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Well what another long weekend over!!!
After work on Saturday night, I headed to sushi with the Tsuchiura gang - that is quickly becoming routine and needing energy for the night ahead, we all rode over to Starbucks to get our coffees and caffeine hit! Noticing the time, I had to rush on my bike to the train station and parked my bike just as Britt's train was pulling in from Iwaki - talk about good timing!! We went back to my place, dropped off our things and found out that everyone else would not be coming to Karaoke so decided to head off by ourselves .. for a couple of hours - or so we thought!!! We were in one of the new karaoke rooms at the Ban Ban Karaoke with the correct video clips to go with most of the songs --- so we ended up getting free time (all night karaoke with unlimited softdrinks) and stayed till 3am -- when enough was enough and we were all sung out!!! I sang so many songs that night that I cant sing around Shaun and really enjoyed the girly night out!!
We headed back home and collapsed into bed around 4 before getting up at 11 to meet Shaun for the Plum Blossoms at Mito. Heres the explanation from the website:
While worth a visit throughout the year, Kairakuen is most attractive during the plum blossom season, which usually takes place in late February and March. The Mito Plum Festival (Mito Ume Matsuri) is held annually from February 20 to March 31.
Kairakuen was built relatively recently in the year 1841 by the local lord Tokugawa Nariaki. Unlike Japan's other two great landscape gardens Kenrokuen and Korakuen, Kairakuen served not only for the enjoyment of the ruling lord, but was open to the public. Kairakuen means "park to be enjoyed together".
Besides the plum tree forest, where one hundred different plum tree varieties with white, pink and red blossoms are planted, Kairakuen also features a bamboo grove, cedar woods and the Kobuntei, a traditional Japanese style building.
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Catching the train to Mito and meeting up with basically all the Amity people this side of Tokyo in the Joban region was great and the contacts made would come in handy in the future.. Shaun headed off on his Beer Olympics with a fellow trainee and her friends from Mito and Britt and I continued hanging around and chatting to our fellow gaijin while watching some extremely drunk Japanese middle aged men who had drunk FAR TOO much Sake pass out, and punch each other to try and wake up -- this was free entertainment gone a little too far in my books. Before the sun started to set, we headed out into the park to explore the blossoms and go and see a performing monkey that we had heard so much about!! This monkey was amazing with all the jumps, tricks and things he could do and then we headed off to take MANY photos in the plum blossoms - the colours were amazing!!! Met up with the remainder of the group around sunset and wandered around, bought some delicious plum icecream and walked back into Mito Station via the scenic route.
Britt, Irene and I were originally going to head home and watch Grease the Movie but when Will decided to join us, plans changed a bit.. We were starving so headed to my local Ramen haunt for some delicious food and then to Britt's horror and dismay, we headed to karaoke for the second night in a row -- this night was full of Brittney Spears, Linkin Park and Disney Classic -- actually I think EVERY disney song from a movie was sung that night!!! Britt was feeling it cause she was really tired from the night before (boy probs) and I was a little tired -- but the best cure for feeling tired at karaoke is to sing more!!! So I ensured that I had the mike at every opportunity - cause if I wasnt singing -- I was tired all of a sudden.. We finally left karaoke with no voices left around 2am again and back to my place to squeeze 4 people on the floor with enough futons to go around and head to sleep!
Monday was very lazy - I was supposed to give the tour of the town but the weather had decided to haunt us and it was freezing and wet! So we chilled at my place till Lunchtime, when Shaun met us after his big night in Mito and I took us all to Sushi --- cause the guys just had to check out the shinkansen!! Britt and I dropped Will and Irene off at the train station after sushi (and I still am admiring how much dessert Irene ordered!) and then headed back to my place to watch Grease - the original plan for the weekend and at dinner time, walked Britt to the station for her train home and headed home to be all domesticated!! See I told you, an exhausting weekend and I will be looking forward to the rest next weekend!!! That's for sure!
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Saman Love this, Kelly! Write things down, get them into the unirvese and they happen! It is A-Mazing, isn't it!?I'll run a 5K with you. Let's plan it!I am so proud of you for putting yourself out there. Kudos!