Friday. October. Sheesh, another pair of milestones pass by almost without notice. If it weren't for this journal, I'd have thought nothing of it, until later, when might try to think back and figure out where the time went. Mostly, it's been devoted to long work days. We're progressing at a faster pace now, thankfully.
Well, the nuclear accident scenario seems to be behind us now. I have no inside information about it; I've paid some attention to the paper and the BBC news during the past couple of days, and there seem to be no other major discrepancies between the reports than what I've mentioned in the previous post. BBC continues to play it up (it seems to me - I'm _NOT_ "there"), and the papers seem to be sort of matter-of-fact about it. I can only guess what CNN et al do with the story. In short, I and my friends here are cautiously optimistic about the ordeal, and I believe that we personally are safe.
It's customary for "the boys" to party hearty on Friday nights, and this past one was no exception. I thought we were just going bowling. I shouldn't have thought. :^) We went to dinner at a great place called "The Loft" where we consumed massive quantities of carcinogens, had mild amounts of sterilizers to diminish their effects, and caused general mayhem.
We have a new team member, who started Friday. His name is Christian, and he's Squigglese-savvy since he lived here as a college student for two years, about five years ago. Since he didn't know any better, he joined us. Poor guy arrived Thursday afternoon from Chicago, so I can only imagine what we did to his jetlag effect. He's young, though, so I think he'll recover by November or so. :^)
We set our plan: dinner, bowling, then karayoke. After they threw us out of the restaurant (OK, I'm kidding; we left before they could do that), we headed off to the bowling alley. There were nine of us (Andy, Paul, Jit, Dale, Sue, Christian, Jungie, Norie and me), so we formed two teams, and bowled two games. I had 137 and 199. Our team won (judged by average average), so we were treated to the karayoke event by the other team.
Karayoke is a fun thing, the way they do it here. I don't much care for the US version - where it's done in a bar, and it becomes a contest for attention (your mileage may vary). Here in Japan, they (wisely, I think) put you into separate rooms, with doors, so you have your own little party - and it's like a little private party. Well, OK, it *is* a little private party. There's a television, of course, the karayoke machine, two microphones, bench-style seating for about twelve people, and a table to sit around. The booths have a telephone where you can place orders for food or liquid items (I had ice cream). I didn't sing much this time. For me, the highlight was Jungie and Sue singing "Endless Love" superbly. Or maybe when we all tried to do "Rawhide" (yes, really: "head 'em up, move 'em on, move 'em on, head 'em up, keep them dogies movin', rawhide..."), which was silly and fun.
We were out until 2:30, when we took taxis to our respective places of residence. Taxi ride was uneventful, and I crashed into bed at about 3:15. I got up at 7:45 for the squiggle lesson, and spent the rest of Saturday being lazy. Wandered around the area on foot for a while, and just took in the sights. This trip will all be historic sometime soon; I'll have only this journal, some pictures and my memory, and I want to be sure I've taken a good look. I intended to walk to the bay (right next to where I work), but I guess I was too lazy even for that.
Tomorrow, some of us will go play tennis on the top floor of the Akasaka Prince hotel, then I intend to go to Akihabara or Shinjuku or both afterward.
Mt. Fuji is a possibility for next weekend. We now have conflicting stories about the hours of operation. One source says that visitors are still welcomed 24 hours per day through October. The other, as I wrote before, says that limited hours start October 1. I will go with them if they go, I think; it does sound enriching. I should also say that this is not "mountain climbing" in the sense that we'll all be climbing ropes over steep cliffs, avoiding snow avalanches, or jumping chasms. It's "just" a long, strenuous hike to the top. The cold temperatures are the greatest concern.