"Your mouth was making words that seemed at the time, very sensible "
-Last Night, Orson

Well it was another action-packed, whirlwind weekend for me in Fukushima. My pictures are taking too long to update, so I'll try again tomorrow to add more.

Friday was Donna's goodbye party since she was departing Japan after over a year in Fukushima. After our hardcore Monday night out of table-tipping and boozing it up, we stocked up on wine and snacks. The party was held at Lauren's flat, in close stumbling distance to my apartment. Parties here put every house party to shame back home- people bring armloads of snacks and booze for everyone to share and you literally end up wading through the goods. Of course, that much junk food and alcohol also leads to me throwing up in Lauren's bathtub around midnight and Eve passing out on the floor. Yeah, that's right, I threw up froma combination of way too many chips and sugar-coated goodies, plus an entire bottle of red wine. My years of non-vomiting (my Seinfeldian 6 year streak from 1997 to 2003) have given way to me almost passing-out Natalie style in the bathroom on Friday, coupled with the damage that drinking rum and Dr. Pepper cocktails with Shane brought earlier this year (although I technically blame that on bad pad thai). I'm becoming a lightweight.

Eve, Lauren, and Corrie

"last call, unaware of all my surroundings"

Before we all got too intoxicated to know what was going on, the party was pretty swell. Eve and I finally met the new girl, Corrie from the US, who is replacing Donna at work. I opened the conversation with the casual, "So, what kind of music do you like?" (yes, those of you who know me know that she pretty much was walking into a trap). But to my shock she says, "Have you heard of Broken Social Scene?" Eve and I gasped, freaked, and threw our arms up in the air. We had one for our team- as in the non-hip hop, non-house and rap crowd! I was even more impressed that an American knew them, since that doesn't happen very often. And to further impress me, she pulls out her (non-U2) iPod and set up the music for the night featuring Beck, Interpo, and The Raconteurs. We also discover that Corrie is going to be at Fuji Rock on Sunday with us to see BSS, so as you cna see, I have a new friend.

After rolling out of bed and onto the floor (literally, since I sleep on a futon on the floor) around noon, Eve and I declared ourselves to be too hungover/weak/lazy to do anything other than watch episodes of 24, before becoming more adventurous to go on a bike ride through the tunnel in the mountain (think the Thorold Tunnel under the Welland Canal) to go shopping and to the largest rotating sushi restaurant I've ever seen to fill up on sushi beore heading out for one last night of partying with Donna. After some drinks and dessert with Kume, Iyako, Donna, Leslie and Eve, it was off to meet Dave and April, and 3 lame JETs for some karaoke. After our group thouroughly kicked the JETs asses in karaoke- including action-packed performances of "You Give Love a Bad Name" by Eve and I to much applause- Leslie, Donna, Eve and I were left on our own in a room big enough to hold 20 people. So we did the usual- got up on the benches and started jumping up and down and dancing.

"now i'm on the floor.and i'm back for more"

When the Japanese and most normal people go to karaoke, they sit down on the benches and merely sing their songs. And they do a fine job, but they're performance lacks random jumping and episodes of the running man. It is for this reason, that we attract attention through the glass door of our room. Who should wander in, but 2 drunken Japanese boys...one of which stood in the front of the room and did a crazy dance before going around the room to each one of us and attempting to dance with us while he was standing on the floor and we were on the benches. Not being a master of the English language, he was able to announce this: "I am the Japanese Tom Cruise!!!!!!" before his friend dragged him out the door.

Bu tthat wasn't the last of our Tom Cruise sightings. he was back a little while later for more dancing where he announced that he was "An International Man." After some more hysteria, he left, and we continued our way through "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and New Kids on the Block.

"how could I know that it was only just for show?"

We also tried a bar called As Soon As for some Green Banana Milks and made our way home around 4am. After 4.5 hours of sleep, it was off to the train station to see Donna off as she begins her next 5 months of backpacking around China, Russia, Europe and Africa before going home to Australia.

Sunday also brought a new and bizarre experience- swimming in a public pool. Besides the mandatory bathing cap rule, every 30 minutes music comes on and everyone has to get out of the pool for 5 minutes to avoid cramping, injury, or wrinkled skin. The best part is the music selection: yesterday's get out of the water, song o' the day was a muzak version of "Moon River."

Top 5 Songs for a Rainy Monday (aka the "Get Out of the Water" mix):

London Bridges- Fergie (my new guilty pleasure song)
Take Me Somewhere Nice- Mogwai
Hotel- Broken Social Scene
Whistle Rhapsody- The Fiery Furnaces
Narrow Minded Social Club- Rifles

"now you're not so sure, more than you bargained for?"