Saturday, hooray!
I can't really remember what we did, I vaguely remember playing football and losing about 3 stone of body weight in sweat, mmm sexy.
Oh wait, yes I do remember!
In the morning (early afternoon) we met Kyoko-san and her crew at the hospital, went across to the med school and into their 'tea ceremony room', why the hell don't we have one in the RVI? Because the RVI is shit, that's why.
So yeah, we went to a tea ceremony.
So what's a tea ceremony like? I hear you ask.
Well, it's pretty weird, the room has a tatami floor with lines marked on it, you're not allowed to step on the lines and have to cross with a specific foot first depending on which way you're going. It's a bit like being a kid walking on crazy paving.
You have to kneel, like a geisha, which is so much more painful than you'd ever imagine and pass things in a certain way.
We split into 2 teams of 3: Sam-san, Toshihiro-san & Kyoko-san; Me, Tom-san & Yugo-san.
The team without me went first.
You start by all kneeling, the others come in with a tray of sweet things (a bit like kibidango), the person on the right takes the tray, rotates it (so as not to be rude), says a few things then passes it on, this continues down the line.
Then you eat the thing.
Meanwhile, the other team are whipping up some green tea.
Sam made mine, it tasted absolutely hideous.
And it looked more like pea soup than tea.
Before you can drink the tea, you have to rotate the cup (so as not to be rude) and appreciate its beauty.
The 'servants' have to kneel at an angle so you can't see up their kimonos (that's rude you see).
Then you're allowed to drink the tea, say some more words and they take the cups away.
Then it's all change.
I was a master tea-maker, you put what appears to be green powder paint in a cup with some water then whip it with what appears to be a shaving brush. Making big bubbles is rude, mine were well small and polite.
Then I served the tea and dango and everybody loved it.
A strange experience, but a good one nonetheless.
We said our goodbyes, had a look round the hospital shop (with pre-paid cards, of course) then headed to the second hand shop to buy a football.
After getting thoroughly sweaty and tomato-faced, Toshihiro-san, Kyoko-san & Yugo-san arrived at the party pad, shortly followed by Yoko-san.
We had to transfer most of our furniture into Sam-san's room, which was fun and Chuckle Brothers-esque.
It was time for takoyaki & okonomiyaki.
Takoyaki is octopus fried in a sort of dumpling-y thing, I was pro at rolling it in its special cooker thing.
Okonomiyaki is 'grilled whatever you want', its a sort of pancake, ours had octopus and vegetables, they were pretty tasty.
From wikipedia:
"In Hiroshima, the ingredients are layered rather than mixed together. The layers are typically batter, cabbage, pork and optional items such as squid, octopus and cheese."
We're pretty close to Hiroshima.
And we used camembert cheese.
Oh yeah, it turns out I really don't like octopus. Oops.
They add okonomiyaki sauce to all the shizzle, we didn't know what that was.
But
It's brown sauce! Yay! I was well happy.
After all the food had gone (I used my new chopsticks), we started drinking.
Again, photos will follow in due course.
Sam-san had a 1l can of beer, I rocked the pint tinnie, Tom-san made-do with the 330s, sadly nobody purchased the weenie 100ml cans.
We continued our corruption of Japanese youth by introducing ring of fire (2 rounds, lost by Tom-san then Sam-san) and beer pong (2 rounds, lost by Tom-san then Sam-san).
All the empties were beautifully stacked, until Sam-san fell into them, tut tut.
Several bottles of wine were consumed despite the lack of corkscrew.
The solution? Poking the cork into the bottle with a chopstick!
I'm amazed at my own genius sometimes.
After we all retired to our various beds, Sam-san chundered.
And he forgot to take the bin bags out for a few days, cue: room smelling of rotten octopus and vomit for a week.
Oh it's such a larf.
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