All-nighter in Kyoto.

That's right. I'm down in the Kansai region of Japan. It took me about 4-5 hours to get here from my tiny town farther north. I came to visit my really good friends Josh and Shannon in the town of Hikone. They live across the street from an old castle. It is really amazing. The moat is wide and deep, and just across the street.
It's been great and rejuvenating to be able to spend time with old friends on the other side of the earth. Josh is easily one of my closest and best friends. We were remarking last night how we can just take for granted that we'll understand each other's off-the-cuff joking. He's easily one of the funniest people I've ever met. And he really encourages me, as a professor once advised me, to "follow my weird." Shannon has always got a smile and an encouraging word for me. Which is incredibly meaningful here in Japan, as I'm more often than not left to my own self-motivation.
It was also good to see them because we really had a great time going out drinking. The first night here, we went to one of the best bars in town, Yab's (the slogan is "Let's Get Shit-Faced!"). It was really cool and I met some of Josh and Shannon's friends. We....well, got pretty shit-faced and then karaoke'd nearby. I am really getting better at the karaoke thing. I even have pictures. Last night was by far the best night of the trip, though. We decided to take a trip to Kyoto, and just walk around and do whatever we wanted. I bought a couple of books (some study, some pleasure) at an English bookstore. Awesome. As the night progressed, we were laying on the banks of the Kamogawa River, drinking "American Taste" beer from a nearby convenience store, just watching the skyline and making each other laugh. Pretty great, really.
Then we got takoyaki. Takoyaki is squid balls, like squid tenticles in a doughball, with a lot of sauces on it. It was my first time, and although squidballs sounds perhaps a little gross, it was actually really delicious.
After that we went to a bar with 200 yen ($2.00) cocktails. I drank maybe half of them on the menu, from the Peach Princes (Josh ordered it for me) to the Dirty Mother. It was a weird scene in the bar, sort of. We met some Swedes and a couple of Canadians and just kept drinking til early in the morning. Apparently, bars don't really have to shut down in Japan. So, we stayed until 5 am, got some breakfast, and caught one of the first trains home......that was full of salarymen and schoolchildren off to their respective Monday morning activities, while I tried not to look too much like a bad gaijin, slyly sipping chuu-hai and looking a bit disheveled, trying unsuccessfully to avoid the collective Japanese ire.

I feel like I can cross something off my things to do before I die list. "I just pulled an all-nighter in Kyoto, getting drunk in a $2 cocktail bar" sounds way too cool to not make a big to-do over.

Consider it to-done.