Hand-washed minutes with Nature's Absurdities

Hahaa, everytime I tell someone "come on, we're in Japan..let's [insert various ideas]!", I almost drop my jaw in disbelief. After such a long build-up, I'm actually, really in JAPAN. The mere idea is absurd, isn't it?

Misa was gone this week (quick 12 days of partying with old international friends in Spain), so I got a chance to chill in my room (anime) and catch up on some kanji I was required to know to join the class I'm in (love kanji), but mainly to chill with my international buddies. Get this, some details on the people I hang around:

* Jordanian guy who thinks gay people might as well be killed because they're unnatural and who would commit suicide immediately if it was proven to him (by God I guess) that there is no afterlife, because that would make this life on Earth entirely pointless (here's where I'm hesitating to consider my point of view 'superior' to his in a positive/negative sense) - he's also like my best buddy here;
* Kenyan dude whose wife back home is expecting him to bring back home a second, Japanese wife (we've already had some excellent situations with Japanese girls where this was not-so-subtly brought up by others);
* Zambian guy who so far seems to adhere perfectly to the definition of a "care-free chiller";
* married Mexican man (family is in Japan, he keeps talking about other girls though) whose speech is hilariously similar to that of Pedro in Nap Dynamite;
* giant Tunisian Muslim-turned-existentialist-partier who denies all the crap in the Qur'an but still considers himself a Muslim (he studies international law - imagine the smile on his face when he realized the inevitable legal problems of the Kenyan dude gathering wives from around the world);
* rich Russian playboy with more than two agendas;
* Finnish guy who's the only one on this list who hopelessly tries to convince the rest to respect the various Japanese etiquettes, who adores everything I suggest to him (books, music, food, etc.) and I can't wait for his parents to bring his bass from Finland so we can start jamming;
* other Mexican guy who is trying hard to get some but is the only one in Japan without a cellphone (he stores their numbers on the Russian guy's phone)
* Thai people called Ek, Tyranny and Titinart (who's canceling her scholarship - without consequences - to accept another one to study in 4 different countries in Europe/the world for 2 years .. starting in October! 4 months of royally paid vacation left for her in Japan!). There's a standard 3-step procedure for determining if someone is gay in Thailand, I recently learned.

Yeah, last Friday's riverside drinks & discussions were VERY interesting, as I think you can imagine by now. Friday also involved Aoi Matsuri (see pix), another of those 'traditional festivals' without clear purpose (not even online have I been able to come to an understanding) but with plenty of photography occasions and tons of Japanese making grateful use of them. This one was particularly solemn, with a magnificent parade walking through town for 6 hours without any speech, music or performance going on. If it weren't for the grand weather, I'd have found it very eerie.

(of course) I went clubbing last weekend as well; bunch of shows by people from the circle. This was by far the fullest night at club Grind I've seen so far, but I danced a lot anyway. One of my buddies DJs a lot on these nights, and I like his style. He claims he samples for fun; since I create beats for fun, I have an interesting proposition for him that I'll discuss next Saturday at the all-you-can-drink dancers' gathering.

At home, Tareq, Ari and I took the initiative to spice up life in our dorm building by starting to actually use the great big Common Room and its facilities. We got 6 others to help out in the payment for a Wii (+controllers & games), we're going to organize poker nights evenings (room closes at 22:00, roffle), play table tennis and basically get people who are in their rooms doing crap like cooking, studying and calling their family anyway to come together and have a blast.

I'm gonna order this weekend, SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111..............

Zanzibar .. I'd like to go there one day ...

...

8 hours and 15 minutes left to Wii inauguration, time to do some stuff. To everyone that's seeing Hiromi in Amsterdam on Monday ... have fun ^___________________________^