A busy day…
Today started with me catching the train from Fujisawa to Shinagawa. I met Mikiko there, and together we went to Kashiwa station. We were supposed to catch a local train 1 stop (to Minami-Kashiwa), but were so busy talking we ended up on an express train! So after 5 minutes or so, it stopped, we got off, and then caught a local train for 15 minutes back to Minami-Kashiwa. Total cost was ~1200 yen ($15?) so had been an expencive morning of travelling!
Dai-san picked us up from there and we got to Kashiwa stadium around 12:00 (half an hour late). I got the updates applied to their computers, gave them a new (second) phone, and walked them through the subtle changes that had occured. We got away about 2.00, and drove to Nishifunabashi. We went a number of “short cuts” – down streets that really should have been one way, but weren’t. Dai-san seemed to know a number of these back roads, and we got to Nishifunabashi stadium about 3.00 (again, half an hour late).
Once I had installed the updates there, I went through them with Miyakawa-san. I also gave them 3 replacement phones – these ones were in Japanese, so have eliminated one of their arguments for not using Datascore (the phone I had left them with last time didn’t support Japanese characters). We got away about 6.00. As we were all pretty hungry (no lunch as the day had been so busy), we went to a nearby restaurant and had some sushi. We left about 6.45.
Dai-san went home, and Mikiko and I caught the train to Shinjuku, where we were meeting Occhi-san and a group of his friends for dinner and drinks. We turned up about 8.00 (an hour late), but it took us a while to find the actual place, so it was 8.20 by the time we got there. They had arranged 4,000 yen (about $50) for meal and “all you can drink”. But after the last time Occhi and I went out together, he ended up in Hospital and I spent the next day in bed with a bad hangover. So we were more respectable tonight! Kaoru didn’t get away from work until late, as it was the end of the month, but arrived around 9.30.
As usual, it was a very enjoyable evening out with Occhi. He brought along the goal keeper for his team, who is the one non-blind player. He also has been studying English so spoke quite well. There was also a “Sports Management” student there (which, given my experiences, I wonder what the Japanese teach people with regards to “Sports Management”!), and one of the girls we had met in the past.
The trip back to Fujisawa was a long one. We had to go to Shinagawa and change trains. We got back to Kaoru’s apartment around 1.00am, both very tired.