Festival weekend minuets

Okay I just got home, and turned on my saletite tv while I started to unwind in front of the computer, and I hear a weird mechanical sound, and I look at the tv, and I see a mamogram, right there, everything showing, and it looks very painful and embarassing.
--
So this weekend was a festival in Saga city, and I joined the other JETs for good times. I rode the train, and am rather proud of my abilty to ask for help in Japanese when the whole process gets too confusing, but I did miss the first train back tonight. Apparently, though I took the time to establish that I need to wait on track 2, I didn't realize that there are two parts to it, and the train only stopped at the first part. So I arrived home quite late.
--
Squid on a stick is not all that great. I think I'm done with squid all together. Maybe octopus is the way to go. In any case, festivals have great foods, and I recommned melon-flavored ice covered with sweetened condensed milk.
--
The other JETs seem to think I have a commanding handle on the language, which makes me glad. I will be studying hard in my quest to become fluent.
--
As usual, my non-drinking status is a hurdle in relations, even with other gaijin. Last night: "You don't drink. Anything?! How do you have fun?!" By being in the moment, my friend.
I dealt with my minor agoraphobia by listening to my ipodmini in the bars. A Canadian girl accused me of being anti-social. Not by choice, lady. Don't they know it's cool to be a lone-wolf in this country?

After we left the irish pub (yeah, you read that right), I accompanied a very drunk english guy to the place where we were supposed to crash. Our host was not yet in, to our suprise, so we started to look for a Ramen shop. Ended up at the supermarket, having to endure him bugging every last person for things in broken Japanese. I apologized profusely to everyone for him. We got yakitori and ramen and eventually our host showed up so we could sleep.

Had brunch at the Japanese equivilent of a Dennys. Turns out that you get a big bowl of rice with a burger if you order one.

Overall, a fun weekend full of ethnic food, dances, and a little flirtation with female jets. Gotta go back soon.
Pic dump time, mostly from the festival. click to zoom; I don't think they really need captions this time, except for the first two.




This is Tara tower. A pint-sized structure next to my city hall.
This is a logo I see everywhere.