don't tell my mother

‘Tis the season for soubetsukai, going away parties. I have one week left in the Land of the Rising Sun and it will be jam packed with people taking me to dinner, giving me things, and making me feel bad for leaving.

The first of the events started last night when I went out to karaoke and drinking with a group of older students. We started singing at 7pm and finally left at midnight when we started to lose our voices. Let me tell you, five hours of karaoke can go by really quickly when of the nine people there only four sing, and the other five pick out songs to have you sing. We then moved on to an izakaya, a drinking eating place, where we discussed the finer points of Japanese food and baby names.

The real highlight for me, though, was the ride home on the most traditional of Japanese forms of transportation: a motorscooter. They’re everywhere in Japan, and I had always thought that they were such a nuisance, but dodging through traffic, hugging the turns, and speeding down an empty road with the wind making your eyes water is quite exhilarating. Thanks to the expert driving of my friend Kiril, I made it home bright and early at 2:30am.

I topped that speedy adventure with a trip to Lake Biwa today to try my hand at wakeboarding. Speed boats are fun. Unfortunately, it was still cold, the waves were really high, and the boots and wet suit were too small (I have a bruise on my leg from where my circulation was cut off.) Despite this, it only took me seven tries to get up out of the water. My longest experience on the water, however, was only three seconds. Sadly, the dangerously high waves sent us bouncing back to the marina without getting another chance to wakeboard or make a trip around the whole lake.

I wonder what other dangerous things I can do before I leave this country…