die robber boy, die

This was a party of a weekend for sure with Debbie's 23rd birthday on Sunday...Friday night out in town, Saturday night on the beach in Kashiwazaki, and last night out in town again at the beer garden and dance party at Kumakichi.

Kashiwazaki was awesome! Stayed up to watch the sunrise until I realized we were facing west.

Last night tons of people came to the beer garden, lots of English teachers and some ALTs from around here and there...I think a lot of us were tired cuz it was the third night straight celebrating Debs' bday.

Too bad the night had to carry a slight stigma though...turned out that Debbie's very sweet friend Alice who is visiting from the UK saw a random guy at the party going through her bag and her wallet. I guess she tried to confront him about it and he ran out the door. She grabbed me and we went looking for him...I was sort of in disbelief that it had happened in our little town and didn't actually expect to find someone. However we saw a guy walking across the parking lot...Alice said he was the one and I yelled at him in Japanese to stop and talk for a minute. He looked straight at me and started sprinting and jumped over a fence and ran.

Again I was sort of in shock because it was obvious this guy was guilty...I hesitated for a minute and just sort of thought out loud, "do I really need to CHASE this guy?" and started running after him (probably in a zig-zag way as we had just finished the nomihodai at the beer garden) and he was gone immediately, probably zipped into some side alley, the sneaky bastard.

Was pretty angry about it and felt bad for Alice...and walked around for a bit looking but figured it was a lost cause, and that we should just go back and talk to people and figure out who he was. Everyone knows everyone in this town and there had to be someone there who could give us some clues. Ended up talking to one guy who was sitting with him but he wouldn't tell us much and thought the guy came alone. I didn't believe him.

Ended up getting a weird feeling and checking my own bag...and turns out every last yen out of my wallet was stolen too. Just under $200 about. I got really pissed off that not only had Alice's cash been swiped, but I had been messed with too, in my own regular bar, in my own mountain town!

Again went looking for the guy with no luck.

Was frustrated and angry for a while but Alice had the better attitude about it and helped cool me off and we ended up staying and dancing for a while and even going to Lupin after and having a good time...but I was just frustrated that it had to be a bit of a stain on Debbie's super fun birthday night.

I am mostly just shocked that it happened, and frustrated that this will be the second theft report I'll have to file with the police within 11 months of living in this innocent town in the safest country ever. I simply just don't like to be fucked with, and in the same situation back home I would have been able to figure out who it was or exert a little control over the situation.

But in the end it's just cash, and in the land of karma, robber guy is screwed.