Bon Enkai

It's that time again. I can hardly believe it.

Bon Enkai.

It's year-end parties. I kind of had one last Friday/Sat. Note To Self: You are not 23, and drinking all night is a very BAD thing! From Sunday night after dinner I started a 36 hour water fast. As I type this, my liver is thanking me! I haven't done one in a while, and with all the seafood and alcohol I've had in the last week, I was more than due to clean the system (a little).

Taka works in the PR Department of her company. Her job largely involves internal relations. Because of that, she has already had something like four bon enkai's for work...then there's get-togethers with friends. Of course she is much more responsible with hers than I am with mine....I seem to go back and forth between not learning a thing, and learning what little knowledge I have the hard way.

Side joke to anyone Japanese reading this: I eat a lot of myoga!

I'm not much on holidays. Never have been, really. This one is hard to avoid though. The actual holiday is New Year, but companies and friends get together throughout December to celebrate. This time of year, the last thing you want to do is be on a train any time from 9-12. There are more sloppy drunks than anyone should have to be subjected to (although for some reason I don't seem to mind so much after four hours of drinking). Trips to the store by bicycle after 9ish, can be kind of dangerous. There are more than a few drunk drivers (bike riders, pedestrians, etc.) out there. Several thousand pounds of steel handled erratically and bicycles, no matter how vigilantly handled, are just not a combination that works well.

There is another year-end tradition in Japan that I am planning to follow (construction companies willing). Year-end cleaning. It's like Spring cleaning in the States. The idea is that you should start the new year out fresh and clean of everything from the past year. A sensible tradition, but a bit colder than the whole Spring-cleaning thing. The scaffolding is finally down, but there are still people all over the building doing this and that. I've even been able to open my curtains for the first time in six weeks. Now it's time to start getting the place in order for the new year.

The new year from the first to the third is the biggest holiday of the year in this country. I'll talk about that in another post.