And then I drank and then I Danced

Well hello my friends!!  Long time no see.

I apologize for the long delay but I have had a number of things happen.

1) My work has increased so I did not have as much time

2) I couldn't bring myself to writing these VERY long posts

3) Nothing SUPER interesting has happened

4) IM TIRED

I decided to amend this situation by making small changes.  I will post more often but they will be shorter posts.  Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for your reading entertainment.

Yesterday I went to a festival.  This was one of the most fun nights of my life.  I really felt like I was living my adventure in Japan.

Basically, what I can tell you, is I drank, and then I danced.

Here is my story,

It was about 4:00 pm when I was picked up by my coworker and good friend.  His family led me to the festival.  I spend the time with his children

We walked around and I saw some really cool stuff.  The main attraction in the festival was hand made hundreds of years ago!  How cool is that!


After some time, I sat down with my friend's family and we drank in a small area with lots and lots of people.  We drank and drank and drank.  I bought things for others and they bought things for me.  It was just a very fun time drinking with everyone and making a number of new friends.

Later when it started to get dark, there was lots of music.  It was unlike anything I have heard before.  It was interesting because it was just the same tune over and over for hours but it really didn't get annoying.  It was actually nice to hear the tune again and again because after a while, it kind of set a tempo for the entire event.

When we were all watered down with alcohol, we decided to walk around a bit.  We just looked at the food and the shops that were all over. We came to an area where there was a huge mass of people!  They were all dancing.  It was at that point that I found out one of my new friends actually takes the lessons for this traditional dance.  He taught me and I danced in a giant ring of people for about 30 minutes.  I only did 1 "lap" of the ring, but everyone said it was good luck to do 3.  But 30 minutes per lap made me want to try other things also.  So we all decided to go.

My friend decided to go home with his children but left me there to enjoy the celebration a little more.

I went to a bar with my new friends and we drank for a while longer.  We met the owner of the place and now I will go there a lot more.  She was so nice.

I then went to a different bar that my friends told me about.  It was kind of in the middle of nowhere and I was a little scared because I didn't REALLY know these new friends that well yet, and they were taking me places I didn't know, but if my coworker trusted them, I should to (it's the Japanese way!)

Upon arrival, There was a man in the most amazing white suit I have ever seen.  It was his bar, and he was also a golf teacher.  I will go golfing with him on the 25th of this month now!  What a crazy night it was.

The older gentlemen kept pouring me glass after glass of beer, and who am I to refuse him...  So I drank and drank again,

After that bar, I had only 10 minutes to get to the station or I would miss the last train.  It was a 15 minute walk so I really had to run.

By the way, running after drinking a lot... not fun

But I made it with no trouble and was headed home when I got a message on my phone.  It was my other friends.  They were on the train that just arrived and wanted to know if I wanted to go to another bar with them.  So I told them to wait 6 minutes for me to arrive, and then we all piled into a car and drove to a restaurant.  At the place... you guessed it.... we drank.

We also ordered a lot of food.  I ate and drank until around 1:00 and then took a taxi home.

I fell right to sleep.

I had the best time ever at Kiryu Matsuri!  I will go again today!

(Keep an eye out for another post about my adventures tonight as well)