Vicarious Japanese: Birthday boi

My entrance into my late 20's started around 930am when my friends returned from their all-night trip to Osaka and rang my doorbell. When I picked up the phone, they exhaustedly sang 'Happy Birthday' as I rubbed the sleep out of eyes. Thanks Matt, Brenna and Luci! Later on that afternoon, I went to lunch with the two walking zombies (Brenna and Luci) and Lauren. I had some prep work to do for my evening, so Lauren and I hit a few stores around town - including a trip to the cell phone store where I got a new iPhone! The cute cell phone worker who speaks really good English actually sang part of Happy Birthday to me before I felt embarrassed for her and let her stop. Since I asked her to sing, I shouldn't have stopped her - but I didn't think she'd do it. She's either hilarious and awesome or a typical Japanese worker that will do just about anything. I appreciated it either way.

Lauren and I were herded onto the train a few hours later on our way to a nearby town called Kakogawa for a fireworks show. There have been yukata festivals all over the place this weekend and I've still yet to understand their purpose so I consider them celebrations of my birth. So, I'll formally thank the Himeji proper area for such a warm reception. Oh, what I would have paid for anything to be 'warm' over the 'miserably hot' that is everyday. Not only was Kakogawa miserably hot, there were about 8 trillion people in attendance and we sat on a steep hill - focusing more on not avalanching through people than on the fireworks. All that aside, the fireworks were nice and the whole experience was cool.

Mike, Jennifer and I made our way to a Kakogawa bar called The End for some drinks. Upon the arrival of my long island iced tea (bad move), I struck up...well, not a conversation per se but a muttering of Englese (oooh, that was meant to be English/Japanese but if I make my own language, that totally works too) with a girl in the bar because it was her birthday as well. I know nothing about her except that her birthday is August 3, 1982. Once the long island iced tea joined the alcohol party in my stomach, it was time to begin my mission. I bought a polo shirt earlier in the evening with the idea to have "It's My Birthday. Please give me a kiss" written in Japanese on it and see if I could get strangers to kiss and sign my shirt. The very nice lady next to us, Nozomi, wrote for us and made the first kiss and then forced her brother to do the same. I worked my way around the bar getting a few girls to kiss the shirt and yelling the little Japanese I know for the entertainment of the locals so that they would kiss my shirt. It worked and I am proud of myself.

After the bar, we cabbed it back to the train station and headed back towards Himeji for the typical end of night activity - karaoke. I've had more impressive performances in a karaoke room but I was wasted and focused on pretty much everything else. All told, my birthday ended at about 6am on August 4th but I believe your birthday doesn't end until you're asleep. So I got my sleep, woke up and was punished for my night's behavior with a nice wicked headache - I called my parents and got on with my day...here's to another year of getting older - and some pictures.