Yesterday morning I arrived at school only to eerily find nobody there except a handful of teachers doing the gardening. Slightly bemused, I enquired as to the whearabouts of the eight hundred or so kids. 'Yasumi!' (holiday) was the reply!

Well, thanks for telling me everyone! Why on earth in there a holiday on a Monday anyway? And if it is a holiday, why the hell are you at school doing the gardening?

So I had to head into the city and spend the day in the head office. I took my time of course, stopping off at various points along my cycle route back to Kokusai Maebaru to take plenty of photos!


An awesome inaka bus-stop, complete with armchair!


Pine tree blur


An advert for tea on the side of a coke truck


IRS Road, the focal point of life in Kokusai Maebaru

Ah, Maebaru Festa...plenty of booze, plenty of pics, here's my top 10 photos from a very drunken evening!


Bully was gobsmacked by this awesome can holder! Then he broke it...


Yuu-chan! Peace...


Oh dear. I'm not sure what to say about this one


Paul and Kaori chilling out


Canning poses with balloons


And Canning poses with the ladies


Skip and Bully looking menacing


More nice poses


Canning cooking up some late-night pizza breads. He proved extremely photogenic the whole night through, posing time and time again for quality shots

The sakura have really began to fall over the last day or so, with fresh green leaves replacing the white-pink blossoms. Luckily for me though I was able to get up to Sasayama first, a hill-top park overlooking Maebaru City, my hometown for the past three years.

お花見

先週末、友達と一緒に、舞鶴公園で花見パーティーをしました。　みんな酔っぱらっていました。　スゴイ！　とても楽しかったです。　来年もイギリスで花見パーティーできるかな？　みんな来てね！

Kyushu Cup glory for Fukuoka

Fukuoka Gaikokujin United won their fifth consectutive Kyushu Cup in Saga City on Saturday. The ever-popular ALT football tournament was once again a roaring success with teams coming from all over the island as well as the nice chaps and chapesses from Yamaguchi joining us as a guest team. There was a really great party afterwards too, with far too many beverages consumed by almost everyone! And there was also plenty of terrible facial hair on display from some of the Fukuoka lads, including me (I had a handlebar moustache which did not prove popular with the ladies or with little kids on trains!).


The trophy itself, stolen from the Fukuoka Boys by the Saga team at last year's post tournament party, finds its way back to its rightful owners


Captain Canning leads the celebrations


Plenty of beers were put away in the late night party

I don't have any words at the moment, only pictures.