In fact, when I think in terms of days, it seems much longer, because it means that we have that much class left to finish. However, if I consider the time in terms of weekends, with only two left to go, there hardly seems to be a moment to spare. There are several friends here in Tokyo whom I still haven't managed to see, and cramming them all into the space of only four days will prove challenging, if not impossible. It makes me wonder what I did with all of those other weekends.
Then I remember, and I end up feeling pretty good about time well spent, after all.
Last weekend was actually a fantastic one. On Friday, I met up with a Japanese friend of mine with whom I went to elementary school for 10 years. I hadn't seen her in 6 years, when she last attended a reunion. We grabbed some Thai/Vietnamese food and caught up and reminisced about all the funny times and people we knew from way back when.
We also managed to meet up again on Saturday. You see, last Saturday was Random Summer Celebration Day. Honestly, even she didn't know what everyone was celebrating, but the fact is that there was an enormous fireworks celebration in Tokyo, and we had some pretty sweet rooftop seats, thanks to the host family of another SANC kid. My friend's fireworks-viewing plans fell through, so she tagged along in her white yukata. Together with the red yukata and blue yukata sported by two girls in our group, it made for a neat little ensemble.
The fireworks were awesome, running for a straight hour and a half. They took place in two locations along a river in Asakusa. Unfortunately, we only had a really good view of one (albeit the better one) from our vantage point. If you went down to the bridge on the river, you could see both equally well, but there were also about one million people (no joke) crowding around down there. Needless to say, getting back home wasn't exactly pleasant.
Following that, we hit up Roppongi, meeting up with some Yale (summer session?) people in the process. I never thought, all those years ago back in middle school, that I would ever go out nightclubbing with any of my friends. Of course, I didn't have any concept of such activities, so I can hardly be blamed for my lack of foresight.
Overall, another good weekend. However, I've decided that I've had my fill of Roppongi. Thing is, the group I'm with really has little motivation to take advantage of Tokyo's all-night atmosphere. Everyone's ready to call it a day at 2 or 3 in the morning. Compared to last summer, with all those midnight-to-5-am trips to Muse, it's been pretty tame. So, tonight, we're going to explore Shibuya's clubbing streets, and hopefully the change of venue (if not of pace) will cause me to perk up a bit.
Weekly highlights time. Monday, I went to see my friend who owns a traditional shouting restaurant in Tokyo, only to discover that he's still working at his new place in Seoul until the 6th. Bummer. But at least he'll be back before I'm gone. I'm really psyched to have a meal there again.
Thursday, we had an all-day trip (seriously, it was 12 hours) to Nikko. I was off to a great start when I was woken up literally at the time we were supposed to be meeting in the lobby (7:20 in the god damn morning), and I spent much of the day being exhausted and failing to sleep on the bus. Still, the weather was amazing, and the temples were nice, although any realistic person will admit that they're very much of the if-you've-seen-one-then-you've-seen-them-all variety.
What wasn't so run-of-the-mill was the marathon monk we met. Okay, so he only did a mini one-third version of the 1000-day, 40,000 kilometer run through the fucking forest on a mountain in all kinds of weather wearing traditional Buddhist robes followed by not eating or sleeping for a week, but still, that's damn impressive. We got to see him perform a traditional Buddhist ceremony of some kind, and I learned why anyone would want to become a Buddhist priest: to play with fire. Seriously. Lighting and throwing shit into a big ass fire was a major part of the ceremony. It was awesome. Afterward, we met with him in private and got to ask him some questions. Love of fire aside, I was barely awake, so I didn't say much more than "thank you for your time," but he was an amazingly down-to-earth and funny guy, not at all what one might expect of a high-ranking Buddhist priest.
And you thought I was kidding about there being a million people watching these fireworks. This is only one part of the crowd.
It's not easy to capture fireworks well. Usually they're gone by the time you realize you have a really awesome picture to take. Also, I didn't bring my camera, so this isn't my picture, anyhow. I'll steal some more from other people later.
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