It got worse

Beer garden season is officially upon us, which means you can sit atop a building, stare at the uninspiring skyline and eat chicken that's been reheated in a fryer no less than 4 times. At least the beer's good though - it's in an automatic pouring machine that has two separate nozzles for beer and head so I can't stay mad at them for too long. Fortunately the rainy season took a breath on Friday and spared turning our spot into a rooftop pool, so we ended up having a nice night under the stars. The rest of the weekend wasn't quite so successful, to say the least.

You might be able to squeeze a few more in

After I finished work on Friday we dashed out to Kakogawa, a little city just beyond Akashi that seems to have earned its reputation as somewhere you disinterestedly whizz by on the way to Himeji. We wandered out of the station and headed to the roof of the building opposite, where hundreds of plastic chairs had been laid out for a crowd that never came. Our little corner of the garden was for the JETs leaving this year and those saying goodbye to them - about 40 of us all up.

But where are the beach umbrellas?

We chatted away between bouts of going up for more beer, chicken nuggets and fried cheese (I wish I was joking) and despite my colossal tolerance for snacky food, I found myself not really wanting more after the first couple of plates. The booze didn't let us down, of course - as many lagers, stouts and mixed drinks as you could drink, which was apparently quite a few.

"This is what I'm gonna do to your nuts if we don't go to karaoke"

At 9 o'clock we burst out on to the street, hooted a few times and then came to the noisy conclusion that it was time for karaoke. The place we went to was huge and nicely fit out with bench seats wrapping all the way around the rooms, but after trying to find about 5 different songs in the machine and having no luck, it seemed they had neglected the whole "singing" bit. I passed the remote to someone else and Adam, Lisa and I quietly pressed the eject button to leave before they did a final headcount. Kobe, I'll never leave you again.

For some reason I woke up Saturday morning feeling like someone had wailed on my shins with a baseball bat, despite being one of the few people who wasn't drunkenly injured the night before. I figured I had just slept funny and that a good walk would do me good - it took me until we arrived in Osaka to realise how bad an idea this was. I made the lamest attempt ever to stumble around the new shopping centre at the station, before giving up and collapsing into a husband chair while Lisa did a lap of the shops. By the time I had struggled off the bus and started walking up the hill, the bones in my left leg had turned into prawn crackers and I practically had to be carried up the stairs.

I woke up the next morning feeling absolutely fine however, which seemed ridiculous given how close to death I was the day before. I assured Lisa I didn't need a wheelchair and we headed out again to do some chores in Kobe. At one point I crouched down to have a look at the games on the bottom shelf and I felt a tendon in my left leg twang like a banjo string, let out an involuntary groan of pain and probably gave a lot of people the wrong idea. To this day I have no idea what was/is wrong, but I'm terribly glad I didn't go to the gym because if I had I'd probably still be sandwiched inside the leg press machine. We managed to get a few things done while we were out, but the bad luck continued when we tried to attach a longer hose to our water heater. It turned out we bought the wrong thing and couldn't even get the original one back on; standing there with a pathetic look on my face while water pissed through my teatowel into the grill has to be the best summary of the weekend I can imagine.

At least the beer was good though.