All nighter in Utsunomiya

The past weekend has been pretty fun. Friday night I didn’t do much because I had to wake up early on Saturday. I woke up at 7:20 so I could go play Ultimate Frisbee in Utsunomiya. It was raining a little bit, but usually you can still play Frisbee in light rain. I didn’t think practice would be canceled so I got my rain gear on and headed for the station. Once I finally got to the station I got a text message saying practice was canceled. Luckily I got the message before I got on the train.

I was pretty bummed since I purposefully didn’t do anything Friday night so I could wake up early on Saturday to play but didn’t get to. Then biked 20 minutes in rain for nothing haha. Once I got the text I didn’t know what to do. I kind of just wandered on my bike in the rain for a bit. Then I figured I should get some breakfast so I went to my local grocery store to get food from their bakery. Once I got there I noticed they didn’t open until 9:00 and it was 8:40. So I went home and dropped off my backpack. I went back to the bakery at 9:00 but they had nothing out. I didn’t understand it, they are a bakery and don’t have anything out when the store opens .. whaaat!?

Anyways I ran into 3 of my students at the bakery. I tried to ask them if there was another bakery near by but they didn’t understand me, even though I spoke in Japanese.After that I just went to a convenience store to get some breakfast food. The 3 students that I saw in the grocery store were now following me to try to find out where I live. I don’t really know why they are obsessed with finding out where I live. I bought some stuff and ate it in front of the store and the kids just kept asking me questions.

After that I went home and relaxed a bit. Carrie wanted to go shopping and I decided to tag along. We went to the Sano Outlets. I ended up buying a couple shirts from the Gap, and a track suit from Nike. All the teachers here wear track suits, which I think some do in America but not as much.

After buying the stuff I headed back to drop it off. Then I went back to the station to go to Utsunomiya to watch some friends (who are in a band) play live. It was a really good show and since I’m friends with most of the band members I really wanted to go up on stage and sing with them but of course I didn’t haha. Here's the pictures from the night: Facebook

Vice Lords of Valhalla

After the show

Soon thereafter there was a JET party at a bar called Birdland. I met a bunch of other ALTs in Tochigi (My prefecture) and some other Japanese people who were friends with some of the people there. It was fun because it was a good crowd, they had an open bar and they had a dance floor. After the bar closed down we went to Karaoke but had a big group, so we split up. We left karaoke and went to McDonalds, to eat and waste time. In Japan if you miss the last train (usually between 9 and 12) you get stuck places until first train (at 5). So we wasted time in McDonalds, then went to a different Karaoke place. We sang for 5 hours until first train came. We took it back and I finally made it home around 6:30 or so. Group pic minus me cause I took it lol.

Sunrise on the way back

After trying to sleep for a few hours I got up and just had a lazy Sunday. Studied and cleaned my house, did laundry, and relaxed/recovered.

Next weekend I think I’m going to Yokohama, but I’m not sure. It’s a 3 day weekend, we have Friday off. Then the week after that I only have 2 days of teaching then spring break YAY!