Happy New Year

It`ll soon be time to take the cards down, so I thought I would put a picture of my festive display on here for prosterity. The homemade Christmas tree has pride of place on the TV (yes, I am watching the Friends video I fished out of the bin). It has grown on me since I ungratefully dismissed it here. I am tempted to keep a few of the cards up for longer than you`re ought to, sod bad luck, they make the place look more homely.
After over a week in Kansai, Rachel and I came back to Omiya for New Year, which I ruined by being far too drunk. We headed out to Tokyo with Karen, Sean, Aki and a few others and had decided on a nice-sounding Russian shot bar, but were over-ruled by boys wanting to pick up Japanese girls. They also refused to listen to Aki`s directions and so we split up and lost them somewhere on the Tokyo subway. We eventually made it to the same bar as them, but less than 30 minutes before midnight. I over-compensated on not being drunk enough by mixing my drinks and downing an Absinthe. A ridiculous idea. My memory flickers from the Hub to Mojo`s and then waking up in my flat to the postman ringing the doorbell and Rachel pointing out I had abandoned her. I was immediately punished for my sins with a hangover verging on alcohol poisoning and was confined to my futon for the rest of the day, only managing to drag myself to the telephone to wish the relatives Happy New Year before collapsing under the blankets once more.

Yesterday was slightly more mobile, I managed to locate two closed post offices to return some stray goods of Rachel`s and to hit Daiei, the supermarket, to gather together the contents of chili con carne to cook for myself and Karen (a tasty dish inspired by Rachel`s meal last week and the Bisto Mum sent for Christmas - thank you!). After eating, we headed to Sean`s (he`s the one you can barely see in the picture with Karen) to drink a little more and watch DVDs on Adam`s laptop (Adam is in the picture below, and looks less creepy in real life). We got through a couple of series of Family Guy, which I`ve never seen before, but may invest in, and a couple of episodes of Spaced, along with a bottle of chilled Japanese red wine, Karen`s sake and a lot of Sean`s Jack Daniels. Surprisingly, today wasn`t as painful as 1st January and I`ve even managed some study - although only learning the kanji for door.

Omiya is as boring as a night in with Nicole Kidman right now. Although most of the shops are open, the post offices and banks aren`t. This isn`t too much of a problem for me, as I removed all my cash from the bank in a panic last week, but I am trying to be sensible with money for once and it means my friends, who were not so well advised (Rachel told me to make sure I had enough on me) can`t afford to do anything. I also need to make sure I have some cash when the post offices do open and also I have my eye on an amazing bag in Loft, which would perfectly replace the old one with the broken zip (I think this classifies as need and not extravagance). Most people are away visiting family, so it is far quieter than usual, though the red light district is a vibrant hub, as ever. I`m back to work on Tuesday, so I will either master Japanese in the next week, eat my own arms or be able to recite the entire scripts to Friends series 5.