Reality - 1, Rob - 0

So, went over to Fukuma last night to help celebrate Jon's birthday. Good time, good food.

After, Malik was heading into Tenjin for drinks and clubs and bars and such... so I tagged along. Hey, it's not like I had anything in particular to head home for. [Countdown to Sandy, T minus 8 days and counting...]

So we went - loud music, dancing, drinks - pretty much how I remember Tenjin. Probably be the same 20 years from now.

So at some point, Malik and I got separated, come club closing time I was left with the dawning realization that I wasn't exactly sure which train to take and where to transfer to get back to the JR Fukuma station, where we had left our bikes. I think, in retrospect, I needed to get to Hakata for the transfer, but at the time the judicious study of all posted maps revealed naught. So I eventually headed back to Fukuma the way I always did o so long ago, transferring over to the Nishitetsu and walking the 20m to get the bike once I got back to town [never a taxi when you need one...]

So I got back to the bike, where - and this is the really good part - someone had rifled through my backpack and stolen my $200 MP3 player. You know, as I was locking up my backpack to the bike last night - at least I had the common sense to do that - I remember thinking "Maybe I should take... nah... It's Japan. It'll be okay."

So. All gone. All the music off the old computer. Stuff that I don't have with me, or isn't on the laptop. Stuff I dl'd off the net or only had as digital files. Bye-bye. No keepee.

I guess at least I should be thankful they were discriminating thieves. They didn't take the digital camera. I can only credit the ubiquitous existence of the keitei cameraphone here in Japan for that.