99 Red Luftballons

Yesterday (a Thursday) we had another random day off. It turns out that in Japan there are 1 to 3 random weekdays every month where no one works. Apparently they can find almost any excuse for a holiday here. This includes such important reasons for a day off as Culture Day, Health and Sports Day (which I ironically spent drunk and lying on my ass eating greasy food), Respect for the Aged day, and so on. But instead of making these holidays on a Friday or Monday (so as to make a long weekend like back home) the day of the holiday is on a set date that does not change depending on what day of the week it falls on. This means that we are always having completely random days off on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. It’s kinda nice though. Makes the week go a lot faster when you only work two sets of two days each let me tell ya. Ah, Japan!

On this particular random day off, Kara and Doug invited me to go along with them to a Balloon Festival in a city about 2 hours away by car from Shimabara. Since I had absolutely nothing else to do, I agreed. I spent most of the day highly incapacitated, as did my companions. This resulted in much fun but alas also created a large gap in my memory of the sequence of the day’s events. Basically though, the balloons were pretty cool, but it was too windy for them to fly so we only got to look at them from the ground. We did accidentally end up in a VIP area though (because Japanese people are so afraid of us that the security guard did not even try to stop us when we walked right by him without showing any proof that we had a right to be there). We were all so gone that we didn’t even realize that we had crossed into a special area until several minutes later, when we were marveling at the fact that we could just walk up to the balloons, while other people were segregated by a rope barrier and confined to observational bleachers. Once we realized that we weren’t supposed to be there though, there was not a whole lot we could do, and besides the view was so much better, and so we ended up staying. It was good times.

On the way back to the car we were all starving and I decided to experiment with Japanese fried food – a decision that resulted in the consumption of deep fried octopus tentacles drizzled with mayo and BBQ sauce (I didn’t know they were octopus till I after I had eaten 6 of them, and after that I didn’t really care much ‘cause they tasted pretty damn good). On the way back home we were all exhausted and could barely stay conscious, but I ended up regaling everyone with my favourite sentimental songs. Those of you who know me know that means cheesy 80’s love ballads (think Bed of Roses by Bon Jovi, or Cold as Ice by foreigner, and of course my personal favourite All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You by Heart). I’m pretty sure that people often regret becoming my friend.