Monday, January 17, 2005
The Week in Review
For someone practically doing nothing at the moment, I have been quite busy. Naturally, work has nothing to do with this. One thing that happens with four (currently three) weeks until you leave a country for an unspecified length of time is that you are obliged to go drinking with all your friends. Lots.
As a result, last Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights, I found myself in various locations, with various groups of people, drinking an assortment of alcoholic beverages.
It's been, for wont of a better word, great.
Tuesday night I broke the news to my local yakitori shop that I would soon be leaving, a move that resulted in a rather unpleasant hangover on Wednesday morning... a couple of the guys are helping to buy and sell some of my furniture though, so I suppose the headache was worth it.
Friday I caught up with Anne, Toni, Song and Belinda for what was probably my penultimate night out with my Thai mates for a few years at least. I managed to find a reasonably priced Izakaya on the 39th floor of the Yebisu Garden Tower in Ebisu. This was surprising, as the whole district is quite upmarket. So, after a few large ales from the Ebisu Beer Station on the ground floor, Belinda and I met up with the Thai crew and got stuck in to a rather large meal of various things on skewers.
Unable to locate a karaoke bar afterwards (much to everyone's surprise) we went bowling instead. I can admit that I am a particuarly inept bowler at the most sober of times, so needless to say my performance was somewhat uninspiring. The fact we were all drunk helped to mask this, a little anyway.
I managed to catch the very last train back to Kannai, arriving there at around 1 am, determined to find a taxi. Unfortunately, every damn cab heading in my direction was occupied, so I wandered down the road, frequently checking for a hail-able ride. Rather than actually get a cab, I wound up wandering the full half-hour home. I guess the cabs are busy in the wee hours of Saturday morning....
Saturday night was supposed to be a quiet, relaxing affair. However a couple of my local friends called me up and suggested that I meet them at a local izakaya instead. Naturally, I obliged. Much food and drink later, (and after watching one of my drunken friends try to get the waitress to agree to a date with my other, slightly less drunken friend - moderately successfully - he got her number) we headed to the yakitori place, just as it was closing. Being the regular customers that we are, it was more drinks all round and I vaguely remember heading home around midnight.
On the seventh day, I rested.
Of course amidst all the fun and games, there have been all the annoyances that accompany moving, I need to contact all my utility providers to get them shut off on the day I leave, and arrange for the final bills to be paid after my Japanese bank accounts are closed. I have booked my flight home (I will be arriving in Brisbane on the 8th) and once that is paid for, I will need to organise to get that money refunded, which will no doubt cause a few minor problems around here.
Then of course, there is the issue of packing. Let's face it, nobody likes packing. It is a tiresome chore and having lived in about eight different places since leaving home at the start of 2000, I am well and truly sick of it. Regardless, I will take an afternoon off in the next few days to collect some boxes from the post office, organise to have them picked up, and proceed to pour my worldly collections into them.
You would be amazed how much detritus you can accumulate in a single year. I blame Amazon.com, HMV and Tower Records for a large part of it. There is also the problem of selling of my furniture.... most of the smaller stuff (microwaves, stereos etc.) is fairly easy to get rid of, however my utterly wonderful bed is proving to be somewhat more of a challenge. I guess I could just enlist a friend to carry it down to the canal under the cover of darkness and send it to sleep with the fishies.... I think that my crappy spare mattress and rug will be donated to the homeless guys I see when I go jogging...
Then, of course, there is the problem of getting my final bits of money, pension payments et al back from Nifco. While, in theory, it should be an easy process, it is shaping up to be a right royal pain in the arse. Time will tell just how big an issue this is going to be.
Well, my ranting over and done with for the moment, I should get back to, ummm, not much really... Expect more of the same over the next few weeks...
As a result, last Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights, I found myself in various locations, with various groups of people, drinking an assortment of alcoholic beverages.
It's been, for wont of a better word, great.
Tuesday night I broke the news to my local yakitori shop that I would soon be leaving, a move that resulted in a rather unpleasant hangover on Wednesday morning... a couple of the guys are helping to buy and sell some of my furniture though, so I suppose the headache was worth it.
Friday I caught up with Anne, Toni, Song and Belinda for what was probably my penultimate night out with my Thai mates for a few years at least. I managed to find a reasonably priced Izakaya on the 39th floor of the Yebisu Garden Tower in Ebisu. This was surprising, as the whole district is quite upmarket. So, after a few large ales from the Ebisu Beer Station on the ground floor, Belinda and I met up with the Thai crew and got stuck in to a rather large meal of various things on skewers.
Unable to locate a karaoke bar afterwards (much to everyone's surprise) we went bowling instead. I can admit that I am a particuarly inept bowler at the most sober of times, so needless to say my performance was somewhat uninspiring. The fact we were all drunk helped to mask this, a little anyway.
I managed to catch the very last train back to Kannai, arriving there at around 1 am, determined to find a taxi. Unfortunately, every damn cab heading in my direction was occupied, so I wandered down the road, frequently checking for a hail-able ride. Rather than actually get a cab, I wound up wandering the full half-hour home. I guess the cabs are busy in the wee hours of Saturday morning....
Saturday night was supposed to be a quiet, relaxing affair. However a couple of my local friends called me up and suggested that I meet them at a local izakaya instead. Naturally, I obliged. Much food and drink later, (and after watching one of my drunken friends try to get the waitress to agree to a date with my other, slightly less drunken friend - moderately successfully - he got her number) we headed to the yakitori place, just as it was closing. Being the regular customers that we are, it was more drinks all round and I vaguely remember heading home around midnight.
On the seventh day, I rested.
Of course amidst all the fun and games, there have been all the annoyances that accompany moving, I need to contact all my utility providers to get them shut off on the day I leave, and arrange for the final bills to be paid after my Japanese bank accounts are closed. I have booked my flight home (I will be arriving in Brisbane on the 8th) and once that is paid for, I will need to organise to get that money refunded, which will no doubt cause a few minor problems around here.
Then of course, there is the issue of packing. Let's face it, nobody likes packing. It is a tiresome chore and having lived in about eight different places since leaving home at the start of 2000, I am well and truly sick of it. Regardless, I will take an afternoon off in the next few days to collect some boxes from the post office, organise to have them picked up, and proceed to pour my worldly collections into them.
You would be amazed how much detritus you can accumulate in a single year. I blame Amazon.com, HMV and Tower Records for a large part of it. There is also the problem of selling of my furniture.... most of the smaller stuff (microwaves, stereos etc.) is fairly easy to get rid of, however my utterly wonderful bed is proving to be somewhat more of a challenge. I guess I could just enlist a friend to carry it down to the canal under the cover of darkness and send it to sleep with the fishies.... I think that my crappy spare mattress and rug will be donated to the homeless guys I see when I go jogging...
Then, of course, there is the problem of getting my final bits of money, pension payments et al back from Nifco. While, in theory, it should be an easy process, it is shaping up to be a right royal pain in the arse. Time will tell just how big an issue this is going to be.
Well, my ranting over and done with for the moment, I should get back to, ummm, not much really... Expect more of the same over the next few weeks...
# posted by Nils @ 4:38 PM 
