Birthday Bonanza

My birthday was on September 3rd, and to celebrate I had a massive
knees up at my house in Asahi. Word of the party spread quickly among
the gin joints and saloons of Fukui... The instructions were simple:

1) Wear a T-shirt with an amusing "Engrish" slogan.

2) Bring booze.

It started off harmlessly enough. I got some cracking presents,
ranging from a skateboard to a frog-shaped oven glove to a Lego set
depicting the transformation of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader. Oh,
and some pants (see below). People arrived slowly, but quickly
colonised the sole air-conditioned room, whilst latecomers were forced
to make do with the woefully inadequate oscillating fan in the
kitchen. The temperature quickly rose, but the booze kept flowing and
nobody seemed to mind too much.

Time passed.

I developed the inclination to dance. It faded almost as quickly as it
appeared. The night wore on. Then someone suggested we should let off
fireworks in the park behind my house. "Alright", I said. We let off
fireworks. It was fun. Then people let off fireworks at each other.
That wasn't so fun. So we stopped letting off fireworks. Then we drank
more. And er.... then I had some crisps.... and.... no, sorry, I don't
remember anything else. But at some point it involved going to bed,
and when I woke up in the morning I was still alive, so everything was
brilliant. Although my head hurt a bit and I had to go to work, so
that wasn't so great, but I knew I had a skateboard and a frog-shaped
oven glove to come home to, so it wasn't so bad at all really.

All in all, it was a jolly good time, and I heartily thank everyone
who came along, and especially those who helped clean up - you truly
are heroes among ordinary men and women.

I think I'm going to enjoy being twenty-six.