Darlo's World

There’ve been more than a few times where friends have asked me if I wanted to go to gigs and concerts and even though I’m in Japan and should be experiencing as much as possible, my answers have normally been the same:

“I don’t have the money“, “I don’t have the time” or “I really don’t fancy going that far“.

I then normally explain that I’d love to pop along to one of the plenty of groups who play in the streets of Osaka. Hmm … perhaps plenty’s a bit of an exaggeration, but get on down to Umeda on a Saturday and you’ll normally find a group. If not you could always just go to Yodobashi Camera and have your eardrums burst by the incredibly irritating American announcer as a continual loop of different language give you information on the store.

Now skip back a few months (feel free to look through the old journals in order to do that) to when I was gutted to find that DragonForce, a band worth paying £16 to go and see, were playing at Leeds University (aka my uni) but waited until after I’d left the piggin’ country.

Redemption came to me earlier today whilst working through Kanji in Context and faffing about on the internet as I discovered that once again Dragon Force we making a trip to my doorstep. On the 27th of March DragonForce will be coming down to Osaka and playing at the Zepp. I check the price … 7,000 yen! That’s … that’s … more expensive than a cheeseburger! Right now that’s about £54.50.

I think to myself about some of the conversations I’ve had with home, and how much they want me to enjoy myself and do at least one awesome thing, so I begin to seriously consider going. After all seeing a band I like is one thing, but seeing them in the city that I adore is something else.

I’ve shown many times here that things can and never will go as smoothly as I’d like, and this also comes into play right now. For you see, Konan University were kind enough to line up various trips for us while we are here to experience new things and see new places. This means that on Friday 27th of March at 7pm when DragonForce kicks off … I’ll be over in Hiroshima, 176 miles away on a trip I’ve already paid through the (fire and flames, lol) nose for.

Oh cruel irony, why dost thou mock me so.

Previously I have wrote about how fate is cruel and how irony loves to give you a kick in the arse not only when you’re down, but when your down belly flat on a pile of broken glass and rusty nails. Well add that to a shot in the nuts and thats what I had to handle today.

To stay alive in Japan you need this little thing called money, and recently things had been looking up financially. My student loan payment was coming through and the exchange rate had been on the up, hitting 140 yen to the pound a few days ago. Fast forward to this morning when the cash was actually in my bank account and you’d be forgiven for thinking I would have been a happy and relieved chappy.

First task this morning was to give 67% of that to Uni leaving me with me “good luck living on that” loan. Second shot came when I went to check the exchange rate. It had sunk to 130.7 yen to the pound (right now it’s at 130.3). Companred to the 200 yen to the pound I had when I first got here. So once again I’m left in the dilemma of whether I withdraw money now, or wait a bit longer. Risky.

My walk to Shirakawa (aka the original Higurashi village) might be back on. In February we have a week off which would give me time to start the walk. Only trouble is (and the reason I said start) is that I think it’s going to take longer than one week to get there. I’m going to have a word with my teachers about the possibility of me missing a class or two should I take too long, as this would be my only real chance to explore anything away from a class activity, unless of course I get a nice lottery win … though I don’t do the Japanese lottery.

However, this may also be marred by the fact that I didn’t estimate how the weather in Japan changes. Up until now I thought we’d had the worst of the cold and come February it would start to warm up a little. According to my Japanese friends this is not the case. In fact, where we are is going to get even colder, meaning December probably would have been the better time after all.

I leave you with a video that somes up the cold and the irony – Ironic by Alanis Morissette