Girls Day Out

So shortly after I told my parents to 'get the f*ck out - and stay out!', another two friends from Sunny Melbourne swung past Kumamoto to check out the Japanasian lifestyle. I met Miya and Alex at the station on a sunny Saturday afternoon, then it was a quick taxi ride back to mine to get base camp established. The girls were pretty tuckered out from spending most of the day travelling here from Osaka, so we decided to spend the rest of the day in a leisurely stroll up to the castle.
Once we checked the castle off the list, we headed back to my place, only after spending about twenty minutes at the local konbini (convenience store, but they're heaps better than the ones back home) buying everything from groceries to premixed cocktails to make up. Despite Miya being on enough medication to disqualify her from Beijing 2008, and my own weak protests that I didn't really want to get drunk again, the first cans of Calpis Sour (an intriguingly tasty ready to drink cocktail which goes down very, very easily) were cracked at approximately quarter past five. Nice. Energy levels weren't at an all time high so we headed into town for a quick Izakaya dinner, followed by a whirlwind tour of the local bar scene, and then it was home (via the konbini of course to collect some post drinking drinkies) for a nightcap, then bed by a reasonable hour. During the night I introduced Alex to Umay Shu, the local plum wine, and can safely add another convert to the list. If you can get a hold of some, try it, if you like sweet drinks then you'll love this stuff.

Sunday morning bought with it a world of possibilities. After laying out a range of options to the guests of honour (climb a local volcano, drive to the beach, check out an ancient Japanese park) the activity of choice was a favourite of women all across the globe: shopping. Being a little tired tired from spending the last week being the owner operator of 'Maxi's Family Tours', I was happy to oblige. So we hit the bricks again and headed into Shimotori, Kumamoto's main shopping strip where the locals flock every weekend to spend their hard earned yen. After some time was spent shopping, doing coffee, shopping, and checking out make up, it was decided that this day just wouldn't be complete unless a decent massage parlour (of the legitimate kind!) was found. Luckily enough I had a vague idea of where one might be, and being kind of curious having never experienced a professional massage before, it was off to the massage joint. $40 bucks, some excellent back kneading and one hour later it was a super relaxed trio that walked out of Rakuya Massages. Thinking along the lines of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' I suggested the next stop in our Girls Day Out should be cocktails in the swanky hotel lounge close by. Ten minutes later it was cosmopolitans all round for a post massage analysis.
I had some dude work on me, and he did such a good job that at some points I found myself in a semi-dozing state thinking about one of the girls at work who I'd recently had a bit of a thing with. Talk about conflicted: here I am thinking romantically about a japanese hottie while an old japanese man gives me a massage. Hhmmm, maybe that's the kind of thing that I should be keeping to myself...but then again this is 'uncut'. In a similar vain to the previous 'I'm so dangerous' segment, perhaps I should start a new list:

I'm so heterosexual...

• I'm so heterosexual, I think about girls when men touch me.
• I'm so heterosexual, I collect hello kitty figurines not only because they're cute, but also because the late night line of 'hey, wanna come back to mine and check out my hello kitty collection' is proving to be surprisingly effective.

Ok that's all I got at the moment, but as always suggestions welcome.

Cosmopolitanites:

During the course of the day I strongly encouraged Alex and Miya to get into the swing of things and dress like the locals: by putting on pop socks (knee high socks) high heels and micro skirts. I thought I had a pretty impressive argument: 'when in rome...'; but unfortunatley they wouldn't come to the party. Maybe next time huh girls? Actually here's a culture difference bizarro-world fact - most 'normal' girls over here look like complete tarts by dressing in the style described above, although they often replace stupidly tall high heels with knee length boots. This is in comparison with the real 'ladies of the night' who get around in floor length evening dresses while they stand on the main streets trying to attract customers. Cool.

Cosmopolitans drained we then headed to one of the best restaurants in town, Jang Jang, for some excellent chinese cuisine in a very decent setting.


This was followed up by after dinner drinks at the swanky (albeit pricey) Hachi. Being a Sunday night there wasn't much going on in town and seeing the girls had an early start because of travel the next day we called it a night.

At the risk of sounding totally gay (although maybe it's too late for that?), Girls Day Out was TOTALLY AWESOME. It was pretty fun just chilling out and doing whatever, I can safely say a good time was had by all. Good times, good times.

Immature Office Banter of the Week:
Me: Hey, any of you guys want to get some dinner after work?
Tony: Only if your mum's on the menu.
Bystanders: Whhooooaaaa, burn!

Tune of the Post:
Five-O, James.

Link of the Post:
Facebook Get on it.

Alrighty kids, keep me posted on the news back home. Upcoming posts include Kitty Land Magic and Senmei's Going Away.
Peace!

The Family Comes To Town

As introduced to the world a few months ago, this is my now 5 month old nephew Baby Jez:

Jez recently came over to check out the japanasian hotties, and bought his support crew with him: his mum and dad (James and Mel) and also his ageing grandparents, Baz and Mez.

It was the first time I'd seen the fam for about ten months, and also the first time I met Jez in person. Me and the fam did a lot of catching up, plus heaps of toursity stuff around kumamoto, and with four digital camera's between us quite a few happy snaps were taken (as evidenced below).

Here's a shot of the first time I saw mum in almost a year:

And James:

The touring party was pretty tired from flights/train rides getting here from Oz, so we didn't do anything too spectacular on the first night, and Baby Jez was asleep (so I didn't get to play with him!) although the next morning it was all systems go:


Cute huh? Note the t-shirt. Like uncle, like nephew - that's what they say right?

We hired ourselves a massive van, and headed on a road trip to the local active volcano, Mt Aso. Check out the phat ride:

Unfortunately the weather was bit dodge, however it was heaps better the next day so we hit Kumamoto Castle, went and checked out Suizenji Park, then had lunch at Ni no maru (the castle park).

Suizenji snapshot:

Nice 'do' James (ha ha!):

Good times. It was another road trip day the next day, destination Kikuchi Gorge. It was pretty dangerous cos there was trees falling all over the place, but luckily James was on the ball and used some of the family's super danger strength to save the day.

We were a bit unsure of which way to go, but luckily James had it sorted.

Here's an interesting shot - check out the reflection in the car window:

After the gorge I drove the fam up to the top of Mt Kinpo for some excellent views over the city. Mum got a bit freaked out when I drove up a 'no entry' service road on the top of the mountain, but when you're as tough as I am you can do what you want. Afterwards it was onto my favourite japanese family restaurant, Joyfull, for some excellent 'n cheap eats.

After Joyfull I decided to show the 'rents my home away from home, Jeff's world bar. Being the excellent uncle that I am, I also introduced Jeremy to beer. Being a true Nash, he loved it.

Another cute shot:
All in all it was totally awesome having the family come up and stay, I'm looking forward to coming back in October for some more quality time.

Shamesless Plug: www.kumavibe.com
Recently I've been spending a bit of time making a website about Kumamoto. I found it hard to find info in english about my two favourite pastimes: eating and drinking, so I made a bit of a list and decided to post it so other can people can learn from my own excessive drinking.
Seeing that google ranks a website by the number of other sites that link to it, the more links to kumavibe from other pages the better. So:
For up to date reviews on bars, clubs, restaurants and cafe's in Kumamoto, check out www.kumavibe.com
The site's in test mode at the moment, but should have more info in a couple of weeks.

Gab and Marty
You guys should totally come over here for a ski mission. In Feb next year there's a snow festival in Sapporo which is meant to be pretty cool, I want to check it out. If you guys come over then, we could hit the slopes for a few days as well. Pierre you should get over here as well, make it a complete Box Hill North Reunion! Do it!

Ok that's about it for now. Stay tuned to the Dangerblog: upcoming episodes include 'Girls Day Out' and 'Harmony Land - Best Day Ever'.

Talk soon!