Continuing my office’s grand tradition of going out drinking in the middle of the week, last night my officemates and I hit the town for an evening of drunken revelry. Originally scheduled as a hanami party, the noticeable lack of sakura turned the event into a second kangeikai for the new guy in our office. This time, however, all staff were present, including the top managers and the mighty shacho himself.

Over a bland meal at a Chinese restaurant off of Aoyama Dori, we quickly and merrily descended into the pits of drunkenness by means of numerous pitchers of beer and more shoukoushu (Chinese rice wine) than I want to even think about. Naturally, things became a tad rambunctious as the evening progressed. Two of my coworkers who had both spent a few years in the U.S. as university students soon began making use of all of the colorful obscenities that they picked up during their time there, much to the chagrin of the older staff members who were proficient enough in English to understand what was being said. Here’s an example of one of their heavily-accented exchanges:

Drunk Guy 1: “Why the fuck aren’t you drinking, bitch?”
Drunk Guy 2: “Man, what the fuck you talking about?”
Drunk Guy 1: “You know what I’m fucking talking about, bitch. You keep filling everyone else’s glasses, but you aren’t drinking shit!”
Drunk Guy 2: “Don’t fucking talk to me that shit, motherfucker! I’m drinking more than you are!”
[Continues ad nauseam]

After the meal, the majority of the revelers departed for home, leaving just six of the most wanton of our group to head to the nijikai (second party). There’s a particular Chinese hostess club in Akasaka that my boss is apparently quite fond of, so lo and behold, that’s where he said we would be going. The place was decent enough — it had the archetypical dim lighting, velvet couches and middle-aged salarymen busting out old enka tunes — but the slightly haggard appearance of the women in their sleazy outfits combined with the fact that the only thing to drink was cursed mizuwari (whisky diluted in water), the experience was far from enjoyable.

Thus, in order to pass the time while my boss was living it up chatting with his favorite hostess and the two drunk guys were busy carrying out a new series of energetic exchanges based around the words “bitch,” “shit,” and “motherfucker,” another coworker and I set to work flipping through the karaoke songbook and picking random songs to viciously butcher to the displeasure to our fellow patrons in the bar. Finally, after a number of pitiful pop tunes and a utterly horrible rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?,” my boss declared that it was time to go. We made a quick stop at a nearby ramen shop for a hearty dose of hangover prevention before hopping into cabs and heading home, where I sleepily arrived shortly after 2:00 a.m.

As one might expect, it was pretty quiet in the office today, as many quietly nursed hangovers and we all fought to stay awake following last night’s adventure. The total tab for evening came out to be about US$680 for dinner (for 16 people) and another whopping $1000 (yes, one thousand) for the waste of time at the hostess club, of which my share was calculated to be $10 and $70 respectively. Thankfully, they chose to break down everyone’s share in terms of rank (one of the few benefits of living in a rigid hierarchal society), and thus the managers had to foot the majority of the tab. Had that not been the case, I just may have had to resort to blackmail, taking advantage of the crappy keitai pics that I drunkenly snapped of my boss getting friendly with one of the hostesses. I guess now I’ll get to save that for another occasion.