Tales From the Riverbank

I went to Japanese class on Wednesday morning for the first time in three weeks and felt quite guilty. There were two new people in the class trying to follow what was going on, but by this point the class was too far ahead for them to catch up after one lesson. Luckily the class had been studying things I already vaguely knew so I could follow what was going on. I'm not sure 10 A.M on Wednesday is the best time for me to go to class, but never mind. After the class I left my bike at Higashi Betsuin and took the train to Inuyama. A Western guy sat opposite me drawing passengers and we played a curious game where I pretended I wasn't trying to look at his pictures and he pretended he wasn't drawing people while simultaneously trying to angle his book away from me. He won.
Iain was sitting in bed writing his blog when I got to Inuyama. It was too nice to stay inside so we headed for the river armed with wine, bread, meat, salad and a guitar. Sitting by the river is pleasant, except for the fact that the river's edge is concrete. Sitting next to the bridge on hard steps smeared with pigeon crap, I felt like I was sitting in an underpass. Iain humoured me while we walked around looking for a patch of riverbank on the Gifu side that had some grass that wasn't four feet high, or rocks, or more concrete. We failed and returned to our concrete steps. Beauty spots are carefully planned and regulated here, and the Inuyama riverbank had not been singled out for beautification. Still, it didn't stop us from drinking lots of wine over the course of 10 hours and playing every song we could think of on the guitar. I love days like that, but I didn't love my sore head on Thursday. It took ramen and a donut to make everything ok, but I felt a bit gross after the ramen and donut. This prompted another vow of healthy eating. Hmm. Well. Let's see how it goes.
Lucy has had a guitar tucked away neglected in the corner of her room since I got here. I finally got my hands on it, tuned it as best as I could, and tried to remember how to play anything. Next site - guitar tabs...