My very dear high school friends Michael and Grant are here for a few days on vacation, so I was fortunate enough to spend some time with them this weekend. First of all, what a pair of individuals these two are. Michael is--and I say this with the utmost affection--a total nerd. He was an astronomy major at Michigan State, and will be going to grad school at the California Institute of Technology. I'm sure you all know, that school's no picnic. I think it'll be perfect for him. He's an absolute genius, and a very critical thinker. Grant, while also incredibly smart, is a very sarcastic, very easy-going guy. The stories they've told me of their adventures so far here are pretty hilarious. I'm not sure I even know how to describe it properly, but the playoff between their personalities just makes for great, almost sitcom-like, story-telling.
Last night we decided to try to find an all-you-can-drink cruise. Ted had told me about a 2-hour long cruise around the harbor area with an open bar that wasn't too expensive, and he actually pointed it out to me on the way back from the convention last week. So we went down to the pier and went asking about it. Nobody seemed to know what I was talking about. Everybody I asked laughed at me for a moment, and then told me "we don't have that here, but maybe try next door." And so, silently cursing Ted for making me feel like a fool in front of the Japanese people, we kept asking next door, but no one next door had it. So we eventually gave up, of course, and decided to go on a dinner cruise that we had passed by, called "Symphony." I guess we should've figured from the name, but it turned out that 'Symphony' was much classier than we were prepared for, with our t-shirts and jeans (Grant in shorts), and Grant and Michael with their backpacks. It was a beautiful dining room and great food and everything, but all the other passengers on the cruise were couples dressed in suits and dinner gowns. It was a very romantic engagement. We had a good time, though--especially after the 3rd or 4th glass of beer. hah. Really, though, it was a nice experience and It would be lovely to go back sometime when I'm more properly attired. Maybe if I find a nice girl who will go with me *wink wink*
I am getting more and more excited for playing at the Ruby Room this Wednesday. My cold is gone, so my voice should be much better; they're giving me ten more minutes to play this week than they did last week; and I'll already have friends there this time. I actually emailed Satoshi, the guy I talked to last week for quite a while, on Friday just to say "hi," and "it was nice to meet you," and "I hope to see you again next week," and he emailed me back the next day and said he would definitely be there next week. This is gonna be awesome. This week it's actually a set show, not an open mic night, so there might be more people, I dunno. I'm opening for a funk band from Yokohama, I think. haha. Should be interesting. I'll bring my camera this time and try to have someone (like Satoshi) take a couple pictures of me while I'm playing.
My stomach is seriously making some noises. I just ate breakfast, so I dunno what's going on. Maybe I didn't eat enough. I have no clue. I haven't heard it make this much noise in quite a long time. I'm gonna go grab some water. Then I've gotta prepare for my meeting later. Yes, my meeting. I'm meeting with some people who work at the Shibusawa Ei'ichi Memorial Foundation, basically just to get information from them about Shibusawa Ei'ichi and about their foundation--what they do, etc. The exciting thing is that I'm doing this on my own and it will be entirely in Japanese. woohoo! Here goes nothing...
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