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My Golden Week Holiday! prt.1

1st of May, 2002ce* in: diary

I had a few phone calls in Japanese from my Friends family out here in Japan, I couldn’t decipher much, but I did get down a date and a time, and a station to be at. Why did I have to be there at that time, I later found out, that they were taking me on holiday with them to Guma county (a few hours drive from Tokyo).

I headed off to the station to be met by the mother and father of someone who I haven’t even seen for a very long time. This was 10pm. We headed back to their place where I drank some beer, then was forced some more beer, beer seemed to flow from here and I wasn’t complaining. I was treated to a grand tour of the house and some vinyl junkie ranting, along with the spectacular sound system - two gigantic Tannoy speakers with a home made valve amp each.

At about 2am we were ready to depart onto the highway, as this was ‘golden week’, the traffic was jam packed. The car we were riding in can only be described as ridiculous. A 1970’s American sports gas guzzler. My legs were close to falling off by the time we got to the first pit stop, a rest station with free tea!

I travelled in the back of this car with a French translator, up front was the Mum and Son, in another car (a new Japanese ‘cappuccino’ suzuki) were the son’s friend on the wheel, and the son’s Father, the son is Gen. The family is Aoki. The French man is Mr Charles.