Last Thursday was a strange day. Earlier in the week, it had already been decided that I would be visiting India for two days (today and tomorrow). By Thursday morning, it was looking like I would have to stop off in Malaysia for a couple of days on the way back.

Then… we managed to fix the problem in Malaysia. Woohooo. No need for that trip. A couple of hours later, and the India trip was cancelled too! Quite frankly, I must admit I was rather happy by this turn of events.

So, Thursday night, back home in a good mood. I cooked, wait for it, Indian curry for our dinner :)
Washed down with a few beers. Friday was a chilled out day (since it was another national holiday here in Japan). We eventually headed over to Machida, to hand over our Osaka ‘omiyage’ to the in-laws. After, when Yuko’s dad came home for work, we thought it would be a good idea to head of to an izakaya, since we were all feeling lazy and didn’t want to cook anything.
That night, Yuko’s dad was telling us that he didn’t need to go to work on Saturday (and Sunday which is his normal day off), due to the threat of ‘Typhoon No 17′. That turned out to be a bit of a let down, but no matter, it meant that Yuko’s dad could join us at Hibiya for the Oktoberfest German Beer Festival.

Saturday was a dull, cloudy day, spoilt somewhat with some rather bad downpours of rain. But no matter, from 12:15 to about 19:30 (ish, my memory by then was a little vague), much German beer and food was consumed.
The event was a lot smaller than the German beer festival I’d seen before in Cardiff about 7 years ago. However, due to less Japanese (and foreigners) going, it made sense to have a smaller venue, which was then packed.
At first, a lot of the Japanese were bemused by everything… the Yoodling, men wearing shorts and big beards, blonde women wearing Alpine clothing, and showing off a fair bit cleavege.
There were a couple of Japanese too wearing German traditional clothing. The two girls who were the MC’s wore the same Alpine type clothing as the two blonde German ladies. In fact Tomoko and Kaori (yes, I did find out their name… it was written on their name tags) were rather nice looking those costumes ;)
Another Japanese chap, also played one of the those large alpine horn instruments. As the day progressed, and the Japanese became more drunk, all those traditional Japanese mental barriers started to fall. Basically, the place was nuts, and there was lots of singing and dancing.
Yuko’s dad loved it all, as he fondly remembered the ‘beer halls’ he used to go to when he was a student.
I got speaking to various people. One Japanese lady (an older women, who obviously had a keen interest in Germany), started speaking to me… in German. Naturally, I had to tell her in my best Japanese that I didn’t know any German because I was British. I felt a bit bad then, because she felt like she had offended me by thinking I was German. I hope I managed to explain to her that I didn’t mind the mistake.
Later on, we got talking to some German chaps, who worked on the Embassy. They seem to have taken some photos of us using my camera (Jesus, I must have been drunk, but I don’t look it in the photos). So a big thank you to them :) Some of them came out really well.

I don’t remember much after that, except that I had a fricking bad head and stomach the next day.
Turns out Yuko’s dad did too, as we met up again for a trip to Wedding planners. As usual Yuko seemed to suffer no ill effects of all the beer consumed the day before.
As good fun parents are at times (like on Friday and Saturday), Sunday was a frustrating day, mainly for Yuko.
Yuko wanted to change her wedding dress (the Western style one, which I’m refusing to see… I’ve seen her Japanese dresses) to something a bit more simple. Of course, Yuko’s mum was not so happy about this. She wanted Yuko to wear something big, and flowery and really girly (it’s that damn かわいぃぃぃぃ “kawaiiiii” thing again). My thoughts… it’s Yuko’s day, she can wear whatever she wants. Yuko knows this too, but parents still cause stress sometimes.

So much for a quiet relaxing weekend. Today, I’m rather tired.