Last Niigata All-Nighter. EVER!

Yes, my friends, it's true. There will be no more random Niigata bar-hopping. No more crappy 500yen cocktails. No more nomihoudais. No more catching the 5am train and stumbling home as the sun is coming up. No more sleeping through my stop and ending up in Yoshida (it only happened once though!). It's official: JET is just about over!

On Saturday afternoon, I went into the city with Kayvohn, his cousin Mike and his friend Stuart to see Koken's band play for (probably) the last time. As usual, Koken's band rocked out but the other bands were, um, total shit. And the bar was super smoky and gross, so after Koken's I met Phil outside and we started the drinking at a cheap izakaya. Awesome.

After that, we went to the big bad ALT Sayonara Party on Sunday night. The owner of Immigrants offered us a 3000yen nomihoudai, starting at 8pm, which was pretty sweet despite the fact that Immigrants has to be one of the worst venues for a big party, and they ran out of booze by like 2am. It was very crowded and full of ALTs, random middle aged white guys (still don't know who they were or why they were there) and Japanese chicks reeking of desperation to find a white boyfriend. But alas, it was actually a really good and rowdy and random night followed by excellent 3am drunken karaoke. I also met some great people who I probably should have met like a year ago, but still, it was great to get new perspective and learn that I'm not the only one who's going slightly bonkers at this stage.

My best bud Kayvohn and I

Kayvohn, Kat, Ellen and I looking pretty freaking sweet. And by sweet, I mean drunk.

Phil and Kat - for some reason I have about 6 photos of these two in this pose. Why?

Lovey Sado Tamara who I distinctively recall spilling and entire drink on. Gomen gomen!

Karaoke in the narrowest room ever.

**Laura, I totally didn't end up with a picture of you, but rest assured if I did, you'd be on here -- I know you're reading!**


And, on my drunken 6am stumble in the rain to my apartment from the train station, I randomly whipped out my camera to get some shots of Maki. I've taken the beauty of this town for granted, so I'm trying to make an effort to photograph the things that will no longer be mundane after I've left (in 15 days, by the way). So here's a start.





And now here's hoping the rain will take a little break for my last two weeks... doesn't look too promising though!