday, I also went out for karaoke. BECAUSE WHY NOT.
Actually a lot of other stuff happened on Friday, but I need to save it up for another post.
In other, weirder news. There is a Summer Music Festival going on directly outside of the Weekly Mansion today. Thus far, the bands have seriously included a surf music group, and something that sounded suspiciously like doo wop. The current band is fronted by a woman with an accordion and appears to be trying to combine enka, polka, and kabuki. "Trying" is very much the operative term.
Needless to say, I have opened up my balcony door so that I will be able to listen more easily.
Ok, I just went out to watch the saxophone solo and the lady was TOTALLY rocking out on her accordion. And there is no part of that sentence that is not awesome.
And thus, my class did go and do karaoke and one of my classmates was revealed to have teh sexay baritone and there was much rejoicing as we did a Grease medley.
We also got nomihoudai. Which is to say all you can drink. We got it for one hour, and, we decided that we absolutely HAD to make it pay off. So we drank like five mugs of beer. Because who CARES about your liver when there is a deal to be had! Then we went to kaiten sushi, where possibly I got food poisoning. And that is why Saturday was kind of unpleasant. Fortunately, Monday was Umi no Hi (Marine Day - a national holiday in honor of the Meiji Emperor) so I had a while to recover.
Unfortunately, the combination of epic hangover plus sudden random onset of sore throat plus possible food poisoning meant that I basically felt awful the entire weekend and well into the week. I say possible food poisoning because I refuse to believe that a hangover could last that long and the kaiten sushi place we went to WAS the suspiciously cheap one...
On Sunday, I was still feeling kind of icky, but! I got in touch with Seika. Yay Seika! So that made me feel better. What made me feel even better than THAT was getting Seika to bring me a thermometer thereby revealing that I did not have a fever, that meant I could go on claiming that whatever was wrong would go away by itself and not have to visit a doctor.
Since I didn't have a fever, I could totally go to the kiriko festival that I mentioned earlier in my write up of the visit to Sojiji. One of my classmates had also evinced interest, so we went together and MAN was it insane. The line of food stalls stretched as FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE. We counted like, TWELVE okonomiyaki stands, not to mention a bunch of takoyaki, more fried chicken than I could be bothered to pay attention to, and a stall that just gave out giant bowls of mashed potatoes. (seriously HUGE, I have pictures). There were also blue chocolate covered bananas, which sounds like it MUST be a euphemism for something. I guess I've never really experienced a festival in a town, because I was really surprised by the amount of people there. It took us a good half hour to make our way through the line of stalls lining the walkway up to the temple and into the temple grounds themselves (which is where the kiriko were). There were three kirikos in increasing sizes, with the littlest being a good head shorter than me, while the largest was probably the largest of the ones there which would make it, according to Seika, 11 meters tall. which...doesn't sound right, but ok! It was definitely a good 3 stories tall.
When we got there, they were trying to move the big sucker, but it really didn't seem like they had enough people for it because MAN did it weave around. We watched it for a while, but got freaked out about being crushed after a while and left. Then we had some okonomiyaki. But this was not ANY okonomiyaki, this was some crazy okonomiyaki taco looking thing! mmm, okonimyaki taco....We stayed around long enough to watch the gojinjo daiko which seemed to have less oomph than it had had previously, also it went on for longer. I wonder if they told them to take 30 minutes and they were like "oshi- we only have enough material for 15!" After that there were fireworks, but we hightailed it out of there in a (successful) attempt to beat the crowds. All in all, the festival lacked quite the drunken antics that I am used to, but it was still quite fun. And VERY nostalgic.
Monday was spent recovering from Sunday and doing my homework so yawn. But Tuesday, ah Tuesday, Tuesday I met Seika for MEAT TIME. Also known as going out for yakiniku. Oh glorious meat. I love you so. Coincidentally, some dudes from the Noto were up here for vacation so we met up with them and it was all very nice. Then we went out for karaoke. Yay!
Friday, I also went out for karaoke. BECAUSE WHY NOT.
Actually a lot of other stuff happened on Friday, but I need to save it up for another post.
In other, weirder news. There is a Summer Music Festival going on directly outside of the Weekly Mansion today. Thus far, the bands have seriously included a surf music group, and something that sounded suspiciously like doo wop. The current band is fronted by a woman with an accordion and appears to be trying to combine enka, polka, and kabuki. "Trying" is very much the operative term.
Needless to say, I have opened up my balcony door so that I will be able to listen more easily.
Ok, I just went out to watch the saxophone solo and the lady was TOTALLY rocking out on her accordion. And there is no part of that sentence that is not awesome.