Graduation Enkai

So Enkai's here are important! They are big, formal parties. We had our graduation enkai on March 1st, the night of graduation. I just so happen to be writing about the party, before the graduation.

Our Enkai was held at the Hofu Grand Hotel. Hofu has a Grand Hotel!? It's HOFU~! Oh. The carpets reminded me of the ones at Days Inn. I get it. Its just called Grand Hotel. :)

Our food was pretty delicious. I would hope so, since the enkai was about $80.00. There were many different little dishes to try. A couple of them looked really strange, but turned out to be quite amazing, indeed.

Enkai's are also all-you-can-drink, which is another reason it is so expensive. Still. Its the type of formal nonsense that I really only want to deal with once a year. Hence, me politely declining the New School Year Enkai on April 2nd.

This was my FIRST time eating Fugu, or blowfish. You can read about that in one of my previous posts here.

Its 100% crucial that you don't take a sip of your drink until the formal "Kanpai!" is issued. After that, there are interesting social rules regarding the drinking. It is seen as rude at these formal parties to fill your own glass. So every time you see someone with a glass that is less than half-full, you must rush over and pour more beer for them.

My co-workers took it to an extreme, in my viewpoint. But its very very common....even if there was less than an inch of the glass drunk, another co-worker would come by and fill the glass to the brim. It seemed like some kind of weird contest: Who can pour the most times???

Hence, by the time the after party comes around, the karaoke bars are full of happy Japanese people (that are too shy to say hi to you during the day) dancing the robot... and singing like they've never sung before.

Christina and I went to one of these after-parties, and sung our hearts out to Journey. Hurrah!