Joyeux annif... a moi!

So this past Saturday, I celebrated my "18th" birthday. Yes, that's what I said - EIGHTEENTH birthday. You gotta problem with that?? For anyone who asked me how old I was turning that night, my response was a very serious "Juu-has-sai!" ("18!"). If you don't already know how old I am, then you're not going to find out here. But, suffice it to say, I'm old enough to start wanting to lie about my age. So, there. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Moving on to the gory details of my 18th-th (get it?) birthday party:

By the end of last week, I still hadn't been able to decide on where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do for my Saturday night, 18th-th birthday celebration, so I told everyone - Joanne, Yuko, Mac, and Kazumi, who are quickly becoming the usual suspects, as well as Mac's friend, George - to meet at the Hachiko statue in Shibuya. Hachiko's story is a cool one that I'm sure I'll explain in more detail in some later post, but if you're dying to know what it's all about right now, just click here for an idea. This picture of Hachiko and Friend was a serendipitous meeting of iron and fluffiness - too cute! Plus, a good omen for the fun night we were about to embark on.

We started off at an izakaya, which is basically a restaurant where the primary activity is drinking rather than eating. I dutifully took my "tired liver" pills - pills that help us red-faced asians drink without feeling the effects of the alcohol so quickly and thus avoiding "tired liver syndrome" - and proceeded to drink my first of the pitifully small number of drinks that I would consume that night (considering that we had 2 Brits in our group and only 2.5 Japanese plus 0.5 Americans and 1 Canadian, you can bet the Brits out drank the rest of us by at least a 200-to-1 ratio, though my figures may be just a bit off). My very kind and very fluent in Japanese Japanese friends helped me and the other veg in the group to not only find one thing to eat at the izakaya, but several things to eat! I tried yuba - a tofu dish that has a yummy flavor and an interesting texture - for the first time and it was super tasty. Not surprisingly - and quite happily - tofu was featured very prominently in this meal - we had tofu dip and veggie chips, black bean tofu and plain tofu, tofu skin (yuba) - um, is anyone else having a Bubba Gump shrimp moment, here? The waiter was pretty nervous though very attentive - I don't think he's ever had so many gaijin at one table.

I think I actually managed to have 2 drinks over the course of that two-hour meal and one of the other Japanese girls had one - we were already way behind the Brits, one of whom even handicapped his skills by starting late and still gained on us by the end of the first quarter.

1st quarter scores:

2.5 Japanese = 3 drinks (However, all 3 were fruity and thus had a penalty result of counting as only 2 drinks.)
0.5 American = not drinking, left it up to the 0.5 Japanese who had the advantage of tired liver pills
1 Canadian = 2 drinks
2 Brits = 1000 beers/lagers/ales/whatever - they're all the same to me. And I quote myself, "They're all varying degrees of terrible."

After our lovely meal - my second ever visit to an izakaya - we moved on to what else... karaoke!! Before I left California, my friend Norma (of Los Cabos fame), helped to get me back in touch with my inner lounge singer and we did several hours of karaoke back-to-back, just the two of us, on a Saturday afternoon/evening. It was perfect training for my reintroduction back into the Japanese karaoke industry. I sang everything from Mariah Carey to Kelly Clarkson, from Mr. Big to 4 Non-Blondes (I said Hey!!) to the only Japanese pop song (J-Pop) to which I know almost all of the words, "First Love" by my girl, Utada Hikaru (whose mother was recently arrested in Las Vegas for trying to bring a drug-laced $400,000 in cash onto a plane to NYC - she was taking the money to a charity... that's her story and she's stickin' to it). Mac gave further evidence of his transformation from a run-of-the-mill British guy to a sugar sweet Japanese girl. As he declared that night, he lives in this country therefore he knows nearly all J-Pop songs and he'll sing them to you to prove it. Joanne, who has previously claimed to not dance and not sing, eventually gave into both actvities as we non-Brits collectively strove to keep pace in drinks and songs in the hotly contested 2nd quarter.

2nd quarter scores:

2.5 Japanese = 2 drinks, though again fruity, so take into account penalties; also, at this point, only 0.5 of the Japanese were drinking as one of them doesn't drink at all and the other maxed out at 1 drink at the izakaya.
0.5 American = 1 drink, taking up the slack for the 0.5 Japanese - why are the Americans always coming in and taking over for the Japanese??
1 Canadian = 2 drinks? The American was in charge of tracking drinks, but you know how much attention America pays to what's going on with Canada...
2 Brits = 2,542 beers/lagers/ales/whatever

Going into the 3rd quarter, we lost one of our partyers to the last train home. The rest of us had decided to valiantly carry on until Sunday morning's first train. So, what's a group in the mood to dance to do at midnight on a Saturday in Shibuya, one of Tokyo's centers of nightlife, a neighborhood that has dozens of clubs and bars and karaoke clubs and lounges?? Well, go back to the same place they'd gone for the previous two weekends, of course! My new personal favorite: GasPanic!! Yes, GasPanic!! I really did only recently discover this, um, diamond in the rough even though I've known about it for over 6 years. The first time I read that name 6 years ago when I was living in Tokyo, I thought to myself two things: 1) That is such an awful name, I'll never go there, it makes me think of bathroom emergencies, and 2) With a name like that, it'll never last. Lo! Hold! Here we are, over 6 years later, and not only has that place lasted and expanded into a chain of 5 bars in various locations around Tokyo, but I have have gone there the past three weekends in a row and decided it's my favorite bar in Shibuya (the best of combinations: cheap drinks, free entry, mostly hip-hop and R&B music for dancing, and a 65-year-old salaryman who is a regular customer and tries to dress like a thug even though his pants are pulled up high enough that you can see his white socks very easily under the club's blacklights). Things that make you go "Hmmm."















We spent the next thousand years, oh, no, wait, I mean, FIVE hours mingling and dancing, dancing and mingling, drinking some more - the Brits were so securely in the lead that the 0.5 Japanese and 0.5 American who were still in the race eventually conceded the Brits' victory - and shaking our booties "Crazy in Love" style. Pictured above you see, from left, Random yet Peaceful Drunk Guy, George (a Brit, as you can tell by the beer in his hand), Me, Joanne, and Mac (no beer pictured, but may have been during a time-out). This photo is courtesy of George. I didn't want to bring out my fancy-schmancy new camera for my 18th-th birthday party as I don't have a proper case for it yet and I didn't want it to get ruined. So, here you see the only evidence of this important night. 18 is great!

Unfortunately, I didn't keep up my energy as much as I'd have liked. This is mainly due to the really boring conversation I had with one random drunk person as well as the temporary switch to - though permanently party-killing - techno music. Once the DJ started spinning techno, I was done for and spent the last hour or so standing by the door getting fresh air and debating with the security guards the pros and cons of whether or not to apply for a bartending job at GasPanic - both of them gave a resounding "No!" response - as well as discussing the lack of facilities for the disabled at Japanese public schools with a couple of English teachers. By the end of the "evening", I was so tired that I made sure to be on the VERY FIRST train home, at precisely 5am. It was a pleasant ride though not nearly as entertaining as the 5-ish train home that I took last weekend.

3rd quarter scores:
1.5 Japanese = 0 drinks, all players out of the game
0.5 American = 2 drinks, took over entirely for the Japanese
1 Canadian = 2 maybe 3 drinks, but same tabulation problem as in 2nd quarter
2 Brits = unknown quantities of substances of unknown origins

There was no 4th quarter, because, as I like to say, I didn't go to math college.

My 18th-th birthday was a blast! I had lots of fun, got great gifts, solidified friendships through the international language of karaoke and booty-shakin', made new acquaintances through the international language of Japanglish, and got to taste yuba. Does it get any better than this?!?! I think not, my friend. I think not.

Though, next time I'm going to recruit a naturalized-American Russian to drink for the American team.