It's the weekend before the big conference now and everybody has left town to hit up Tokyo a little early. I considered it, but since I'll be gone all the way through next weekend I figured I'd mellow around town on my own a little bit. So, last night I went out with a girl named Mai and her friend Yuki, who I met through a guy named Atchan. Ate some okonomiyaki, went drinking at a few places. Learned a little Japanese, but they really talked alot in Tokamachi-ben (the town's local dialect). I knew that every town and area has its own funny words, but I never realized there was so much that is directly specialized in each area. I'm still looking forward to going down to Osaka to hear Kansai-ben, which is really hard to understand, sort of like going to Boston or the southeast or anywhere where the accent and language is so much different (but I think this is more extreme).

Annie tried to get me to go to Joetsu tonight for the open mic but I'm really into my town this weekend...I think just because the other ALTs aren't really around I feel like it's my opportunity to make it 'my town' for the weekend, and speak ONLY Japanese (which I rarely do), since the entirety of next week will be in English (isn't it weird how I'm planning ahead by what language I'll be speaking in?) So, in 30 minutes I'll go out again and have the same kind of night and meet up with a couple guys maybe.