Japan - Days 50-52

This weekend has been a pretty big improvement over the rest of the week, I'm pleased to say
On Friday, I nearly ended up having a bike accident on my way to the lab - I turned too far into the corner and nearly tipped my bike, but luckily I put my foot down in time to stop myself from falling. I arrived at 9am for the start of the presentations that the people in my lab were giving, about their work so far this year in the lab. Some of them I could get the general idea of what they were talking about by looking at the pictures in their slides, but some of the time I just had no idea. I did, however, manage to write a poem during the gaps between presentations. As I hadn't written a sonnet in a while I decided to go for that style:

Disorder

If destiny has not been prearranged,
Then I must forge my path with my own hand,
Though I may, from my logic, be estranged,
Due to my trials in this distant land,
The foremost difficulty in my mind,
Is that I 'lack commitment', so they say;
Humiliated, must I leave behind,
The happiness that just now comes my way?
And then, with my emotions, troubles lie;
When I had almost my decision made,
A friend of mine, who may know more than I,
Said but few words, and so my hand was stayed,
To friendship, work and love I must give all,
Lest I should into endless sadness fall.

At about 12, we reached the midway point and so we all went to lunch at a Chinese place that I went to with a few of them one evening a while ago. I decided on a bowl of soy sauce and spring onion ramen, which was tasty :-) At 1, we went back and the presentations started up again. I stayed for one of these, then headed along to Japanese class, where me and my partner had time to go over our presentation a couple of times before the class started. The presentation was about a place we recommend people to visit, so we chose Cybex. I think the presentation went pretty well, to be honest, although the questions afterwards were mostly answered by my partner rather than me. I should get the results of that and my other midterms in the next few days
After Japanese, I went back to listen to a few more presentations, and once everyone had done, we went back to the lab for a little bit. As the power was all going off in the lab building due to maintenance, everyone was arranging their experiments and such so that nothing would thaw out, etc over the weekend. As I didn't have any experiments on the go, I went up there for about 5 minutes, straightened out the stuff on my desk, then my tutor said that I could go. It was about 5pm by this time, and the lab nomikai started at about 7.30pm, so after getting directions to the place in Dayztown where it was being held, I went and met a few friends who were going shopping at Iias that evening. As I had the nomikai I knew I couldn't stay with them for all of it, but I timed how long it took us to cycle there (about 30 minutes, as we took a wrong turn at one point XD) so that I could cycle back to Dayztown with plenty of time to spare. First off, we went to a pet store just to look around. They had so many puppies and kittens in there, they were so cute :3 They also had a few pets which I'm pretty sure must be illegal in most Western countries, such as baby porcupines, some sort of bird of prey and, my personal favourite, a squirrel monkey (which looked very angry). The monkey cost a ridiculous amount of money though. We then walked around a few clothes stores, with one of my friends spending a ridiculous amount of money ^^' After about an hour of this, I had to leave, cycling like the wind back to Dayztown and meeting the people from my lab. As it turned out, about 3 of them had brought their DSes with them, complete with the new Pokémon games, so they could trade. If only I had known >< My tutor said that he'd trade me a Zorua sometime though, as he has 2 :-) The place is called Caribbean Club, and is full of pirate-like decor, so it looked pretty cool. We were mainly drinking (during the course of the night, I had a beer, a Calpis sour and a hawthorn sour, though some of the others had more than me), but every now and then we'd be served with some sort of side-dish, such as aubergine slices, salad, chicken nuggets and chips, and finally a couple of pizzas. During this time, the main things going on at my end of the table were a bunch of the guys pestering another guy who looked like he was falling asleep (either that or he was drunk, I'm not sure ^^'), and me being quizzed about my love life, or lack thereof. Still, it was a fun evening. At the end a few of them went off somewhere else for ramen, but as I was meant to be climbing Mt Tsukuba the next day, I declined the offer and headed back. On the way, however, I replied to a missed call from a friend (I'd been out of signal range during the nomikai) and was invited to hang out and drink at Oikoshi. I powered my way back to the combini, getting a call from my mum on the way, and met my friends there, where we bought a few drinks then returned to where our other friends were sitting. We sat around and talked for a few hours, until about 1.30am when it started to drizzle and we thought we'd better call it a night, after which I promptly went to bed and fell asleep
Saturday was a very long but very interesting day, I must say. I woke up around 8.30am, took a shower, then headed out to the combini to buy some rations for the climb up Mt. Tsukuba. I then headed up to Hirasuna to wait for everyone (I was the first one there, naturally ^^'). I swear it must have been the hottest day so far this month, which we knew from the outset would make the climb harder. After everyone had arrived, most of us started the hour and a half cycle ride to the mountain (a couple of lazy asses got a lift in one guy's car XD). We stopped for a few photo opportunities as we neared the mountain, the results of which will be uploaded in due course, once I finish this blog entry. As I was trying to hold my camera while riding my bike, and I had my hand resting awkwardly on the handlebar, my thumb knuckle has been rubbed red and raw, which stings a little. Once we got nearly to the start of the trail, we had to walk our bikes as the hill just became too steep. By the time we reached the shrine, where the trail begins, everyone was already looking exhausted. Therefore, while all the guys set off to climb the mountain, the girls opted to take the cable car. I later discovered that they sat and had an ice cream before getting the cable car, which made me hate them even more for it XD The path started off alright, mainly just a big staircase, but as we kept going, the climb got steeper and the rocks got bigger, which made them harder to climb. Luckily the path was almost entirely shaded by trees, so at least that kept the heat off us, though I could still see the sweat standing out on my arms. We had a few rest stops for about 5 minutes at a time, and reached the top after about 80 minutes. We found the girls, then all sat down for some lunch. I bought myself a souvenir cup and an ice cream to celebrate XD We went and sat up on top of a slowly-rotating tower which was pretty cool. After much debating, we then decided to climb the last little stretch to the shrine right on the tallest peak, which only took another 5-10 minutes. Then began the descent, which all of us took part in. By the time we reached the bottom again, it was dark and almost everyone had left. The people who had gotten the ride to the mountain got a ride back again, while the rest of us biked back. The first stretch involved us free-wheeling down the side of a main road at some ridiculous gradient. Every few seconds I could hear the squeaking of everyone's brakes. At one point near the top the guy in front of me fell down a gap between the road and the crash barrier, and my brakes didn't work fast enough so I ended up hitting his leg, but he was alright thankfully. The rest of the ride back was pretty uneventful, although at one point we saw a tortoise crawling along the gutter at the side of the road, which was pretty cute. Along the way, we were told about a barbecue party that was going on later that night for international people (technically it was for foreign researchers living in Tsukuba, but the guy who organised the trip to the mountain invited us along with him), so me and two of my friends decided to meet up for that about half an hour later, along with the guy who invited us. We stopped by the supermarket to bring some food to take along, as well as a few drinks (and I bought an onigiri to satisfy my craving XD), then headed off for the party.
I didn't think it took too long to get there, but on reflection, having cycled there and back a few times now, it's a damn long way. The party was held in the courtyard of a very fancy apartment complex which is where most of the international researchers live, so most of the people there were Westerners. We met up with a few people we knew, and I met a woman who's also obsessed with Pokémon, so I ended up talking to her about that for a while (probably boring the socks off everyone else ^^'). There was also a really annoying Australian guy, who was just getting on all of our nerves, standing right by us, though thankfully he soon moved away, pursuing one of the Japanese girls, I think. The guy who invited us took over the barbecue for a while and was cooking us a bunch of tasty food, and me and my two other friends drank the drinks we'd brought with us (two cans at this point), though as the apartment complex had a lot of families living there, the party ended at 10pm, after which everyone left to go to one of two bars: Hot Stuff (or Hot Staff, I'm not sure which) or Naked - we opted for the former. It's quite a nice place, though it was packed with all the people who'd just been to the party. What followed was, well, crazy XD We bought our first drinks (long island ice teas, a concoction of various alcoholic drinks which tastes really strong, which at least encouraged me not to guzzle it I guess ^^') and stood talking by the bar, before moving back a bit and finding a seat near the window, where a couple of people came and started talking to us. After another long island ice tea, we moved back up to the bar and talked to some more people while I ate a bunch of the nibbles in the middle of the table, then after a beer, things started getting pretty wild. One guy took his shirt off, which encouraged all the other guys to do the same, then those that didn't were made to (myself included ^^'). One of the girls got topless too, though she did still have a bra on, fortunately for her. She then proceeded to make out with a random guy XD At one point, I walked along to the toilet, and caught my necklace on a guy's bag, ripping the claw off of the scorpion. It broke off once just after I bought it, but I guess it's gone for good this time v.v At about 3am, the bar closed, so we went down to another bar on the ground floor called Gold Rush. We shared a couple more drinks, and chatted to a few more people, but I was almost falling asleep by 5am, so I decided I should head home. One of my friends had lost her bike key during the night, so she and my other friend stayed behind so they could take the bus home, meaning I had to cycle home alone by the light of the dawn sun XD Once I finally got home, I promptly went to bed, though just before I got to sleep I twisted my now-aching leg and got one hell of a cramp in it, but thankfully it passed and I got to sleep
Interesting observation 1 - Whereas two and a bit combini Chu Hais ends up making me feel rough to the point of sickness, two supermarket Chu Hais, one and a half long island ice teas (bearing in mind these are very strong alcohol), a beer and a few sips of various other drinks just gets me pretty drunk. I'm guessing my tiredness didn't help, but still, maybe this means I'm developing a tolerance lol
Interesting observation 2 - Even when I was drunk, tired, and in a place I'd never been to before, I still managed to find my way home with relative ease. I guess one of my ancestors must have been a homing pigeon XD
Anyway, back to Sunday. I woke up at 1.30pm, as I decided not to set my alarm. I texted Jen as we'd been planning to go into Tsukuba Centre, but she bailed on account of laziness. Then my friend who'd lost her bike key texted me, asking for help in showing her how to get back to Gold Rush to collect her bike now she had her spare key (the owner had let her leave the bike inside so it would be safe). I had a few hours to kill between the time she texted and the time I was due to meet her (we were going to try and reach the bar at the time it was meant to open), so as she was busy at the time, I decided to go for a cycle around. I went to all the used book stores I knew of, looking for a cheap copy of Pokémon Special volume 3, but I couldn't find one unfortunately. When I got to WonderGOO, there was an ambulance right outside, worryingly, but it left just as I was parking my bike. I also took a ride up to the bar, just to make sure of where I was going. The road was a hell of a lot longer than I remembered, but I eventually made it there, before riding all the way down to Ichinoya to meet my friend at the bus stop. From there, we rode along to Tsukuba Centre, then started the loooong walk to Gold Rush. When we got there, we sat for about an hour waiting for the place to open. The guy had apparently said 7, but by 8, neither Gold Rush nor Hot Stuff (where my friend lost her key) had opened, so we decided to walk back and try again on Monday, after kaiwa club. I had intended to stop at Seibu on the way to buy myself a bookshelf and maybe a cheap kettle, but it closed at 8pm, rather than 10pm as we'd thought, so I rode the bus back to Ichinoya with my friend and then cycled to Oikoshi
Which is where I am now, listening to some Chopin and about to upload photos. It's been a pretty awesome weekend, hopefully next weekend will be more of the same ^^ Now to upload those photos...