Drink Drink Drink!!

On Wednesday I went to Japanese class in the morning, hung around the lounge during the afternoon, and eventually made it to Takadanobaba to meet with the Igo club. They were holding their yearly party to celebrate the new members to the club. I met up with them at 5:30 at the rotary. Once everyone got together, we went to the nearby Izakaya. There were a ton of people there! With about 10 new members and 30 existing ones, we took up an entire room and then some. One of the non-members who attended was this French guy who went by the name of Juan. He is in Tokyo for 2 weeks and apparently is really good at Igo. The bad part is that he does not know any Japanese above "hello" so I ended up translating for him a part of the time.

The party mainly consisted of people introducing themselves the entire time. Of course, this was not the normal introduction, but the drinking-game introduction. It went a little something like this. One person stood up and downed whatever was in their glass. If they drank it too fast they were poured another glass and forced to do it again. Next they said their name, hometown, major, and what they hope to obtain in the coming year. After naming one of those, for instance and engineering major, all the engineering majors stood up and had a toast. This went on until about 8pm. Needless to say, everyone drank too much. We toasted to world peace, getting stronger at Igo, graduating on time, living in Tokyo, having new members, etc. Pretty much anything and everything was made into a toast. There was also some pretty decent food like yakisoba and karage which I took full advantage of. Once we got kicked out of the place, I was extremely surprised to find that I was not expected to pay anything. I nice nomikai like this and I don't have to pay? They said that it is the only time that they all go out drinking so it is alright.

Next was the second party. In my experience, the second party consists of going to karaoke, bowling, puri-kura, ect. This time they wanted to go out drinking more. I figured what the hey? It is still early and I will probably never see all of them smashed like this, so I decided to tag along. The second party was the same deal as the first, but everyone sat around socializing (or sleeping). I was glad to see that there was much less alcohol and much more food. Also, nobody managed to get sick, which is amazing in my book. Once again they told me not to pay...

Finally 11pm rolled around and we had to get going. Some people opted to go to the 3rd party, which happened to be all night karaoke. Under any other circumstances, I would have gone, but I had 1-3 period classes in the morning. It was already bad enough that I would get home past midnight. If I went, there would be no way to make it to class.

Today I woke up bright and early... Hungover of course. I seriously thought about skipping classes, but because I opted out of karaoke, I made myself get out of bed. In class this morning we went to the library to watch video's on different matsuri around Japan. Everyone broke into groups of two in order to choose a matsuri and do a 10 minute presentation about it. John Bruggers and I chose to do a taiko drum matsuri that takes place in Fukuoka. We only got the first minute or so of the 8 minute clip fully understood when our time was suddenly up. It was time to get back to doing real class. We had three Japanese helpers come in to teach us about characteristics ad personalities. I was put into a group with a girl named Yosshi. She described herself as being shy but positive. I described her as a person who likes music.

After class was over, Ren, Yosshi, and I went out to lunch. It was more like we bought bento and found a bench outside, but still, lunch! I found out that she really does like music, mostly the heavier rock and metal types. I am more of a lighter rock fan, but am willing to listen to anything. She eventually invited Ren and I to go see a concert with her. Nice. We exchanged phone numbers before heading off to class.

Sakurai Sensei's class is still the best thing ever. They guy is really interesting because he tells stories of his childhood that relate to the topic at hand. For instance, "You ask a priest what [nothingness] is and he will respond: nothingness is nothingness!" Interesting stuff about Buddhism. A person who is enlightened is called a Buddha. Once that person dies, they become a kami (god) and float around... Or do whatever kami like to do in their free time. This is by far my favorite class.

I went to the lounge, played FFCC with Michael and Daniel for about an hour, and talked with people who came in and out. I was going to go home, but decided to go to Igo and play a couple of games instead. I got to play against a new member today who was stronger than me. With a 5 stone handicap I only lost by 5 points. If I would have played in the spot to create a "net" I would have won by a landslide. I lost a huge group of stones in the beginning which I was not able to make up for. I will get better at Igo! Kanpai!