Big Birthday Bash

A lot of people emailed me on Friday wishing me happy birthday. They were all correct in adding 9 hours, getting "after 6pm" and assuming I was in a drinking hole. The hole in question was "Daikichi", a yakitori place on eki dori (A bar that sells beer and skewered chicken on Station Street). I meet Erik, my "Birthday Buddy" there and we had a couple of beers and some chicken until it was time for our party reservation at Gourmet house.

So we trotted through the snow to Gourmet House. Some of our friends where there already, and by 8pm all 18 of us where crowded round a big table. We pretty much took over the restaurant and ordered lots of food and beers for all of us. Presents and cards were given and Erik and I had to wear silly hats. At the end of the meal, the owner brought out a massive choux pastry cream cake which had "Congratulations Martin and Erik" written on it and was filled with berries and bananas. it was delicious and big enough for people to have seconds.

After the meal, some people went home on the last train, but most moved on to Lupin for tequila shots and more beer. It's around about here things get sketchy. At some point, more people left. Then we finished a round and decided to move on to Be-1, allegely the best karaoke place in tokamachi, even though you need to get a taxi. More went home, but we had a hardcore of six who were up for a bit of cat strangling. So we paid, left and headed towards the taxi rank.

We got distracted on the way by all the snow in the street and had a big, moving snowball fight in the street al the way to the taxi. Along the way we picked up some random feller who we hoped to loose when we got the taxi. Thing is, the next taxi would be 30 mins so we decided to go back to Eki Dori and find a karaoke bar down there. Unfortunatly the random followed us, even though we were ignoring him.

So we gets into the bar, a party of drunken blokes are killing some japanese song, and we find a big table for the six of us (and the random followed). we order some shochu and sours (sake made with potatoes and sour mix) and start looking through the song lists. We put quite a lot of songs on, including "My Shirona", Elvis' "I can;t help falling in love with you" (Tiger's East Stand Mix) and I finished off with, of course, "We are the champions".

So, taxis home and we head back to the taxi rank near the station. We start another snowball fight, and even though there are three taxis waiting, we carry on chucking snow. By the time we stopped, the taxis had gone. Bugger. but no worries, we start another snowball fight until the taxis returned.

So I get home, and all I remember is that I watched half and episode of Alan Partridge before I realised I should probably be in bed.

In the morning, or rather afternoon since I woke at 1.30pm, I checked my emails and found I had no new messages. Then I checked my "From Home" folder and found that all your messages from Friday Morning had been read. And I couldn't remember any of them. Still, I was able to read them again, such is the magic of email. Thank you all very much for your birthday wishes. I always love receiving them, especially when it's my birthday, and even more so when I'm 6000 miles away from you all.

I eventually got to Nagaoka in the afternoon. With the footy tournament over and snow all around, it's time to take up a new sport; snowboarding. I had been recommended a few shops and concensus was that Nagaoka had the best shops to buy a snowboard. Keiko agreed to come to to be my interpreter for the day. She needed to buy new skiwear so it wasn't a wasted trip for her. After browsing round a few I went for a board from Xebio sports. They were offering a board with boots and bindings for 20,000 yen (around £100). The design on my board is quite plain. I was tempted by boards with really snazzy designs (especially one with Simon Bisley art on it) but, at the end of the day, I'm a beginner, any board will do and I can't justify spending an extra 100-150 quid for a prettier board. Maybe next time, when I'm good.

After I bought the board, I had to wait for a couple of hours for them to fix the bindings to the board. I spent the time looking for snow wear. I found lots of nice jackets and lots of nice trousers but I couldn't find a jacket or trousers that went well together. I decided leave it and went to Muikamachi on Sunday and try the snow shops round there.

Well I thought Muikamachi had snow shops. It has one, Xreab, which was quite big. I spent another two-three hours looking round for jackets I liked and trousers that matched. I narrowed it down to three possibles, but one was a size too small, one was too expensive and the third was okay, but not brilliant. I remembered I have a meeting in Niigata on Wednesday so I'm now planning to go looking for snow gear afterwards.

Tonight I went climbing. It was the first time since way before Christmas so I was a little nervious. The guys that climb are really friendly. One or two speak a little English but I tried my best to use my Japanese. They helped my find routes on the bouldering wall and tried to give me tips too. They also told me that they come every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night and that I'm welcome to come and join them, which was really nice. So I get to climb and have Japanese practice too!