Weekend Update Part Deux - Sasebo

I wasn't really planning on going anywhere this weekend, but when Suzie called and tempted me with a beach party, I had to say yes. We headed up to Isahaya Saturday by way of Maki. After Suzie got her keitai and I was green with envy, we took a train to Sasebo to meet up with Suzie's friends. We bought 3 bottles of shochu and headed up to her friend Jenny's flat, which is TINY compared to our apartments here (there are advantages to living in the inaka!). We spent the afternoon laughing at the Jehovah's witness propaganda that Jenny received and talking about scary right-wing news websites.


Jehovah's witness propaganda is funny

Later, we took a bumpy shuttle ride to Shirahama beach for the party. It was not quite what I had in mind - I expected a laid back event but it was actually quite the opposite. Within 5 minutes of our arrival, Suzie's purse went missing. We had heard that there were lots of Navy guys about and not to bring anything valuable, but it was still upsetting. We tried to have fun anyway - there were some really friendly drunk Japanese people who had the cutest puppy, and we talked to them for a while. They kept giving us food, and I'm not really sure what I ate, but just went with it anyway. I was pretty grossed out by the Navy guys grinding on skanky Japanese women...it reminded me of an MTV beach party. So Erich and I just enjoyed our time on the beach, but stayed far away from all of the action.

Later we lost Suzie, found her, she found her purse again, and Erich and I decided to leave. Jenny was really kind and let us go back to her flat, which we also shared with a Kiwi named Sena (pronounced Xena). The next morning we toured around the shopping mall with a poor hungover Suzie, and found an awesome used clothing store and a temple.