Duff Gardens, hoorah

We had lots planned for this weekend but life had other ideas; after what turned out to be an overzealous start, we tripped over the first hurdle and spent most of Saturday lying in a heap of meat-and-booze-induced pain. We were putting on brave faces but I think by 11am everyone realised it was an Xbox-and-aspirin kind of day. I apologise... for nothing!

That's not to say it wasn't fun - Friday night was the long-awaited return to the infamous "Brazilian restaurant". It's like a siren perched on the rocks of Harbourland, where men thrash against their bonds and scream for the release of a meaty death. The concept is simple - lots of booze and a buffet, with the added bonus of grinning men who wander around with huge spits and sharp knives. I finished up work and sloshed through the rain to the station, where I met Lisa and the gang and loosened my belt for the onslaught. We weren't disappointed - even the stuff in the bains was lovely and a peek into the kitchen as we walked past revealed dozens of rotating spits over the flames ripe for the eatin'.

The waiters always come up with ways to amuse themselves as they wander around and that night it was teasing the Japanese customers with increasingly ridiculous labels for each spit; we had, among other things, monkey tail (roast beef), crocodile (crackling pork), kangaroo (sausages) and elephant ears (lamb). It was all absolutely melt in the mouth gorgeousness, perfectly cooked with grotesque amounts of rock salt and garlic. After too much of everything dessert came out, which was huge slices of pineapple covered in condensed milk and cinnamon; we showed similar restraint with that (none).

We staggered out of the restaurant with Jessica - we had shanghaied her into giving us a tour of a festival in Sasayama the next day, so we decided to head for home. Unfortunately(?) we got jagged in a bar before we got there and ended up having another couple of drinks and chatting until the wee hours of the morning. Those ones or some of the others turned out to be the last straw and we all woke up with mouths like dropped steak, barely emerging from the house before midday. Jessica was giving it her all and insisting that she was well enough for her tour guide duties but I think we all knew it wasn't going to happen; she got off the bus looking even greener and we decided to leave it for another time. I'm not sure I would have made it all the way out there myself.

We spent the rest of the weekend just pottering around the house, eating stroopwafels and enjoying the sound of the rain outside where it should be. The weather cleared up on Sunday and we went out for a "butter blend coffee"; I'm not entirely sure what that is but I do know it's a Mikage invention that I've been meaning to try for a while. The shop is a tiny little hole in the wall next to the station with dark wood panelling and black leather seats, where people sit and smoke dozens of cigarettes back to back. The coffee came out in beautiful coloured china cups with gold spoons and the sugar bowls were all crystal - very posh. It was delicious, but I won't be too sad to leave the whole cream in coffee thing behind (not to mention coming out of a cafe smelling like an ashtray).

We timed it well - as we came out a couple of portable shrines were wheeling past for the danjiri festival, all drums and gongs and shouty men. A bunch of cops arrived and stopped all the traffic so that the two danjiri could inexplicably pop wheelies and do doughnuts for a while, to the approving shouts of the people standing on top of them. "I'm going to miss these random festivals," Lisa said, "you'd never get this kind of thing at home." You never know though - we'll have to check if hooning laws cover portable shrines.