Day 127: Grass Wars and Hanabi

---

I had such a romantic day today. It's a little bit of a shame that my romantic day was shared with a various collection of women and not with the a gorgeous, tall, muscley japanese dancing teacher, but that's the way these things work sometimes. I guess. If they have to. I don't see why they do though.

Anyway, my date day started off with Sanae. We had set today aside to go exploring the prefecture of Chiba, famous for all the disney resorts and for the picturesque beauty of the seaside. Leaving disney aside we decided to check out the seaside and alighted at Kasairinkaikoen station and made our way past the fountain and giant ferris wheel to the shade of the trees lining the water below. It was so, so hot, but unfortunately, the Kasai Coast is part of the Japan Gulf, which means no swimming, so we did the next best thing and drank some canned cocktails under the shade of the trees, bitching about an old friend of Sanaes (who has been nicknamed Evil II) and challenging each other to Grass Wars.

How to play Grass Wars

- Pick a piece of grass
- One player must hold their piece vertically, the other player must hold theirs horizontally
- Push the pieces of grass against each other in a cross until one persons piece of grass breaks
- The person whose grass has broken now has two pieces of grass, so doubles them together into one mega piece of grass and the two battle again
- Repeat until theres no grass left to hold

It's a bit hard to explain, but quite addictive.

After I kicked Sanaes ass at Grass Wars we rode what used to be the highest ferris wheel in the world until The London Eye came along, and then parted ways at the train station, with me moving on to the next portion of my date day and Sanae going home to feel sick and quietly die in the dark at her Mothers house sweating and forcing down bottles of water.

I met Yumiko at Ichikawa station at 6:00pm and holding hands we strolled through the streets, buying more canned cocktails at the combini and festival food from the street vendors we passed on the way. We reached the river and sat ourselves down on the grassy hillside, preparing ourselves (getting drunk) for the evening ahead. The first fireworks went off with a huge bang, and everyone burst into a massive round of applause calling out "Tamiya" in their appreciation of the colour and beauty. Five minutes later Phoebe and her friend Haining slid down on the ground next to us, their faces upturned to the stunning spectacle taking place in the sky. The fireworks went for about an hour and a half and when finished we made our way to the station, a little bit drunk, very giggly, speaking a variety of languages and all representing a different part of the world; Yumiko for Japan, Phoebe doing it for Hong Kong, Haining representing Taiwan and of course me, doing my best for Australia as I stumbled through the crowds trying to speak a mixture of japanese and french (Hainings fluent in french) but mostly just jabbering away nonsensically in English.

---