All you can drink...

On Saturday two of the schools here joined forces to throw a big all-you-can-drink party at a nearby Izakaya. For two hours, you could knock back as much booze as you liked for a measly 3000 yen. And let me tell you, the Japanese do NOT mess about at these things - beer was flying left right and centre and the air was filled with Japanese drinking songs and chat.

Needless to say, everyone got completely plastered. There was also a kid of one of the students there called Yukito who was hilarious - he was a little shy to start with but he gamely tried to speak a little English and by the end of the night he was the centre of attention, pretending to throw fireballs at people ala DragonBall and playing Rock Scissors Paper (and winning - damn his mad janken skills). I managed to have a conversation with him in Japanese which makes sense seeing as we both have the interests and vocabulary of a seven year old (actually, I think I'm doing him down there): what his favourite Pokemon was, did he want to see Transformers etc. Here's a couple of photos:

What was also really cute is that however much Anna (school staff, in the purple t-shirt) tried to get Yukito to say rude things about us in Japanese (e.g. "Chris and Thom are old men"), he wouldn't do it! He kept shouting "no they aren't!!" - yay.

And a couple more of other people:

There's an inexplicable disparity between the Japanese social scene and it's municipal transport system, so whereas most of the izakayas are open till at least 3am , the trains stop running at 12. So after the mass exodus of people dashing for the last tube, a few of us decided to go to a nearby karaoke. I don't remember this too well, but I do remember that you were allowed to take your own booze in - normally we have to sneak it in people's bags.



I should also mentioned that after this on Sunday I had a NASTY hangover which even lovely Starbucks couldn't shift. Bleugh.