A Weekend Of Firsts

As you can probably tell by the Title, my weekend was pretty interesting. First, let me list off the Firsts.

The First of my Firsts, was my First Matsuri.　I'm not sure what the name of the Matsuri was, but It involved hauling a big Taiko drum over the city, and yelling "Yoyasa!" over, and over, and over. Most of the time, I was carrying the big wooden shrine with the Taiko inside, but for a little bit, near the end, I was able to climb inside and hit it myself (and no, Damon, I was not the first to hit it). That was fun and all, but the fun was about to become a little more interesting thanks to another First.
Before I tell you that story, I need a bit of a lead up. I didn't just go to this festival once that day. In the afternoon, I went with my host mother and her granddaughter. Well, since the kids want to do this, and they to bed early, they host a smaller festival in the morning. So every now and then they stop to give the kids snacks, Which was AWESOME! I got lemonade, freeze-pops, and Oreos! Then at the Adults festival, at night, we only had one break, where instead of Oreos, we got Fish Jerky, and instead of Lemonade we got Beer and Nihonshu (Rice Wine). The Fish jerky was pretty good, but the Nihonshu was terrible, I struggled to drink it all, and I still get bad tastes in my mouth when I think about it. Well, after that break we headed back. I figured everyone would lounge for a couple of seconds, then head back home. Nope. Instead This happened;
I discovered that the rule of this Matsuri was, No one leaves until ALL the Alcohol is gone. Luckily, there was no Nihonshu so I didn't have to put up with that, but there was a TON of beer. And boy was I lucky, because they are all so generous to always refill my cup first, and cheer me on (cuz you all know how much I love drinking beer...) So about 20 minutes later, the Alcohol is gone... and so am I.
First time being drunk in Japan. Not too bad. I was all alone, but Amagasaki isn't too busy of a place, so I was free to wander about the watchful eyes of the judgmental natives. The festival took place about 5 minutes from my house, but when I was drunk, somehow I thought I knew a shortcut back home. After wandering around for half an hour, I sobered up and walked into a beauty salon to ask where the seven eleven by my house is.

Now for my Second First. Anybody who has met me for 2 minutes knows of my Sports addiction. So boy was I happy when, after Judo Practice, I ran into Bill who happened to be going to The KanGaku football game. Because it was by random chance I ended up going, I didn't have my camera on me so those pictures will have to wait, until maybe I go to a home game and, just maybe, it wont be a complete blowout. In this game, The score ended up being 44-7 in favor of Kangaku. Kobe (the opposing team) scored their touchdown in the closing seconds, and Kangaku didn't even play their starters during the second half. Sound Familiar?

Third First: Ok so this one didn't really happen over the weekend. But I made my first trip to Takarazuka on Monday. Why? Because for one week, I will be living in a dorm. Main reasons why this sucks: 1) My train pass doesn't go to Takarazuka, so everyday, I will have to pay like 300 yen(about 3 dollars) to go to school. 2) This place does not seem to have the greatest Hygiene standards. 3) I will have to go out to find my breakfast. 4) No internet whatsoever. Main reasons this is good: 1) I decide when I eat dinner, so I can sleep after Judo if I want to. 2) I will finally have something other than buttered toast for breakfast. 3) I can do my own laundry which means, washing my Gi more than once a week. But now that I think of it, I don't have detergent... 4) No internet to distract me whatsoever.