No photos today, but damn I wish I had a good camera with me last night, I think I'll go look again for one tomorrow.

Last night, all of our "buddies" (students at the university who volunteer to help us with stuff) threw us a party at the largest of the uni cafeterias, it ran from 6.30pm - 8.30pm, but it was good fun! We arrived, and I met a Japanese girl known as 'Gon' (her real name is Mami) and she poured me some drink after I admitted I wasn't too keen on the beer someone had given me. So I drank lots of this sweet fizzy fruity juice, which came in cans, and it wasn't till Gon and I attempted to go to the bathroom that I realised the drinks had been very alcoholic, you can imagine my delight when in my stall I discovered one of these. It seems to be one extreme or the other over here, the seat was heated, it could spray and blow dry you in, um, various places, and it could play a little tune so that other people couldn't hear you pee. Fantastic.

Once the party ended at 8.30, poor drunken Gon had to stay and clean up, so after exchanging email addresses, I had a choice of where to head next. I decided to go with a group of people from the other House, most of whom I didn't know, to an American restaurant called "Big Boy". We ate, drank, and got kicked out after an hour or so, because in Japan many places just double your bill if you stay longer than that. But there was about 20 of us. Most people headed home after that, but it was still ridiculously early, so I headed with a few people to Lapita House, another uni accommodation to have a party on the roof. Whilst under the influence of alcohol, my Japanese had improved tremendously (Gon didn't know a lot of English) and when I met a Chinese girl called Nancy in the restaurant, I realised I also remembered a lot more of my Chinese than I had thought. However, it wasn't really necessary because Nancy's English and Japanese was perfect, although she hasn't really travelled, it's apparently all down to watching TV. Yeah!

So, we reached Lapita and made it to the roof, beer in tow. The view was amazing, the whole of Kyoto lit up, Kyoto Tower in the distance, and the green mountains all around us. We put some ambient background music on, and sat and talked and talked. At about 1.30am, I headed back to the House with Bjorn, a housemate who had also been there, and the bike ride was fun. Luckily for us there were no cars. I went to sleep at 3am, after talking to Dave on MSN, and this morning I'm not entirely sure I was sober when I got up to go to class, but it was all good fun. I'm just glad I had a decent night out, and today, emailing back and forth with Gon has proved to be good Japanese practice, I have a friend and a study aid all in one!

Hooray!