Round 1

This past weekend, Natalie, myself, and a group of friends went to check out this huge entertainment complex near my school in Okayama. Round 1 is basically like a Celebration Station, on crack. It has almost everything you can imagine, that you wouldn't find at an amusement park. I'm not sure if that makes sense but at an amusement park, we can usually find roller coasters, Ferris wheels, and carnival games. Well, at Round 1, you can find anything that is not at an amusement park such as roller blading, Karaoke, batting cages, ping pong tables, arcades, pachinko machines, UFO games, kids play places, basketball, internet cafes, pool tables, golf, bowling, badminton, beer, and bad food. It's quite epic actually. Especially since the whole complex is indoors and it's in a 6 story building. The whole place was really nice, played 80's hits, and was endlessly entertaining.

Somehow, 3 hours felt like about an hour and the whole thing only cost us about 17 bucks (every attraction is unlimited). Throughout our time there, I probably had enjoyed the batting cages the most. There's nothing like swinging a bat as hard as  you can at a tiny little white ball. It just gets all of the frustration out (not that I had any to let out). I also played Tennis with Natalie and that was fun. I played a game of PIG with the group and although I did really bad, I did hit a behind the hoop shot. That's pretty impressive considering that I'm as big a fan of basketball as I am a crappy basketball player. Sometimes, I missed the hoop completely.

I also had a roller blade battle with a professional roller blader. Actually, I didn't do anything of the sorts but there was this one incredibly cool, dorky, effeminate, roller blade aficionado that was pulling off every roller blading ultimate special finishing technique known to the entire western (Well, Eastern) hemisphere, all while looking gracefully ridiculous. I mean, he was pulling off triple axle spins, one legged horizontal electric guitar moves, disco boogie back flips, and at one point, he was skating with his hands. I'm pretty sure he was listening to ABBA's Dancing Queen. He was quite entertaining. And then his dad joined in, then was like father and son (instead of Will Ferrell and Napoleon Dynamite) Blades of Glory. All that was missing was a polyester body suit with gold trimming and pink flames, a Mel Gibson mullet and you had the 1988 Roller Blading Olympics. Epic.  Plus, the dad complemented my roller blading skills at one point. That's when I realized I could leave Round 1 with my head held high.

Well, Round 1 was a blast. Afterwards, we went to an Izakaya and then to a bar. One the way home from those fun outings, there was a Japanese businessman, on the subway, that spilled his life's passions and studies onto us (in Japanese). Between the three of us (Natalie, myself, and another friend) and our almost non-existent Japanese, we deciphered from his speech and discombobulated sketches that Japan is bad because the highway system is not as well planned as the American system. Trains are great in Japan, but this man was passionate that Japan was doomed into oblivion because they don't have a good highway system like the US of A. It took all of this effort, passion, drawings, hand movements, and whatever else he could pull out of his bag of tricks to communicate this rather mundane observation on America vs. Japan. Oh well, the process was fun.

And so, that was the weekend. I just finished my first day at work in a suit. We had been wearing summer T-shirts since I started, but now we're back in suite. I'm ready to get this week over with. Nothing planned this weekend, but whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be fun.