Bla bla bla

Oh have I talked a lot this weekend!

Weekend highlights:

On Saturdays I teach a women in her late 50's (ish). She's a lovely lady and has opinions that she's not afraid to vocalise. If you know Japanese students, you'll know how unusual and refreshing this is. If you don't know Japanese students: it's very unusual and refreshing! - Most of my students seem to have no opinions and won't ever disagree with me - however hard I try and provoke them.

Anyway, we were studying something about Poland and, naturally, the Pope was mentioned. I said to her, you know, millions of people worship him and millions of others consider him to be the most dangerous man alive. We then rode a 40 or so minute tangent discussing abortion, adoption, contraception, organ donation, cremation and late pregnancies and disabilities.

The most memorable moment of which was probably when she told me I should get pregnant NOW. (I'm 36). We managed to stop laughing after about five minutes.

She's a great student. I wish I had more like her.

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On Saturday it was chucking it down with a promise of a typhoon to follow on Sunday. (Which never came). I met a friend after work to grab some food and have a catch up.

Now, if you know me, you know how indecisive I can be. If you don't know me, I'm sure you've figured it out by now. Anyway, after eating we decided to do something else. The problem was we couldn't decide what the 'something else' should be and ended up wandering around randomly in the rain trying to get inspiration. (yeah, right!)

In any area with lots of bars, you get lots of people trying to persuade you to go and drink in their bar, follow them to the karaoke place they're promoting, etc. Generally, you ignore the bar promoters and hunt out karaoke ones - if you want to do karaoke - as you can negotiate a price with them.

But, cos friend and I were being so ditzy, er, I mean indecisive we allowed one of the 'promoters' to talk to us and persuade us into going to his bar. First we were given a 90 minute drink-as-much-as price or an individual drink price and we were told there was no entry charge....

I immediately thought 'hostess bar' and asked the guy what kind of place it was and if there was going to be a table charge. He said no, which I found a bit odd, but we decided to follow him and see what it was about anyway. As we got there we saw the sign outside - three girls in bikini tops - but for some reason decided to go in for one drink anyway. (A couple of years ago I blogged about another night where I'd accidentally ended up in a hostess bar (yes, really) and we'd had a really fun random night).

The bar was empty but three Filipina hostesses were hovering around. We walked in, sat down, and the drink price was lowered straight away. My friend decided we should email a 'responsible friend' (apparently we have those!) to let them know. I did. And managed to get him all panicked. Anyway, we ordered drinks which were STRONG and the girls were hovering between very friendly and fucking annoying.

Half way through our drinks my mate suddenly panicked and bolted. And so we left.

Now the thing is, what would have followed, had we stayed, could have been something, or it could have been nothing. The empty bar could have filled up (apparently it was a newish bar), we could have had a fun random evening or just enjoyed a few drinks and then left.

Or, and this is my theory, the girls could have waited til we were drunk and then started getting pushy for us to buy them (expensive) drinks and fleeced us, or.... well, who knows what could have happened.

We ended up in an Irish bar instead.

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Sunday there was meant to be a typhoon. I dressed for a typhoon - wellies and clothes that would dry quickly and met up with a friend for an afternoon of drinking. Except he'd been out drinking the night before and was too hungover to booze. We spent four hours eating Mexican and getting free cola refills. After six large diet cokes (and a pina colada) I was ready to start bouncing off walls.

It was a nice relaxing and chilled afternoon though.

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And there was no typhoon.

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From there I went to see another friend and her new house. Long evening short: we ate, drank and talked about fuck knows what from about 6pm to 5am.

I then had to go and work.

In my wellies.

Actually, the wellies were hurting me as I walked so I went to Uniqlo before work and got some nice flip flops and a more 'appropriate' t-shirt to work in.

I have NO idea how I stayed awake.

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This morning there was a big earthquake in Niigata http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6900156.stm - lots of injuries, a few deaths, lots of flattened houses, and a fire in a nuclear power plant. Nice. Many people in Tokyo felt it. I didn't. I'd have probably confused it with post-drinking wobbliness anyway.

I DID, however, feel another one, that went on for quite some time, about 20 minutes ago.

Quote from above article: The fire at the nuclear plant has been extinguished, and there was no release of radiation or damage to the reactors, officials said.

In this link, however, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6901213.stm we get a different story: a strong earthquake in central Japan has damaged a large nuclear power plant causing a leak of radioactive material, officials at the plant have said.

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P.S.-

What's in your fridge? Mine seems to be filled with alcohol, mixers, moisturisers (I don't really have anywhere else to keep them and it's hot these days!), a couple of eggs, some Thai curry pastes... and a couple of veggies.

Is this normal? I remember the days of shared-housedom. It used to be my dream (seriously!) to have my own fridge and not just have a shelf. I've had my own fridge now for nearly three years. And it's empty more than it's full. Seems kind of silly really.