As far as the beach

I had a lot of potential plans for last weekend. I was either going to go climbing on Mount Ogawayama with my climbing friends from teh gym, I was going to go ot Sado, I was going to go see Albirex or I was going to take it easy and hang out in Tokamachi.

So, on Thursday I went climbing to see Fukuhara-san, the organiser for teh Ogawayama climb. He said that heavy rain had been forecasted for the weekend. I thought that it would be too difficult for me so I pulled out.

Bad weather would also make Sado less attractive. I decided to see what the weather was like on Friday before deciding.

At school on Friday I managed to escape the office and watch the Soccer Carnival that was taking place at my school. It was a four-day event involving 16 teams from nearby prefectures (Niigata, Gunma, Saitama and Chiba). Tokamachi Koko and Tokamachi Sogo also played since they were hosts. Friday was the third day or the Carnival. By this time, the teams had played for two days, were ranked and divided into four new groups. Tokamachi Koko and Tokamachi Sogo were both in the fouth group and had to play on the clay pitch at Tokamachi Koko. The top two groups played at Belnatio on the Croatian grass-pitches while the third group played on grass at the Sasayama Sports Stadium.

I saw Tokamachi play just after lunch. They looked the better team and scored towards the end of teh first half. The second half kicked-off and I was expecting more goals. Instead, the heavens opened and the boys might as well have been playing water polo. The rain was so heavy that the pitch was waterlogged in minutes. The teams still played on eventhough the passes became stranded in puddles (just like against Akita alast year). Ironically (in the best footballing sense), the rain stopped as the final whistle blew. The clouds didn't go and thunder was rumbling so I decided against going to Sado on Friday.

Saturday morning I was back at school watching Tokamachi play their final match (3-0 win) and deciding if I should go to Sado. I talked to Debs and we decide that it was too much hassle to go for one night and that the beach would be better. Stopping off to pick up Erik, we were off to the Kashiwazaki.

We managed to get a a few hours of sunbathing and dicking about in the sea before another massive electrical storm came over the mountains. We just made it to the car as it started chucking it down and took refuge in Gusto til the worst had passed. On the way back, I tried to take a shortcut and ended up in Oguni. Not the worst mistake because the drive was way more pretty than the flat 252, but I was glad the storm had passed over.