Spring Holiday

I'm finally into my spring holiday (struggled not to call it spring break then, I'm becoming Americanized, yuk) and everything is going well. The weather is finally starting to get warmer so I don't have to walk around in my clashing hat, scarf and coat combo and next week I'm off to the tropical Island of Okinawa to visit the wonderful Alice so I shouldn't need a coat at all.

Since my final presentation a couple of weeks ago I have been out and about quite a lot, had one too many bad hangovers and met lots of random people in random places. Unfortunately, not having to study until I get back to university in April I can already feel my academic Japanese slipping away and my Kanji knowledge flying out the window. I thought I would have lots of free time to study this week but as each day has passed my little schedule book has filled up and so I now only have one free day left until Okinawa which I'm sure will no longer be free by Wednesday.
Other than not studying I have been spending most of my time with friends at Yokohama. Lots of people are leaving now so I have to go to every leaving party to say my farewells. It's pretty sad and I'm not so fond of the change but it makes me appreciate all the awesome people from all over the world that I have had the opportunity to meet since coming to Japan and I hope to someday bump in to in the future. My friend Lauren leaves on Friday which I'm rather gutted about; my dorms are going to be quite lonely without her as she is my tea buddy and com padre. Luckily I only have two days in the dorms after she goes before I set off traveling so I wont have too much time to mope about.
Anyway, for one of Laurens leaving do's we all went out to AgeHa (the biggest club in Asia), and it was perhaps one of the most fun nights I have ever had. It was a good drunken night of general merry making, dancing and talking random crap to Japanese people. In Japanese clubs the use of cameras is banned but being foreign, drunk and having a general dislike of pointless rules Lauren brought one in anyway. This ended in her being caught taking photos by security several times and thus being chased around the club because she refused to put it in the locker and also resulting in many comedy style chases in which we were all involved. Eventually we ended up getting thrown out of the club with some people getting banned but it didn't matter- we about to leave anyway since it was 6 in the morning!

Other than getting drunk and general merry making I also went to visit my friend Jay in Kanazawa and have managed to meet up with lots of other Sheffield people. Always good to catch up with people and hopefully I'll be able to see a few people that I have yet to meet in Japan this weekend when I go to see the plum blossom.

I'm sat down on my bed with a rather over brewed cup of tea trying to waste time until I'm tired enough to go to sleep. I have my last presentation tomorrow, report is finished, as is my Sheffield year abroad project plan. Which means from 11.45 tomorrow morning I am a free agent, no more work for a month and a half. It feels really weird. I hope I don't lose all my Japanese in that time.
The next week and a half is pretty crammed full of stuff so I shouldn't be sat about in my room wasting more time on facebook and youtube. Hurrah!

Rather than telling you what I might be up to though, I'll tell you what I have done in the past few eeks. My amazing weekend of 'opportunity' turned out to be a rather quiet one; never made it out clubbing on the Friday night but I did manage to get drunk enough so that my hangover prevented me from leaving bed for the next day thus missing out on the Hakone trip! Better luck next time , eh!
I did however manage to have a week of childish fun which involved a ball pit, a trip to Disney sea (similar to Disney land... but on the sea), seeing dragons dance at Chinese new year and going out to a gay club. It really has been manic, not to mention expensive, but a lot of fun. I think my Japan cold has got even worse but I've learnt to live with it.
The gay club had to be one of the strangest nights I've had in Japan. It wasn't so different from gay clubs in England only there were more gay people and less 'breeders' (as Colleen so nicely calls straight people). The thing is, since most Japanese people don't actually believe that gay people exist in Japan and that it is some foreign evil culture, gay people here don't really expect straight people to have any understanding or tolerance for them. Which is ridiculous but understandable. Anyway, this meant that there was quite a lot of awkward explaining to be done but it turned out to be a brilliantly fun night and we could not stop dancing to all the cheesy classics that are expected from a gay club. There was even a bit of pole dancing. Luckily not too much from me but my friend Jaycob who must have some kind of pole fetish as we could not prise him off it for the life of us.
After an entire night of dancing, looking sweaty and an encounter with a scary fake French model we finally got home at 7.30 in the morning. I was ready to sleep for the entire day but it was a friends birthday so I had to get up after 4 hours sleep to go for an all you can eat buffet. I thought I was going to die, I have never been so tired in my life. Even worse than the night bus/snowboarding trip.

I think I have managed to catch up on my sleep now. I have got all my work done so that's a good sign and I'm going to go to bed relatively early as I have to get up in time for the presentation tomorrow.

Life here is either extremely tiring or it feels like there is nothing to do. The latter in never actually true, just feels that way sometimes. Not from now on though... yikes!