i dont really remember weekends back in the states ever being like this. i think lately weekends have just been a huge production. all week long all of us ALTs are hard at work in our respective towns, pretty much without anything in the way of a social life, since there usually isnt more than one or two other people in the entire city that speaks english. so when the weekend and an opportunity to actually talk to someone comes around, you have to make the most of it. its 8 pm on a sunday night, and im writing this on my phone at a coco ichibanya curry place. i havent been home to my apartment in takahagi since i left for work on friday morning and i am fucking exhausted. i havent showered or shaved or cleaned up really at all since then. ive been through two double A battery chargers for my phone so far. again, i am a very tired individual. incidentally, coco's cheese curry is awesome. they even have a video game about this restaurant for PS2. and, it might not seem like it because the scale goes all the way to 10, but their curry is ridiculously spicy even at level 3. i routinely order a 3 out of 4 at the indian place in takahagi, but this is a whole other league. the scale goes up to 10, but to prove yourself you have to finish off a plate of level 5 before they let you go any higher. i wanted to try and challenge level 10 someday, but it looks like that isnt going to happen. level 3 was edible, but it was already at the point where all of the normal taste of the dish is just obliterated by spiciness. ill be ok without level 10, thank you.

speaking of gastrointestinal achievement, I ate at La Rochelle on friday night, which you may recognize as the restaurant of one Hiroyuki Sakai, better known as iron chef french! im no gourmet and ive certainly never paid 15000 yen for a meal before, but the food was amazing. the hot appetizer was foie gras with truffles, which takes care of 2 out of the 3 in the trifecta of the most expensive delicasies in the world. i went with 6 other JETs from ibaraki, kind of a random mix of people united by a desire to eat food prepared by an iron chef. of course, sakai wasnt actually there that night... but the food was still great. it was also fun to see everyone a bit out of their element and struggle to keep up the decorum suitable for such a classy place. i was definitely struggling too :) that night i went to vanilla in roppongi. roppongi is getting kind of old. i need to find something different to do with myself and the short time i have available in tokyo. woke up saturday, shopped and got some really ugly shoes in shinjuku, and finally got on a train back to ibaraki, just in time to catch the tail end of a st patricks day celebration at the drunken duck in mito.

the duck was crazy crowded, like tokyo levels. i think basically every foreigner in all of northern ibaraki was there. guiness and baileys flowed in great torrents to the amassed revelers, and unfortunately a bit too much went to a certain colleague of mine, so i ended up getting to ride along in a japanese ambulance to look after the guy. I've been in that position way too many times myself, to a lesser level of course, so I was happy to help out. also, japanese hospitals are apparently really cheap. an overnight stay for my buddy even without insurance was only about a hundred dollars. and i got to crash in a nice comfortable hospital bed for free too. woke up sunday (in the hospital) in time to go to the grocery store and get some beer and meat and go to a little birthday barbecue in a park in mito for Leo, then finally to coco's and now home finishing this on my laptop. I need to take it easier. spent way too much money over the past couple weekends going to tokyo and whatnot. It has been fun though.