Finally drunk!

at the Parent-Teacher barbecue.
It took half a day, but I finally got royally wasted in Japan.
It took:
3 beers
2 shoju and rocks
a grape rice wine cooler
2 more beers
whiskey and rocks
and the magic of the onsen.

It started off innocently enough with a ping pong tournament.































and we were gonna have a badminton tournament, but it got cut short when someone twisted their ankle.
So off to the barbecue at Maehama!








It was a beautiful day and there was so much food to go around. The parents busted out some interesting seafood,

including this stinky and gross tasting fish (not the one in the picture) that tasted like old man asshole covered in dingleberries. No joke. I guess it's an acquired taste. And I tried a fish eyeball. It was weird.

What was super good were these clams called karetomono (I think), which means turtle hands. And they really do look like them.













I had been drinking since the moment I got there, trying to foster the image of the genteel American lady who can hold down her booze (I said I was trying), and since I didn't see hardly anyone with a beer, I thought I was the only lush. Turns out, what I thought were grapefruit and peach drinks were straight up rice wine coolers (I had a grape one and it was disgustingly sweet and I loved it). Soon, everyone was laughing and falling off their chairs and very very red.






















It was nice to see the teachers, normally so stoic, cutting loose and trying to talk to me. I'm sure Monday morning they'll clam up again, but now I know they like me.







































We watched the sun set,












and then started cleaning up. I don't know who's bright idea it was to go to the onsen, but I went along because I was...wasted. Duh.
It didn't help my situation. Here I was, soaking in a pool, guzzling water, and saying who knows what kind of jackass comments. I decided to throw an improptu party and invited two teachers from the elementary school. I think they think I'm an ass.
While we sat in the massage chairs, I told everyone again to come to my house. We stopped by the liquor store and I was all set to get a bottle of whiskey and they were horrified. "Only beer-u, only beer-u!" Pussies. Luckily, one of the other teachers had some whiskey and brought it over. It was a small group of us, but we had a good spread. That's what I like about drinking in Japan: always some good drinking snacks on hand.
Everybody left fairly early and I worried it was because I did something stupid or rude or they were maybe afraid I would start pouring beer on their heads. But I think it went ok.
It's now morning (I won't tell you in what state I woke up), and I'm sipping some tomato juice and gearing up to clean my house. I may have some alligator jerky left over from last night first.