America Village and Bright Eyes

This all happened last weekend. Not this past one. I just haven't gone into this blog lately. I need a new name for this blog too I don't like the current one, but I don't know a good name.
Well anyways, that weekend was a great one. Except for that Saturday. Saturday was spent recovering from a bad hang over from the night before. That Friday night I had gone to the nearby city of Gobo with the Kawa-Shou staff and we had or end of the year party. The food was mostly sushi and meat this time. Actually it was steak. Very good steak too. The other teachers are good people, I just don't know them that well. Plus none of them really speak English, so it was just me, my pethetic Japanese, and my dictionary that had to battle it out the whole night. The trouble came not very far into the meal. I didn't have trouble with anyone, it is just the alochol started to flow hard and one teacher, Tamaki sensei was just pounding the beer. Then they brought outthe sake and I took care of that. Then the lights pretty much went out for me. All have are a bunch of pictures of us going to a Karaoke place and singing and having what looked like a good time. The next thing I remember was waking up in my bed the next morning in my clothes. It's that sake. It doesn't gradually make you drunk like beer. It holds out and waits and then hits you hard when you least expect it. So Saturday I just lingered around home trying to pull myself together while watching some movies and reading newspapers. In one paper I noticed that Bright Eyes, an American band, that has a sort of folky-rock sound to them were playing in Osaka, when, the next night. I had no idea where 'Club Quattro' really was, but I thought that I'd try and figure it out.
So on Sunday I bounced out to Gobo in my car and took the usual express train up to Osaka. As fast as the train is at times, it still takes like and hour and half to get up there. I drive from Miyama to the center of Osaka in that amount of time, but alas if I did there would be no where to park. I had a rough idea where the club was at. The band started early, at 6pm. I got up there at about 1:30ish. It was a glorious day, sunny and rather warm. So I floundered my way to the Parco building and up to the 8th floor where the club was at. The $60 tickets didn't go on sale until 4:30pm. So I wondered around Shinsaibashi for a few hours. Shinsaibashi has a lot of upscale clothing stores and other random stores. I returned to the club and bought my ticket. Hungry, I went back to the station and ditched my bag in a locker and bought some food at a bakery in the station. I still had an hour to kill before the doors opened so I went to an arcade and watched some people kick each other's asses in digital glory in Tekken 5. Tekken 5 is all about the combos and mashing the buttons in the correct order so as to pull off some insane 50 hit combo. One guy just kept juggling his opponent.
So I walked into Club Quattro, being that it is a simi-famous American band, there were a lot of other foreigners there, but there were also a lot of Japanese too. The ticket included one beer, nice. So I picked up that beer and seeked out a spot on the open floor. I found a nice spot on the left side almost in front of the speaker, but not quite. I wasn't sure if there was an opener or what was going to happen. I nursed that beer for 45 mintues and the band came one stage, no opener, just straight to the meat of it. And they started playing. They are a rather large band with may components and few guys that can play like everything. They a trumpet dude. The songs were great and I really enjoyed it. A good decsion.
The concert went on for about and hour and a half, it seemed shorter than that, but it was still early. Throughout the day I had been conversing with another JET via C-mail on my phone. Her name is Christa and I knew her from College. Here and some friends were in the city from Iwate-Ken for a few days. So at about 8:30 I met up with them at Namba station. I had a big problem though. I really wanted to hang out with them, but the last train was leaving for home at 9:00. I said fuck it and just decided to hang out and go with the flow here. After about and hour of hunting we made it to a Mexican restaurant that I had noticed earlier in the day. There we got me a reservation at the hotel they were staying at, so I was relieved. Also at the restaurant I ran into my neighboring ALT, Seth, and his girlfriend. They were just finishing up as we walked in. It was just weird to run into him in such a big area. I never run into anyone really around here, but to run into my neighbor in Osaka was crazy. We just said 'hi' to each other and they took off. We started our meal off with a few shots of Jose before we dug into or chicken fajitas. I am not a big Mexican food fan, not do I miss eating Mexican food, but this Japanese Mexican food was great and a real treat.
From there the night wound on. THe group of us were looking to go to a club, but some of us just wanted to go bar hopping, and few just desperatly wanted to find some cigarettes. So we ended up going to every Family Mart and Lawson in American Village, which is just south of Shinsaibashi. We gave up on that and went to a bar where they had cigarettes. Then another bar and another. The last one was cool. They were playing techno and dance music the whole time only a few people were dancing, but it was a great atmosphere. One Japanese guy that I talked to was from Hawaii and had lived in Japan for the last 8 years. He seemed pretty cool. From there we went to the hotel by taxi. I crashed at like 5:30. Sad thing was check out was at 10am. But I didn't know until 10am when the phone rang. I took a shower and jetted out of there. A few more JETS met up with our gang and we took the train back to Namba to have some good old Subway. The Subway people messed up everyone else's sandwiches, but mine, the manager who knew some english helped me. Afterwards they caught a 12:00 Shinkansen for home. I then wandered around Umeda and to a few stores. Sunday was a glorious day to. The best was having some Starbucks outside and just sitting there. I called a friend form home while I chilled out.
Going back home, I ran into Joe and his friend from Chicago at the Tennoji station. That was also a crazy run-in. I scared the heck out of him too. heh heh. We took a croweded ass Kuroshio back to Gobo together.
So that was an awesome weekend.
Oh and that Monday was a holiday of course. Day in Lieu this calendar says.
The week was slow too. On Wednesday I attended the 6th grade graduation ceremony at Kasamatsu elementry school. 5 kids were graduating, but one was sick. How sad. It was a nice little ceremony followed by a little lunch with teachers and parents. Thursday I spent at the Junior High. It was cleaning day there. We waxed all the floors, even the gym and cleaned everything up for the new year.
Last Friday marked the beginning of Spring Break here and the end of the school year. So now I have been going to the BOE everyday from 8:30-4:30.
So yeah, there are good times and fast times, but those don't come without the slow times and boring times, like I am in now. I have been rolling in stuff to do and have been busy for the last few months straight. But this past weekend was spent by myself catching up on some movies that I haven't watched.
Go see 'The United States of Leeland' that is one good movie that will keep you thinking for a few days afterwards. As for now I am in the middle of 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.' So I am now gonna go finish that and go to my Shoudo class.