Mountains

Misty Mountains of Takahashi

Here's a picture from our mountain climb yesterday. :) It took us threeish hours to get up and down the mountain (or well, more like two hours total to go up and down since we practically flew down the mountain).

I'm so. Sore. My legs and my butt. See where that fog is at the bottom? That's above where we started. I'm pretty sure it was over 2 km, and that was 2 km going up. Worth it though, for the view.

The reason why my post yesterday-slash-this-morning-slash-before-I-went-to-bed was because I had planned that parfait outing for the ALTs (and people in Okayama AJET) and ohhhh my goodness, it was like HERDING CATS. Which is to say, it was ridiculously difficult. I forgot how hard planning stuff for people in my age range is! 

Personally, I blame it a little on facebook and the Internet. Not that other things are not to blame (or ourselves). But with the ability to say attending or maybe... a lot of us now (myself included) will stay maybes until the last moment or will say they're attending but then at the last moment will change their mind and drop. Some people send messages, some don't, but it feels like this era of "Me" has really come around. If you don't feel like going, then don't. 

Don't get me wrong, I do this too. And people have their reasons for not going; I don't think I can really judge whether reasons are good or bad (though I do have my opinions). The people who contacted me yesterday, I understood why they weren't coming out. I don't (really) blame anyone for not coming out yesterday. It just made me a little disappointed and frustrated, but not at anyone in particular.

But like... I dunno. It was crazy planning this thing. There was also a small hitch - this needed a reservation for the restaurant. Things without reservations, it's alright if people drop at the last minute and stuff, but things with reservations are a whole different beast. Reservations need something more definite than a maybe, more definite even than an attending. 

When I first made the reservation there were 16 people who had told me yes I'm going to be there. This was also a good 3 weeks before the event itself - which another problem itself,  person pointed out. We set these things so far in advance and then sometimes forget about them as life happens day to day. I'm definitely guilty of doing that. That's why I try to write as much as I can down. Sometimes unforeseeable things happen. People get sick, people have to go in to work, people don't feel well. That's all well and fine. 

I made the reservation and then a few days later, I rechecked the event and the number had jumped to 23. 23. That's a difference of SEVEN people. For the small restaurant we were going to... that was a lot. Even in American sized restaurants, that's a whole extra table (or two). We don't have big restaurants in Japan really, let alone in Takahashi. There was also a festival going on at the local university, so they told us we couldn't change the reservation.

After that, it was a kind of hellish planning nightmare. Since I was expecting everyone to show up, I kind of panicked and told people that hey, we don't actually have space for 23 people. In retrospect, I should have just said nothing, and I'm sure people would have just dropped on their own. But I said something and asked people if they were going to come or not - and if they weren't, if they could let me know so that we know who all was going to come. I kinda dropped the ball as the organizer, since I wasn't completely sure who had signed up when.

But like magic, people found other plans. The numbers started going down, until we reached the magical 16 that we needed. That was a couple days before yesterday. However, when I checked the list on Friday, for some reason it was down to 14 instead. And then two people actually contacted me and told me they weren't feeling well and wouldn't be able to make it. 12. 

It also rained yesterday, which may or may not have had something to do with it. Then two people just didn't show up, which put us at 10 people total.

10, down from 16, down from 23. I don't understand. 

If this were just us climbing the mountain I wouldn't care. But it was also a reservation for eating parfait, which I did care about. I cared about keeping our reservation (though we were kinda really late for it - my fault since I can't estimate time well). One person kindly offered to pay for her share despite not eating it, but one person's share, since we all were splitting the cost, wasn't much per person. It would have been like, an extra hundred yen or something. 

Six people's shares though, that adds up. Also ten people to eat that giant bucket thing was definitely not enough people. I *still* feel ill today. Lord only knows how ill I would have felt if I hadn't hiked beforehand. I think I spent the rest of yesterday with a giant headache too, until I ate some real food. Actually yeah, that was a bad idea. The ice cream was my biggest meal for the day. Go being an adult. Such a bad idea.

Anyways. That's the end of my rant. Today is going to be fun; I'm going to a concert. It's going to be AWESOME. My first Japanese concert. :D The group is called Rockatrench. They did the opening for Mei-chan no Shitsuji (Mei-chan's butler). It was ridiculously cute. Obviously, they are a japanese rock band. I'M SO EXCITED.