Friendly Fukuoka – Nomikai, Game Centre and Oktoberfest

In the morning we had classes; ‘Miyazaki Hayao’s World’ and a gender class. Both or very interesting classes, especially the last one where we discuss a lot about gender roles and other things both in Japan and our home countries. After the classes my friend and I did some groceries and ate lunch together before preparing for a nomikai (drinking party) in the evening.

This was a rather funny evening because in the same room as ours was another party. It was a huge group of Japanese girls and boys around my age, or a little bit younger. The party was a birthday party for one of them who became ‘legal age’ which means that they can finally drink alcohol. So drinking is what they did, a lot! And not just normal drinking, but they were singing special drinking songs to encourage the people drinking to down their glass in one go, or they played drinking games. Anyway, they became more drunk as the night went on and they were so noisy.

I never knew Japanese could be this loud, we couldn’t even normally talk to each other. But that doesn’t matter because it was a lot of fun to see them enjoy themselves and the atmosphere was really good. When the JTW students also had had a few drinks it didn’t take long before the whole room was in chaos and everyone in the room started to drink and talk with each other. When it was time to go we had to pretty much run back to the station to catch the last train home, but it was worth it.

On Tuesday the typhoon that had caused some storms during the week already passed Fukuoka and most of the storm became quiet except for some cold winds. After classes we went to the popular スシロー again. I didn’t eat much sushi, but instead I enjoyed the cheap desserts there. Afterwards we went to take a look at the halloween costumes and did some shopping in a nearby shop. One by one people went home but my fellow Dutchman, my Filipino friend I decided to stay and go to the game centre. There we played some dancing games, which were quite difficult, and took purikura. Taking purikura with a boy is really interesting I have to say, and the results were hilarious. I just love Japanese game centers. They just have the weirdest games and there are usually many people so it feels very lively. The game centre back home are in the downfall, if present at all. Although with all the machines screaming at you it can be quite overwhelming as well. Actually, my ears start to hurt after a while.

Oktoberfest started on friday, and of course we wanted to take a look there. I am not much of a beer person but I was curious to what the atmosphere would be like and that they would be selling. I didn’t even buy one beer (they were really expensive anyway), but I did buy some food that I shared with my friend. We tried pizza, garlic bread and a waffle. Except for the waffle all the food was really good! I was contemplating to go there again next week just for the food, but in the end I didn’t haha. Anyway, there were German performers there and the crowd was so into it.

It was an awesome atmosphere. People were singing and dancing and we joined them. We were there quite late so sadly it was already the last performance of the day. Even though we weren’t drunk we could still appreciate the lively and happy atmosphere and it was funny to be dragged into dancing the polonaise by some random people. I really liked experiencing Oktoberfest for the first time, even though it was a Japanese version of it. Afterwards the party was not over so we moved on the a bar for nomihoudai. I talked a lot with some people I hadn’t really talked to before, so it was nice to get to know them better. Some people decided to go to clubbing after the nomihoudai was over, but I wanted to go home because Oktoberfest and drinking in a bar was more than enough for me. Some people were very drunk so we all walked all the way back to the dorm with our bicycles at hand. And the dorm is actually surprisingly close to the city centre by foot.