Forever Has Come to an End

Michelle, the Aussie who has lived here "forever", is going home. And Saturday night was her Sayonara Party. And it was quite the party. It started out with a group of 18 of us at a garlic restaurant. It was a set menu sort of thing, where for one price for everybody, the restaurant puts down large communal plates, and everybody helps themselves. And the liquor is included. But I'm pretty sure my drink was so watered down as to be a soft drink. I had 3 of them and there was absolutely no effect on me. And I'm a whimp. There was much comingling and chatting and laughing throughout the dinner. At some point we moved on to the Down Under bar. On the way there a tall foreigner said to me "Hi, Natalie", and as I had never met him before it seemed a little strange. Apparently he is one of the few people who read this blog. So "Hi, Chris" from the etherworld. The bar has this hysterical little pool table, with a half sized cue which was a central part of the festivities. Not to mention more alcohol, which this time did have the desired effect on me. After an unknown amount of time we moved the party over to No Name Bar. Somehow I got left escorting the most inebriated of the gang. I was barely able to keep them from walking into traffic and getting themselves killed. More chatting and drinking occurred with great gregariousness. One of the things we discussed was the atrophying of all our vocabularies by living in Japan, so we were bringing out the big words whenever possible. Michelle decided she needed to get home, so we 6 diehards decided to disband the festivities. But as we were walking to the taxis, Kevin, the most seriously drunk of us spotted Denny's and decided some food would be in order. We all agreed it was a good idea so we headed in. The poor wait staff was not quite prepared for a large group of intoxicated, loud mouthed foreigners to overtake them. Well, after all the club sandos and french toasts were consumed, it was truly time to go home. It was 4 o'clock in the morning, afterall.

The photo is of Steph, Chris and Michelle, who thinks she looks best in sepia.