happy halloween birthday

I had a really really good birthday! It was perfect.

Sonia came home for my birthday and we went out on the 25th to celebrate. while toddling around Osaka she fell in love with this big very strapping looking British guy and invited us to a Halloween pub crawl that he happened to mention in around Namba in Osaka. Sonia was great. She went to Osaka earlier in the day while i was still at work and got us costumes... there were wigs and big earrings, dresses and headbands it was awesome. we found the people from the pub crawl and go our tickets and list of pubs and such but the bathroom at the bar upstairs where everyone was was much much too small so we went downstairs to this completely empty bar- but for two women and the bartender- where we used the much more conveniently sized bathroom to change. afterwards we talked to the bartender and the women for a little bit... one of the women spoke english and had a drink. we drank chu-hi and when he found out it was my birthday the bartender gave us these really yummy japanese alcohol drinks that tasted like uzu (japanese citrus and lemony green tea). the bar was really cool cause they has a projector and a big white screen and they were playing a peice from this modern dance company... i forget what they are called but sonia found the dvd in Tokyo... they aren't japanese, it think they're scandinavian perhaps. in one part there was just this one lady in the woods dancing around and around in a circle and she was so graceful and in another part there were two women and they were really really beautiful and very synchronized. the bar had some cool books too, i liked it. when we heard all the people from the pub crawl starting to leave the bar upstairs (there was a whistle) we downed our drinks and ran after them. eventually we found the next bar and the night went on. at some point i think we went to some kind of underground performance bar with a bunch of girls dancing on a pole... but they were all clothed and not taking anything off so it wasn't a strip club, just dancing. at some other point there was a lady dressed up in an indian costume that reminded me a little bit of babeeta from sick kids who said happy birthday, which was nice (it was the glasses). there were girls with orange hair, and costumes galore. i think it was the last bar... or maybe it wasn't... that had a dance floor which was nice because i haven't been dancing in a long time and secretly it's really all i ever want to do. we surveyed all the boys and had lots of fun. some people bought me birthday drinks which was very nice of them. at around 4 or 5 am i think it was we walked over to the nearest subway entrance in a nearby arcade with a boy i don't remember the name of who not so secretly loved sonia and sat on the ground waiting for the subway to open so we could go home. we got on the subway and then on the train i sleepily went back home. i think we got home around 7am. it was much like that time and david went out all night in tokyo, and the with aaron... hmmm... sonia slept and slept and slept, but i woke up at 11am (only 4 hours... alcohol wakes me up early). i don't know what i did all day... i watched tv with a volume of 1, read possibly, and when i was getting almost too exceedingly board and fidgety sonia woke up around 3pm.i called ayako to ask her about dinner 'cause she had invited me to her house for a birthday party! her mom"s birthday is the day before mine and when she heard it was my brithday she invited me to her birthday party! it was awsome! i love ayako's family. they're something i'm gonna miss the most about japan (i might have almost cried a little). ayako and her brother and sister-in-law and neices picked me up in the station and i played the littlest girl sat on my lap and we poked our heads out the window and felt the wind and waved at people on the sidewalk and i played with the other little girl and it was so nice. i love them to bits, they're adorable. we picked up their brother and then we went back to ayako's house and i met her other brother and neice for the first time... she was shy for a bit and then when i started giving the girls piggy backs and tossing them around she lost all sense of reserve and clambered on my back to be raced around. AND we had a SUSHI PARTY!!!! have i ever told you i love sushi and that i was dieing for some sushi at that point. it was perfection. it was so cool. the little kids who are at the most four used this sushi roll making contraption thats really quite simple where you put a layer of rice on a peice of celophane and then the ingrediants you want in it like cucumber or tuna or egg and then another layer of rice and then you close it and slide a square of dried seaweed paper in and do a little twist an presto magico you got a sushi roll. the grown ups cut up all these delicious things like salmon and tuna and lots of other fish i don't know the names of and octopus and veggies and egg and sausage and we made rice and ripped up seaweed paper and so all you have to do is clump a bit of rice and whatever you like on a peice of seaweed and dip it in some soy sauce mixed with wasabi (they were impressed with my wasabi tolerance) or mayo and you have the bast thing you could ever eat. it was soooooo yummy. i ate lots and lots and it was great. and we had delicios soup too. and then when it was time for cake they set up the candles and sang happy birthday to both of us and we counted '1 2 3' and each blew out one side of the cake and it was soo sweet. the cake was this famous kobe cake and it was cream and strawberry fluffy white cake and it was really good. also, i played wii fit and it was really fun. i played the hoolahoop which i think i was pretty good at and boxing which i wasn't too too bad at and this soccer head-butting game which i was terrible at. it was funny everyone was very enthusiastic about me playing especially ayako's mom and and helped me do all the stuff. and then around 8pm or so we cleaned up (well ayako and her mom cleaned up, i played wii) and they gave me ride to sannomiya station where i met sonia and had dinner.

it was a most spectacularly perfect birthday day.