Lexington,KY.

The taxi I had booked was five minutes late and I was starting to stress, but he turned up, no word of apology. I really didn't want to tip him, he left me standing out on the at street at 2.30 in the morning and then didn't offer to help with my luggage. I was a wimp and did give him a tip, I am not a big fan of tipping. Service here is generally o.k. but all too rarely is it spectacular enough to warrant a decent tip.
The bus station was a zoo and I had only a few minutes to get my bag checked and attach myself to the end of the line waiting to get on. I figured that the bus wouldn't be too full, I was wrong. I upset a guy by sitting next to him, tough tit. The bus driver was organised and we were all boarded ten minutes before we were due to leave and did in fact leave on time. Makes a nice change from the usual late routine. I managed to dose a little on the bus but not much, our first stop was only a couple of hours outside of St Louis in Illinois. I had a thirty minute stop in Indianapolis and Cincinnati, both of which went really quickly. In fact the whole journey to Lexington went very smoothly. I asked for directions to the town centre at the bus station but the guy sent me off in the wrong direction and I ended up walking two miles out of my way. It worked out in the end as my route took me past the public library, which I would have wanted to get to anyway. I contacted John and waited for him to finish work.
It was really good to see John again, I haven't seen him in over two years. He did go back to Japan this summer but since I had skipped a return trip to Japan in favour of going home I hadn't seen him. We went and got dinner and caught up our news. John suggested I try a Kentucky Bourbon barrel ale, so I did. It was great, the beer is kept in old bourbon barrels and you can really taste it. Much better than straight bourbon.Later we went to a local bar for a nomihodai (all you can drink) and I got to meet some of John's friends.John lives close to the University of Kentucky campus and consequently there are a lot of bars and restaurants there. It's nice to be able to walk home after a night out and it was nice that we could both have a beer together.
I slept late than John on Friday morning and let him go off to work. I took a look around the down town area and went into the tourist info office. The ladies were really nice and we chatted for a while but I had to get back to Johns apartment as we were going out for lunch and he only has an hour lunch break.His apartment is only a few blocks from the centre of town, which is good if you want to watch a U.K. basketball game, eat and / or have a coffee. If you want to go shopping forget it, for that you have to head outside of the centre of town. It is a bit strange, almost as if there has been an agreement to leave the city centre to the office workers. Non-workers have no real reason to come into the down town area, I am not even sure that people actually live in the town centre. Well they do, but you wouldn't know it from the amount of people walking around in the city centre.Beside the library there is an entire city block which has just been grassed over. John told me that the buildings had all been demolished to make way for a new hotel, but then the down turn stopped that. Now no one knows what to do with it. Apparently it has only been grassed over recently, for just over a year it was a big mud hole.
After lunch Anaru and Chase met me and we hung out at a local coffee shop for the afternoon. The shop had some amazing desserts, but I abstained. I am still concerned that I will have to be rolled on to my return flight to the U.K. I'll have put on so much weight. We then walked back across town and waited for John. Although John works for a Japanese company he was able to finish work at a decent time and go and pick up his girlfriend, Fumiko, before coming home. he belongs to a Japanese association that is based at the university and we were going to one of their organised events. It just happened that they had arranged a sushi / karaoke night, of course I said yes as soon as John had mentioned it. Chase also belongs to the Japanese association and speaks pretty good Japanese, Anaru has just started studying it. We all went to the university first so we could all meet up and then went to the restaurant. It's a Japanese restaurant obviously, they do kaiten sushi and as an add on have a back room with karaoke. Since there was about twenty of us we had the back room and ordered our sushi. The sushi was good, but expensive and they forgot part of my order, which was very shabby as it been written down!The karaoke was spot on, it was the exact same system we used to use at "Thiller" karaoke in Muroran. It was very natsukashii!!! I had a really good night and it seemed as if some people didn't want to end. A few of us went back to Johns and watched a movie. I don't think that was what everyone had in mind as we finished at the restaurant at 11pm and that's not late for a Friday night. I don't know about John but I was feeling the effects of my Thursday night and after all it was only the start of the weekend.