December 15, 2006 - page 2



We’ve gotten a taste of all of these activities in the last couple of weeks, since the night we got back from Tokyo. That night we went out to an izakaya to celebrate someone’s 20th birthday, which has the same social significance of one’s 18th and 21st birthdays combined. This is one of the most common forms of entertainment here: it’s like a cross between a bar and a restaurant where the group rents a table

for a few hours, pays a set fee, and then enjoys the policy of “all you can drink, all you can eat.” There’s nothing like trying to interpret enthusiastic and slightly nonsensical bilingual conversations when you’re exhausted from a sleepless night in Tokyo and all day in an airport to make for an entertaining evening, and it was definitely a fun way to get to know the group.