Turning Japanese: a perfect weekend

I may have fulfilled my fantasy of the perfect weekend (in Japan anyway). Yesterday i enjoyed a lazy and lovely Saturday morning eating french toast, drinking a whole pot of coffee (keeping in mind my pot only holds 4 cups), watching Emma, and relaxing. I even cleaned a bit. I went on a walk to enjoy the gorgeous day. Then i packed up my things to hit the road. The bike ride to the station was glorious and i arrived at Echigawa station to board the little yellow train exactly one minute before it arrived - perfect. Then, when i got on the train I put my head phones in as we wobbled our way to Hikone, i discovered two butterfiled dancing about in the two-car train! They were beautiful and yellow and orange, perfectly complementing the decor of the little Omi train.

I arrived in Nagahama after a train switch at Hikone to my awaiting friends- Brian, Kristin and Andrea. We walked off into the sunset toward Saizerya, an italian restaurant chain that I am not in love with. There we enjoyed pizza, pasta, salad, garlic bread and massive bottles of the cheapest wine known to man. They brought the wine glasses all chilled, even though we ordered red, which thrilled me to no end. Yup, thats right, the 1500 mL bottle of red wine was served COLD!!! Chillable Red at an italian restaurant... so classy :)

Then we were joined by more friends, Myles and Nancy, Mike and Deo, who enjoyed further bottles of wine and some fabulous desserts. Finally when we'd filled our bellies and heard from even more folks we headed off to hit up karaoke - not for just one or two hours but for THREE WHOLE HOURS OF KARAOKE HEAVEN! And what should we have snuck into the karaoke room? The rest of the bottle of wine from Saizerya of course! After a fabulous evening a few of us crashed at Brians after some conbeni snacks and lots of fun conversation.

This morning I woke up quite cheery. The knowledge that coffee was only minutes away (genously purchased at the 711 the night before along with breakfast ingredients) only elevated my mood. Then we scrambled a massive amount of eggs, cooked up some extra thick slabs of toast and feasted. I returned home this afternoon in a slight drizzle to enjoy a cup of tea, a nap, and a bath, and now to make dinner and watch a movie.

What a fabulous weekend in Japan