Nagano
12 January 2002, 21:00
Last weekend we went to Nagano Prefecture with Matt’s host brother Hirotaka.
We couldn’t leave until Hirotaka’s v.tipsy father tanked me full of sake with gold flecks in it (???) over lunch. Can’t imagine it’s any good for your digestive tract, but Mr Amenomorii seemed to be enjoying it judging by the rosy cheeks and wicked, yet oddly distant, glint in the old man’s eye. The Gold was average, but hey, how good can gold taste?
At the resort, the boys went snowboarding at Kisomura resort on Saturday but I was crook with a particularly virulent virus, nicknamed the “Harder-San Flu”, so I was left to frolic in the white stuff (the snow, that is) whilst the boys took the slopes.
Permanent Link | New Years Eve
5 January 2002, 20:59
We had a bitchin’ New Years Eve - on the 31st, Matt, Andrew Harder and I dined at ‘Kushiya’ in Ikebukuro, v. popular vendor of kushiage cuisine. Kushiage consists of a huge buffet of bits on sticks (chicken, prawn, cheese, potato etc.) that you dip into the dippy dippy stuff-u (batter) and the crumby stuff-u (breadcrumbs) before deep-frying the bejesus out of them. In one sitting, you could easily consume the weight of a pig in saturated fat.
After rolling out of there, we trekked to Meiji Jingu Shrine in Harajuku for some traditional shinto action, along with about 20,000 other Tokyoites.
We were lucky enough to be right near the front and at the stroke of midnight threw our 5 yen piece into (I have no idea where the 5 yen coin went). It was all very tame, these tokyoites are freakishly well-mannered sometimes - there was no kissing (well maybe a tiny bit), hugging, screaming, toasting champagne or drunken renditions of Auld Lang Syne (thank god). Just a lot of coin tossing.
Instead of champagne, we snuck ginger ale bottles and a flask of whisky into the event for a new years eve toast. Felt like I’d revisited schoolies all over again. I actually felt a bit naughty doing it, convinced that the cops (in full-defensive plastic mask-regalia so as not to get nutted by renegade 5 yen coins) were going to go me if they saw… (I mean, NO-ONE else seemed to be drinking - what the???)
Today Matt and I defected to the Buddhist side, with a visit to Senso Ji in Asakasa, leaving Andrew at home to pollute the frigid air with a particularly virulent virus.
When we returned, Andrew lifted his head a little, grunted some, sucked down some dinner, and passed out into la la land, where he stayed for the next couple of days in a feverish delirium.
