Ninja Park!

Okay, so due to Ami complaining that there were no pictures in my last entry (I couldn't choose between all of them!), I've posted a few here...but go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/megumip to check out the rest.

So this weekend was a lot of fun! Friday night I went out for dinner to celebrate Claire’s 25th Birthday. We went to a new restaurant (or at least new to me) – which was sooo good. Probably my new favourite in town – really great atmosphere and food. Minus the ume chu-hi….probably one of the most disgusting drinks I have ever sampled. After the restaurant, we headed to the Sand Bar – a seriously small “hole-in-the-wall” that has sand on the floor…very kitschy. But it was a fairly early night because we had the ninja park early Saturday morning!

We met at the bus station and headed to Saga (the next prefecture over and about an hour bus ride away). The ninja park was pretty big – but really run down. I don’t think it has changed in the last 20 years…actually I really don’t know how long it has been open for – but it could really have used some work. But it was still lots of fun! There were about 8 people working at the whole park…they had lots of things to do, such as a ninja training park, haunted ninja house (probably the scariest mannequins I have seen in my entire life…), archery, ninja star throwing, ninja maze house, and of course the ninja show! So hilarious – there were just three men in ninja costumes and make-up, cheesy dance music playing the background, them just running across the stage and going through secret escapes with the odd sword fight in between. But my favourite was when the “serious” fight took place and the lights went down and the neon lightening bolts on the ceiling lit up…good times.

A bunch of us also dressed up as maiko (geisha-trainees), princesses, and yakuza (Japanese gangsters) and had our pictures taken! Good fun! But it was soon time for us to leave and head back to Sasebo…we were all a little tired – too much fun at the ninja park!

But we went out to Starbucks for a bit, then went for Mexican for dinner, then met up with a few others and went out drinking, wandering the streets of Sasebo, hitting up a few places before splitting up from the boys and settling at the Pilipino hostess bar for some drinks and karaoke! Always a good time…and fairly embarrassing. We met up with the boys afterwards at the restaurant, and before we knew it, it was almost five in the morning! Kind of crazy considering I had all intention of going home after the ninja park at 6pm…only 11 hours off….

Needless to say I spent most of today lounging in my apartment….getting some much needed sleep before my first work day at Hiroda Junior High School tomorrow. And I’m REALLY not looking forward to doing my self-introduction another 13 or 14 times…