Thursday, August 26, 2004

My Laaaaarge Weekend in Kobe!

From Mass Email:

Welcome to yet another exciting chapter of Christine`s happenings and mishappenings in Japan - ahhh the land of the rising, freakin` hot sun!

Well I hope everyone back home is doing well - please send my regards to those I do not have email addys of. Should be back in Perth for about 10 days at the end of September for the weddings - I have still yet to find some cheap air tickets and re-new my multi re-entry visa.

Yes, I have been in contact with Rui Hsian and she`s living it up too...more so than me I reckon, lucky thing is so close to Tokyo!!! but last weekend I felt there was justice. You see we had the Hyogo Prefecture AJET (Association for JETs) Kobe welcome beer garden party on the roof top of the Sogo Department store! It was all you can eat and all you can drink too!! So a few of us went into Sannomiya (Kobe city central) to do some shopping beforehand, which is kinda crazy coz I found out that the 2nd year JET who lives near me and has been taking us out went to the same high school and was in my sister`s year! alas...what a small world! Anyway she showed us where to get english books, music, mags, HMV, Starbucks, food brands from back home etc then we headed to the beer garden which was like a big reunion with all the other JETs!

Anyways, mental note - lessons I've learnt :
1. Dont get so excited about all you can eat and drink because it hits hard
2. Yakking in squat toilets is not fun
(Yes, can you believe it?! In a country where you can get high tech toilets that have seat warmers, spray water, odour control and water sound effects, they still manage to have squat toilets everywhere! *shudder*)
3. The last train to anywhere stops about midnight which leads to my next point
4. You have to stay out all night till the next train at 5.30 the next morning!!
5. If you're staying out ALL night long, dont wear your nice heels!

But it was fun nonetheless, after the beer garden we all headed to this bar/club called Sally`s which all the senior JETs were warning us about but said it just had to be experienced, I didn't think it was THAT bad in terms of seediness and meat market-likeness which they said it was but it was good to hear some familiar hip hop r&b tunes, though the dj sucked ass big time, it was like ok start, stop, play next track and let's try to mix 2 totally different un-mixable tracks together - saj you would have cringed! I know we all did giving the `just because youre foreign don't think you're a dj` look to the dj.

The JETs I've made friends with are all pretty cool and we all kinda stick together coz we`re all in the same boat, ie. we have no idea whats going on!! And i believe the `for my dear life, please help me!` look must be universal coz when a seedy old japanese man and seedy other random foreigner tried to dance with me and hold me and kiss me, I just put on that face to my mates and they were in there to help me before you could say `sayonara sucker!` It was quite funny coz one texan guy goes `hey she's my girlfriend` but the other canandian guy said the same thing at the same time..so after the inital `oh crap there goes the plan` a kiwi girl jumps in going `hell no, she's MY girlfriend!` We couldn't stop laughing so I think the seedy men just backed away. So even though I dont have my man or my girls here to save me, I've made heaps of nice peeps from around the world that are willing to do so!

6 of us who had no homes to go to, then went to some Japanese joint for some food then had an hour to kill and alas went to a 24 hour karaoke place. Yes those of you who know how much i don't particularly care for the good ol` ka-ra-o-ke I resisted as much but then it was either that or be left out on the streets by myself. So we got a room for an hour with all you can drink and belted out the likes of Paradise city, Sweet home alabama, Under the bridge, Queen and the Beatles. Then as the sun rose we stumbled out, made it back to the trains and went home. I was so knackered and icky and tired i literally had to peel my jeans off!! *ewww* I had a canadian (Jon) and kiwi (Mel) crash at my place coz there were a lot of JETs from up the northern part of Hyogo and so we divided them up and housed them hehehe it was nice to have company and we took them out shopping the next day at the seaside factory outlet.

And now alas I'm back at school - oh-so-tired but getting by. Ok better sign off now, I swear this one teacher is walking by every now and then tee hee hee I just play the dumb foreigner...should be getting my home internet by next week so till my next installment, stay out of trouble and drop me a line! Would love to hear from you all back home!

love & samurai pizza cats!

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