Shirahama to Wakayama, the short yet long road

I started last weekend with a nap, a nap that delayed an absurd night in Wakayama. Just before leaving Ben's house in Gobo, we each drank a Gin and Tonic and then took the highway to the city, and made it to the Birdbar finally. There, Ben and I were ran into nearly all the new ALTs in Wakayama. Ben had a great time, I ran into Jeff at some point and did some crazy monkey dancing on the floor before the last tequialla shot finally hit me. At that point I had to the flew the coop. I found myself a nice plastic bench somewhere and with no thought or care for pretty much anything I laid on that bench like it was the last place on Earth. Luckily some ALTs reconized that it really wasn't a pethetic Japanese drunk bum on the bench which they were laughing at, but yet a poor and pethetic Mac. Like guardian angels, Mike and Mark were able to guide me back to the sanctuary of Jeff's apartment. It was a forgettable short night.
After some of Jeff's awesome pancake's, Ben, Jeff, Jeff H. and I made for Shirahama in my car. There was a WAJET gathering going on there. The highway to Shirahama from Wakayama should be a 4 lane highway, 2 lanes for each direction. Well it is for about 10 minutes, then at Kainan the 'highway' becomes a 2 lane road, with one land in each direction. The highway then ends at Minabe, which is still 20 minutes short of Shirahama. The stikin highway costs $15 to use one way anyways. It is not that bad though. But we got off at Kibi and went to my place in Miyama so I could grab some stuff. Form the it was Gobo and then Shirahama like an hour later. It took us about 3 hours to get to Shirahama. After which the group then went to Peter's place in Kamitonda. It was a big party with BBQing and mingling. There must have been about 40 people there at once, not big by most standards, but big for a Wakayama JET party. That same night was also a summer festival in Peter's town. Peter's place was about 100 meters from where nearly the whole town had come to celebrate summer. The festival was a great bonus because of the awesome fireworks show. It was great, awesome, as good as Chicago's 4th of July display, and this was a dinky Wakayama village. The display was a bout 30 minutes long too.
The party at Pete's went on and on too. Soem people never slept. I did, I found a nice spot on the 2nd floor. I took it easy at the party and only stuck to beer. I flet fine the next day and even drove some people back up to Wakayama, which was turned out to be brutle because we were heading North with the throngs of other people leaving Shirahama that Sunday. Some Mister Donut's coffee at Wakayama JR station put me in and even better mood. I spent some time at Palm City before going back to my abode in Miyama where I unwound from the weekend and got ready for a 9am meeting in Kawabe the next day.