...interrupted by nice Nihonjin lady who wanted to practice her English. (Might have wanted more, if I read her right, but not my type.) Stayed out late, slept in, today just rested, browsed Den Den town (photos and notes toward novel potential), shipped home a box of souvenir stuff (cramming into my luggage would have been too much chance of damage - it'll take two months to get home, but I can wait). Dinner at Santana, later to Cellar for Ame-mura folk jam. Tomorrow, I think Kamakura; Saturday, should be good events to see in Kyoto.
1) I am in love again, watching the cute singer of one of the bands here at the Amemura folk jam. Can't understand a word she''s singing, but it it doesn't matter.
2) New favorite Japanese beer - Asahi Black. Porter sort of brew. Nice.
So I'm hanging out at the Cellar now, the Amemura Folk Jamboree, the only white guy in a roomful of Nihonjin. A warm welcome from the bartender and from the M of C, who remember me from my previous time here - very nice. Tonight I've set down the first few hundred words toward the potential novel that's been banging around in my head of late, a story of friendship between men and the entanglements of love and the difference between legal and right, and maybe a few other ideas too by the time it's done (if it ever is). Somehow it seems to me that the protagonists live in Den Den town (gives a nice background for cultural weirdness), so I wandered over there today, taking photos and a few notes.
Well, I've just been invited to play a song, "special guest" from America. So that's a nice reception. Maybe I should get a little more confident about my playing, then...
Played "Ring of Fire", went over well. After me was a lovely woman I remember from before, singing a song with an English refrain about "Stay with me" that just melts my heart. ("My heart is warm", as the Nihonjin fellow next to me puts it.) And I'm all in love all over again, sigh.
I think tomorrow will be Kamakura, if I can get my ass up at a decent hour. Saturday there's some special events in Kyoto that would be worth seeing, so I think I'll do my last day there, then I can have one more Saturday night in Shinsaibashi (still think that should be a song...) and up early Sunday to shinkansen to Narita, and 747 to home. (Where, recent reports have it, several inches of snow recently fell. More clement here, highs in low 50s.)