Damnit

So school doesn't start for another couple of days, but guess where I am.  Unfortunately my criminal ineptitude means that not only could I have stayed at the festival (photographs incoming) for a lot longer, I could have properly thanked those who helped me out over the weekend.  It was excellent.  On the Saturday we had a Lion training session in Summer heat that shouldn't be legal - then a superb barbecue hosted by a fellow Englishman on his penthouse terrace (whom I'm asking for a job, which is a shame because his abode is something to aspire to and I don't want to seem like a kissass).

The training session consisted of me trying my best to stay in the shade; on a rugby pitch.  As you may imagine that didn't work out well.  Nor did the sun-cream that kept removing itself due to my incessant sweating.  I ended up being burned in more ways than one, because the fitness session we had at the end caught me off guard.  It was (what seemed like) an incredibly simple concept, do ten sprints over 50 (or so) metres, broken up by a minute or so rest.  Each set of sprints was conducted in pairs, so we left the line five times.  The execution was quite fun - a race between two teams to pick up cones scattered around the pitch and then feed them onto a pole placed on the halfway line.  Getting the cone and placing it onto the pole was the first sprint, with a few seconds rest while you're threading a surprisingly difficult needle, then sprint back to your team.  I didn't know when we started, but the losing team had to buy drinks (non-alcoholic) for the winners.

It caught me off guard because I was trying my hardest.  On the final sprint I ended up just flopping over the line and collapsing in a giant heap.  Afterwards, as cliche as it might sound, my legs were jelly.  They barely responded to commands and whether it was the heat or the exertion, I felt awful.  It took about twenty minutes for my body to behave normally again, which is a long time to remind yourself of the old american frontier literature, where they take glee in pointing out to the reader that overworked horses are sent to the knackers.

One of my friends was performing at a concert on the same day.  Unfortunately he was playing at a place that cost forty quid to enter, on the other side of Tokyo, at the same time as my training finished.  To cap off the impossibility of going to see him, all the tickets were booked so I couldn't get in anyway.  It's a shame because I'm not normally interested in music and events like that, except when a friend or acquaintance is involved.  He's the guy I went swimming with a year ago, whose shorts were far too small.  I was thinking about buying a cheap pair of kids shorts to give to him.

So I ended up wiling away the interminable hours at a barbecue, forcing myself to eat sausages and burgers provided by a fellow Englishman who goes by the name of Liam.  The burgers were particularly good as they were chunky things - none of this macdonalds style american nonsense.  The sausages weren't so good as they were the american style nonsense; but they were edible.  I'm thinking about having a spare key secretly made, so I can sneak onto his patio and chill out without the need for a pesky invitation.

Unfortunately I lost track of time (something I do with alarming frequency) and missed my last train home.  I therefore had to stay around the team captains house (again) so I could play in the small 9's tournament being held at the gaijin home ground.

It was a lot of fun, but somehow hotter than the Saturday which meant a lot of hiding under the various tents people had erected.

Our club were banned from our own competition by the council (the long arm of local politics reaches far in Japan) because one of our players threw their boots away in the wrong rubbish bin a month or so earlier (evidently boots are not combustible) necessitating a divide within our team.  A few of the Japanese players went to a team in blue.  A few of the foreigners went to a different blue team, and the rest of us went to a team that goes by the name 'dandelion.'  With this stoically branded team, we would embark on a six (or so) game campaign to win the title.  It's worth mentioning that me and Bati (a Fijian guy who is over forty) initially went to the light blue team and were rejected, turned away like the fat kids in school.  This was to fuel for us to burn while playing.

The games went by surprisingly quickly, with the green team consisting mainly of foreigners (for some reason they'd turned up to this tournament with few players, most of whom weren't even willing to participate) and spoonfuls of luck.  We won every game of the league stage, meaning we went into the knockout competition for the top prize.  The matches were seven minutes long (there were ten teams, so a lot of matches which was the reason for the short games) with no turnaround at half time.  The scrum situation was bizarre, with the attacking team picking however many players they wanted, the defending team being obliged to match that number.  Any fewer than five people became an uncontested scrum so everyone opted for four men each time.  It was quite strange.  There was an eight man scrum at one point, which meant there were no players in the back line.

It was exceedingly hot, but a lot of fun.  It wasn't particularly serious so it made a nice change from the other competitions I play in, and there was a great atmosphere among the foreigners, even though we split up into different teams.  We didn't end up playing the light blues (a crying shame, in my opinion) but we did play the dark blues in the final.  A couple of our Japanese players were playing for them, and were dominant in their previous games.  We were expecting a tough game, which they delivered due to a late fightback after we went a couple ahead.  Bati, a veteran in sporting terms, has this incredible ability to turn on his Fiji within the short format game.  It's often said that Fijians go through spaces no one else could, but it's not true.  I watched him actively make space, where none existed before.  He's not the fastest guy, but he has a psychic ability to split defence despite there being more than enough people to cover him. In the final he took a defensive line of five people, and walked between two of them to score.  When he got the ball, one of the defenders was actually standing right in front of him, but Bati mesmerised him, telepathically forcing the opposition player to move out of his way without so much as a touch.

Mojee, another Fijian, is much more direct.  At four foot nothing and a hundred or so kg's, he essentially makes like a temple of doom boulder and bowls people out of the way.  A pretty effective combination.

Anyway, after the tournament I was escorted to a local public bath by an american who has studied Japanese for a long time, and who has lived here long enough to know all the customs and traditions.  It's not the first time I've been to one, but it is the first time I've been so filthy when going in so he imparted practical knowledge unto me, for which I am grateful.  The first thing you do is clean off, showering away the grime so that you can enter the hot baths to chill out.  Unfortunately I never got past the cleaning off the grime part as I couldn't get the dust out of my grazes.  I spent a fair while rubbing down the cuts and scrapes, quietly cursing the fact I eschewed taping in favour of vaseline.  I also have some nice blisters on my feet - nice enough to take a couple of photos tonight I think.

After that we went to a massive festival - the biggest one I've ever been to by a long stretch.  I'll write about it at a later date, but for now, that's all you're getting!

#EDIT#  The other pictures are now annotated.