From the least of reasons why you would know if you belong in the facebook group "I go to Art school and THEREFORE I have more homework than you":

23. Your friends think its funny that you have seen more people naked then they ever will in their whole life. You also have a few horror stories to add to that.

So, so, so true... two years on, the name Michael still makes my skin crawl! Too bad, as its not exactly an uncommon name!

Anyway, today started out as a typical Sunday - slightly painful teaching at 10, yet more taxi stories, and then an entertaining explanation of how one executive's misdeed's weren't really so bad (I guess there's some corporate scandal going on now in court):

him: "He only lied about the earnings about 50 million USD, it's not that much".
me: "Uhhh that's quite a bit! Are you sure it was that much USD, and not that much yen?" (it would be 5 mil US in that case I think)
him: "no, 50 million US, its not that much though - I think all companies lie about their profits, I mean, we do it when we don't want to pay tax"

Right then...

After that, I stayed on to write the lion's share of the rough draft of my Morgan Fisher article/interview. I was using a plug at Starbucks (practically the only one I know about in a Starbucks here), and just as I was getting to the end of my first draft, one of the employees came upstairs to tidy up, and told me I wasn't allowed to use the plug... that definitely sucks! One thing I won't miss about this place - how freaking hard it is to get some denki!

Luckily I was basically ready to move on, so I wandered over to Omotesando, where I was due to meet up with the Paddy Foley's/Weekender crew to march in the Saint Patrick's Day Parade. I still remember getting a little suede shamrock sticker in the hospital all those years ago (and being royally pissed about missing the parade). I think this is the first time since then where I've actually celebrated Saint Paddy's day, and not the other significance of March 17 in my life. (Well k, so today was the 18th, but whatever :p). It's a weird thing to talk about though - you can hardly go up to people and be like 'guess what day it is for me today?' Not that I don't haha, but yea, it's a bit odd...
(some of our many many flags)
(Most of the group from Paddy Foley's - it was a pretty big contingent!)
(Where's me lucky charms?)
Annnyway, I got to the crazy staging area, and met up with Helen, and then once we'd left the school grounds, Caroline, her husband, and two super super cute Cavalier King Charles Spaniels joined us for the march down and back Omotesando. Her puppies (Sandy and Tommy) were dressed for the occasion, and drew lots of crowd attention, deservedly so!
(Tommy, with his sister just visible in the background)

It was a much bigger parade than I was expecting! There was a big contingent of us marching with flags for Paddy Foley's, and then the other Tokyo Irish pubs were out, plus the Bailey's dogs (HUGE!!!), the Irish Wolfhounds, the Irish Setters (dogs the order of the day, seemingly!), marching bands, baton twirlers, and happy revellers, impressively kitted out in green.
(Bailey's Saint Bernard - I was amazed how many of them there were!)
(Irish wolfhounds all dressed up...these guys are nearly the same size as Emma!)
(Emma, the cutest pony on the planet!)

Apparently this is the only thing that closes down Omotesando every year, and even though its only for about an hour, I can imagine it bungs up traffic in the area horribly! They do a pretty amazing job of waiting until the last second to close it to traffic, clearing the street, getting the parade through, and then getting everything moving again! I remember the chaos surrounding symphony splash nights in Victoria, and how it takes them a good 4 hours to close down the area, in their super inefficient way of doing it in stages - I think I got caught down there in my kabuki kab since the different check points didn't know if the road was open or not, and so they let us in when we weren't supposed to be in, and it was a big mess of nearly squishing people!

I digress.

Kieron and his sister (visiting from Ireland) were marching with the Tokyo Irish Music Festival, but everyone else from the office was at an outdoor cafe instead of marching with us! We saw them and waved, but no one came to flag wave with us, except Nine, who showed up for the last little bit of the parade. After it was all finished, around three, everyone scatted again, and I grabbed a quick snack before heading home.
(since it's really just Saint Drinking Day!)

I grabbed V, and we walked over to Sasazuka to grab a few groceries from Queen's Isetan. I got two types of fresh bread, which are sooooo tasty! I came home and made a huge, hearty, meaty lasagna, which should pretty much keep me in lunches and snacks all week! I also felt a bit bad because I won't be home when Peter and Hitomi get back from Hawaii tomorrow night, so I figured since they'll probably be hungry from the flight and trek home, the least I could do is leave them some supper.

Spent the rest of the night fairly domestically - cleaning up a bit, laundry, etc, and also gathering my strength for another trip to the immigration hell-office tomorrow - my visa extension appears to be ready to pick up... (or their turfing me out of the country)...

D