it was our work drinks this evening. here’s the final version of the invite (checked for both genuine japaneseness and non-offensiveness to japanese!). and here’s the drinks
i walked through town on the way to the bus to see if anything was going on at ‘party central’ which is the slug like structure on the waterfront for people to go to and watch rugby on big screens in a big party atmosphere.
last week there were hundreds of thousands of people squashed in to town and it all got a bit dangerous, so during the week there’s been all sorts of blamings which culminated in the government taking control of the waterfront (!) Rather than being a military invasion, it just enabled them to get access to a private piece of land next to party central to make ‘party central two – the overflow’.
Of course this evening no where near the level of fans turned up and the other venue remained closed. but there were lots of police about in a jovial way. but no fireworks or international named artists playing on the stage
but there was a popular reggae band playing who people seemed to know
there was quite a small crowd though
and the maori wardens were enjoying themselves singing along
on the way home i collected fish and chips whilst the girls came back from swimming. i bumped in to jane’s teacher friend Alex in the chip shop (she does the other half of the maternity cover) with her husband, so we chatted amiably whilst waiting ages for our foods.
then this evening we watched the all blacks beat japan. excellent.
we’re all really exhausted so hoping for a quiet weekend. well, we can hope …
