Long Bank Holiday Weekend

I've had today off because it is Respect for the Aged Day. What have I done with the three day week? Well, Friday afternoon I went down the gym and did some distance and weight training. Halfway through my run I met my old students from Tokamachi High School. The basketball team were at the gym practicing in the arena before a tournament on Saturday. I said hi and tried to explain that I was training for a tournament as best I could between breaths. I also bumped into the woman from climbing and chatted about why I hadn't been climbing since March (the finger I injured in January).

I went to Japanese class on Friday and was well chuffed that I could understand the whole lesson! Admittedly, it was wasn't rocket science (agemasu, moraimasu, comparisons) but for once I was able to follow everything. For an encore I watched "Tonari no Totoro" ("My Neighbour Totoro") in Japanese and, aside from three times where I had to stop and ask Keiko what the dad had just said, I pretty much understood that too. (Actually I had no choice but to watch Totoro in Japanese. For months now I've been looking in Tsutaya to rent a DVD copy and everytime the three DVD copies they have are rented out. So I had to rent the VHS, japanese only, copy)

Saturday morning I woke late and did my washing for next week. I picked up Keiko and we headed up to Niigata for a night out before footy training on Sunday. We met Keiko's mate Satoko and went to an izakaya in bandai. After we met Lindsey, Justine and Anna in Immigrants before moving on to HotSpot. It was a nice night, nomihodai going down well, but we did have a random stalking Linds and Russian also tried to start a fight with me! A very strange incident; I was on teh dance floor with the girls, this guy comes storming up to me, before I know it, I'm holding the guys arm in my hands making sure he doesn't punch me. He broke free and left the bar while I was stood trying to work out if I should be bleeding or not. Luckily I wasn't and went back to dancing and drinking.

When i woke up, I immediately regretted the two quick G&Ts before the end of the nomi hodai. I felt better after a shower and breakfast, which was good because I was going with Keiko to meet her other friend Sachiko and her six month baby Shou. I'd met Sachiko in Tokamachi once before so we where catching up with news quickly. Shou, however, took a while sizing up me and Keiko before he decided we where fun enough to play with!

After that I dropped Keiko off in town and picked up Luke from teh station and went to training. It was my first session of the new season and it was good to see the new squad. It's difficult to predict how well we'll do in Nagano, if only because we couldn't play eleven-a-side, but I've seen most of the players play in various tournaments around Niigata and I think we have a team capable of qualifying for Saitama. And once we're though to Saitama, we have plenty of time to organise friendly matches to get more experience of the team playing together.

After training, I picked up Keiko and we headed back to Tokamachi to watch the premiership matches. This morning I woke up at Keiko's and met her new nephew, Fuichiro. He was born two weeks ago and is tiny! It's amazing to think we were all that size once.

I spent the rest of today finally packing away the fish tank and buying my brother's birthday presents. The weather has been great, though I expect that to change when the latest typhoon hits central Honshu, and I don't feel like going back to work tomorrow. Guess I should take heart that it's only a four day week and I get paid on Thursday.