So, this post is a half week in the making. The semester is winding down. No, "winding down" implies things are slowing down, and I'm ridiculously busy.

This past weekend started Friday night with a birthday party for one of the Japanese volunteers from school. I went with several other students to a very nice bar close to where we all live. I found out that the other bar I previously went to's name isn't Izakaiya like I thought it was. In fact izakaiya is the Japanese word for "pub" or a local bar that serves as much food as they do alcohol. I think a good time was had by all. We sat and talked until around midnight when everyone who took the train had to leave (the last train leaves for Shinjuku at midnight.)

Saturday morning I got up bright and early to wonderfully warm sunlight streaming in my window. It was such a nice day out I couldn't just sit around the house and waste it. Not having any ideas on someplace better to go, I took out my travel guide and picked a random spot to walk around in.

The spot I picked is just off the train line I take to school. The station is Shinnanomachi but the area is called Akasaka. Wait, you may think, Akasaka... didn't you already go there... twice? I have been to A-sa-ku-sa twice. A-ka-sa-ka is someplace different.

Akasaka is home to mainly two things, a large sports park, and the secondary palace. I first walked around in the sports park for a while. It's actually quite a large area. There are six baseball diamonds in the center, a full baseball stadium, and a rugby stadium on the outside. There are various other sports facilities here too. Sort of out of place is the National Portrait Gallery which sits at one end of the park.

The secondary palace grounds are right next to the sports park so after walking around in the park I headed in that direction. I figured the secondary palace (actually called Asakasa Palace) was going to be some sort of museum type place (ala the Hermitage) but to my surprise it's actually a fully functional palace (complete with guards and the "being watched" feeling.)

The palace seen through the main front gate.

The trees in front of the main gate have fully changed color. (Palace gate on the left, DoKoMo tower in the far background.)

After walking around the palace for a while (you can't go inside) I walked along part of the old moat system for a while before coming upon a path that turned into a park near school. I got on the train at the station near school and rode home.

At Shimotakaido station I pass a posting for the "Shimotakaido Cinema" every day. Up to that point I hadn't been able to locate it yet. As I passed the sign I noticed there was a little hand drawn map showing the theater's location. After exiting the station I followed what the map said and found it quite easily. Not having too much else to do I decided to see what they had playing.

Here's the rundown on the Shimotakaido Cinema. First, it's a "Cinema" not a movie theater. It only has one screen (descently sized, however). Unlike other "Art houses", this one had very nice comfortable seats and a modern look to it. Tickets were a bit on the expencive side (about $14US).

The movie showing was "Der Unntergag" ("Downfall" in the US, "Hitoraa" here in Japan) IMDb info here. It's about Hitler's last days. It's a German movie, with German vocals. The catch? The subtitles were in Japanese. It really pushed my kanji reading skills to the limit. Kind of knowing what the basic story was helped. Regardless of how much I didn't know what they were saying, it was a good movie.

Sunday morning once again I got up quite early, this time for Kent practice. In between practices I washed my keikogi so as to not wind up blue again (I still got a little blue.) After practice I zipped home and did a few loads of laundry and my homework for the weekend.

At 3:00 I met with on of the Japanese students who attends some of the JLSP classes (they're NiDai classes, so Nidai students can come if they wish). During a party a few weeks back I noticed he had a pool que bag with him and, in making small talk, asked if there was anyplace to play close by. He said there was, and even close to my house.

We walked a good distance to another part of town where I hadn't been yet. We went up to the second floor of a building which turned out to be the pool hall. I must say it was very nice. Clean, well lit, and (although smoking is allowed) not very smoky. We played pool for several hours. After I lost several games in a row he switched to his off hand... and still beat me. Evidently his "sport" is pool, he has played as much as five times a week for the past several years. Although I couldn't win to save my life I still had a lot of fun. I even learned that Japanese 8-ball is played with different rules than American 8-ball (I'll spare you the details.)

Once we were all pooled out we decided to grab some dinner. We had some delicious Japanese curry at a little chain restaurant close to the pool hall. After dinner I headed home. And that was more or less, my weekend.

Up to this point I didn't have any (good) pictures of the "Bekkan" (annex building) where I take my classes. It just happened while I was walking around I passed by it, and with the combination of remembering to do it and good lighting, I took a picture.

In another extremely late response to a comment made, I used photoshop to tidy up a few pictures from my trip thus far. As requested, they're nice and big. You can check them out here.

That about wraps things up for now. Tomorrow is yet another holiday. Labor Thanksgiving Day. Basically it's Japanese Laborday. It has nothing to do with American Thanksgiving and is always November 23rd (not just the in forth week of November.) I think it's the last holiday while I'm here, but who knows, maybe they'll come up with another one before I leave.

Oh, parting note: expect another mammoth post next Monday (read Tuesday). Sparks is coming to town again this weekend (read big smiley face).

Ja Mata Ne.