Ashikaga flower park and a snackbar

I just arrived in this very remote place and I wasn’t sure if this would be the right place. I don’t know what I expected to find, but it wasn’t  this. The environment was real beautiful though. As I was walking towards where I hoped the flower park would be, I just   looked around and enjoyed the scenery. The wind softly patting the grass, like a young mother running through the hair of her young one. 
Maybe that’s how the name ‘mother earth’ came to be.. 
Maybe you noticed, I’ve been doing some reading during my train trips this way. It’s a big inspiration and somehow my mind adapts fairly quickly to a style. Like I was reading this graphic novel back home, that had a really sarcastic sense of humor, and I realized I grew more sarcastic every minute. 
I also caught myself using the Japanese word for "ehm", or atleast I think that’s what it means.. "Eto.."  
So I arrived at the flower park and I walked around there for about 45 minutes. I got up really early today, cause I thought I’d be walking around there for hours! Like I’d do in the gardens. Nope. The spots for which I came here, did not bloom yet.. so sad.. so I took pictures of pictures. Even more sad.. I know. But in a way, you could say I saw the wysteria up close. Even though it was only a photo. Considering it took me about 2 hours to get here, this had proven to be a pretty disappointing day so far. I just hope tonight’ll be better. 
When I got back at the JR station, I suddenly saw posters of ashikaga flower park everywhere. Don’t know how I could’ve missed them. So much for enjoying the scenery, right? 

I made my way back to the hostel quite early. But it was a long trip so I arrived quite late. I thought maybe I'd go out tonight. As some people I met at ASAB told me that this is really great! They told me the girls at these clubs are crazy and there's no way a foreigner like myself wouldn't 'score' over there. 
I thought it over and eventually chose not to go to any clubs. I might have liked it, but I wouldn't be able to get back to the hostel unless I partied till 5 o'clock. 5 o'clock is not bad, but it can be, if you don't like clubbing in general and hate electronic music. I wasn't willing to risk that, I wanted to have fun this evening. 

I asked someone at the hostel where to go and he also told me I should go clubbing. Usually people that stay there, take the last train back, eat breakfast here and go straight to bed. But I had to check out before 11 again. He eventually told me I should go to Kita Senju. It's a local place, where locals get drunk before going to Shinjuku to party the night away. So I should just go there and maybe later I'd change my mind and go anyway. 

So I did! To Kita Senju that is. I walked around for quite a while, looking for food. I had gotten picky about the food. Everything was good! But I wanted my last few meals here to be awesome. So I was looking for my favorite food: The really thin slices of meat. I think I liked the beef ones most. But pork was fine too. Or maybe even chicken.. Anyway I couldn't find any of them, so eventually I just got into this restaurant that looked somewhat different. It had a grill on every table. New experiences, yay!
I took the "Meat Lover L" and was pleasantly surprised. A huge plate, with really thin slices of meat! Beef, pork, chicken. Everything!
And the staff was great too! This one guy came up to me several times holding his phone and showing me messages on Google Translate. This other guy, could speak a bit of English and we talked a bit. It was kind of hard, really. I could only use very basic phrases, so he'd understand. Then he told me this really strange thing. He was studying English! He wanted to be an English teacher! Wow.

Some guy a few tables further liked me for trying to speak Japanese I think. He ordered the world famous black wagyu Hamideru. I have no idea what it was. But it said world famous, so there. Anyway. He offered me half! Great guy! I was full of course, but I ate it nonetheless. And it was real good too! 

After my belly was full, I went to look for a bar and found a beer restaurant. I ordered one beer and asked if the bartender if he knew where I could find a snackbar. Remember the term 'Snack'? He didn't know, and neither did anyone else who got in. He asked everyone, and eventually I gave up. I was about to leave and he beckons me to come with him. He found one! Everyone was actually looking for a snackbar for me. These people here are great!

Arriving at this snackbar called Tropical. And this does really sound like a snackbar, right? I mean. I think there's a snackbar in the Netherlands called Tropical. There's no karaoke there, though.
Anyway, this snackbar looked way different from the Paper Moon. Mainly as there were only two customers. A man and a girl. They asked me my age and when I told them, the girl jumped with joy! She was 24. The first girl I met that was really (around) my age!
We sang the night away, English songs this time. The text on the screens is in English by the way, but the Japanese characters are lined up above the English text. Now, I know how to read katakana and therefore, I also know that the Japanese text is nothing like the English one. And this makes it hilarious to hear Japanese people sing English songs.
I had no idea where I was though. Luckily, the guy in Tropical had to go to work tomorrow, so he needed to catch the train. The same train I needed! So I had my personal guide back home too.