Fuji
Rock and Okinawa
13.
School’s out for summer, so naturally plans were afoot from the off to figure
out the best way we could use up our precious holiday days in the mission to
disintegrate our livers.
12.
Plan A: Dress up as a clown and go to Fuji Rock Festival in Niigata.
11.
What a brilliant plan it turned out to be! Dressed as technicolour clowns, we
successfully ravaged our internal organs to the point of surrender.
10.
So, a few things to mention about Fuji Rock…apparently no one does fancy dress in Japan, so it was up
to us lowly foreigners to pick up the baton. That we did! So well, apparently,
that I had more photos taken of me than when that Marilyn bird showed off her
knickers over an air vent.
9. A
campsite with any sort of natural running water is total bliss. We were
fortunate enough, and clever enough, to camp right next to a wee bubbling
brook. This brook was the only thing, besides the odd beverage here and there,
that made any of us feel remotely human. In this brook I was able to remove the
previous night’s clown face, and restore any dignity I may have lost in the
small hours.
8.
Now, I’ll give it to Japan, they damn well know how to do clean. Not a jot of rubbish was in sight, except in the patch of
land we claimed as our own. The lack of rain meant zero mud, and the loos didn’t
make me want to vomit that much. By
the end, I even found sit down loos that I was actually happy to sit down on.
7. I
should mention the music really. I love music, but as many of you know, my
knowledge of anything cool or hip is distinctly lacking. So, I gladly
followed the clan I was with to the appropriate acts for a bit of musical
education. What an excellent education it was, too. Some of the more memorable,
and in some cases surprisingly entertaining, included; The Specials, DJ
Kentaro, Alt-J, Django Django, Araab Muzik, Jack White, The Specials, Busy P,
Toots and the Maytals, Che Sudaka, The Gossip, and OF COURSE Radiohead and The
Stone Roses.
6.
As good as the music was, it was all made better by the Crystal Palace. It was
in the Crystal Palace where I would find myself every night/morning, dancing Guinness
world record breaking Sikh Martial artists, sitting in the world’s smallest
club, or stood on a table having a dance-off with some pole dancers. Needless
to say, it made my festival as memorable as I was able to remember (…the next
day.)
5.
After, what can only be described as intense,
few days at Fuji Rock, a few of us girlies decided we needed a chill
out/beach/cocktail holiday down in Japan’s most southern island, Okinawa.
4.
What we hadn’t quite anticipated were the typhoons. Two typhoons. The shame
with typhoons is that boats can’t quite handle the choppy water, and so we had
to say sayonara to our idyllic little hostel on one of O’s tropical islands. We
spent the whole 6 days in Naha, the island’s capital. Think, 60s heyday resorts
and restaurants, now all incredibly weathered and falling down. It’s how I
imagine Grimsby looks, even though I haven’t been there…
3. Whatever
the weather, we were not to be deterred from finding our beaches and cocktails.
We found our beaches; one at a hotel, the other on a small local island, both
with serene white, coral sand. I was very good and put my sun cream on. I was
not about to have the little beach time we could scavenge ruined by tight,
burnt skin. No, thank you. Cocktails?
Yes, please.
2. 3rd
August, my birthday. Luckily, on the anniversary of my day of birth, we were
able to hop on a ferry for an hour’s ride to an incredible beach (after a
delicious Buck’s Fizz and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon breakfast). Here we
spent the day eating, drinking, swimming, sleeping and reading (50 Shades of Grey/Vomit was Stass’s
choice, The Hunger Games was mine –
the best our hostel could offer). After the appropriate dosage of beach time,
we clambered back on board the surprisingly snazzy ferry, back to our shed of a
hostel. One shower, some make up, and a floral dress later we were downstairs ‘pre-gaming’
for an unpredictable night out. Full up with delicious Bolognese and gin, we
hit the town. A local Mexican bar, where we’d made solid friends, helped us out
with Margaritas, birthday cake, and balloons. Onwards to the apparently ‘underground’
club, Nekke 2, where we stumbled
across our first US marines…after a torrent of abuse from me, they still
indulged my accent and my birthday and bought me drinks for the rest of the
evening. 7 a.m. reared its head, and we finally found ourselves back at our
hostel where some very necessary breakfast noodles were cooked for us by the
guy who ran the night shift.
1.
So now I find myself back at school. No lessons, hardly any teachers, and
nothing to do. Only the memories of an exemplary summer and birthday to keep me
going, until I find something to do. Thanks, one and all.
