Tarto in Japan

Friday evening, I was with my classmates and teachers and we went to an izakaya near our school. In Japanese, Izakaya is 居酒屋: 酒 is the character for "alcohol" and 屋 the character for "shop, place", so basically an izakaya is a place where you can have (a lot of) alcohol for quite cheap. Nowadays izakayas also serve various and good food, and they're still cheap!... It's common practice to order plenty of dishes and share them. Everybody picks what he/she wants to eat. It's really friendly and it's an excellent way to taste lots of typical Japanese dishes for a rather moderate price.

Of course, the initial purpose of izakayas has remained and as you can see, there's plenty of alcohol to be drunk...There's also soft drinks but in practical, you never really get to see them.

I should write a post about Japanese sake, not only because there are many different varieties, but mainly because it's really difficult not to drink here: in Japan, glasses seem to have an auto-refill function...

Here's a quick overview of my classmates and teachers. Let's begin with a group pic :

Charlie's angels...From left to right, 熊崎先生 (Kumasaki-sensei), 新井先生　(Arai-sensei) et 大屋先生　(Oya-sensei), 3 great teachers!

I think you know that guy...I am actually eating a tofu ice cream (and to be honest, I should have chosen vanilla just like everybody else !!) :

Another group of Charlie's angels! メロディーさん (Melody-san, Taiwan), ステファニーさん (Stefanie-san, US) et ジーニーさん (Jeannie-san, US) :

ウィールムさん (Willem-san, Netherlands) with Kumasaki-sensei :

With ノリコさん (Noriko-san, Taiwan) and "I forgot her name"-san (she's not in my class) :

ジョーさん (Joe-san, US) and his Japanese girlfriend :

Oya-sensei just before she had her first round :

With オウさん (Oo-san, China) :

With ティカさん (Tika-san, China) et ゾーイさん (Zoe-san, China) :

With 本多先生 (Honda-sensei), my homeroom teacher, and Tika-san :

With Kumasaki-sensei and Arai-sensei :

The effects of alcohol - 1 :

The effects of alcohol - 2, ie Oya-sensei after a few rounds :

アンディさん (Andy-san, GB) and シャさん (Sha-san, Taïwan), respectively 3rd and 4th from the left:

I have no picture of キムさん (Kim-san, Korea), who was missing because she was celebrating her birthday with her family.

As a Japanese, I'm pretty sure Honda-sensei drinks a lot, unfortunately he was driving that night and I didn't get to see him drunk. In Japan, you're not allowed to drink any alcohol if you're driving.

Every party in Japan finishes early, and we finished eating around 11PM. I then joined friends at the karaoke, indeed one of them was giving his farewell party and I ended up going to bed around 4AM. I was so exhausted that I wasn't able to wake up at 6AM to chat with my girlfriend, neither at 10AM to say goodbye to my bud Mark.