The Kitchen Absinthe Party

Two of our friends Nick and Nick (one affectionately known as "Nikyu", meaning Level Two Japanese Proficiency, and the other "Niku", meaning meat) threw a housewarming party on Saturday night. It was a sultry, early summer evening, and the party was going swimmingly until someone (you know who you are) brought out a bottle of absinthe. This heady brew which gained particular infamy during the Victorian ages, brought further infamy upon this unassuming apartment in 21st century Ebisu.

The key (apparently) to a "heady" experience is to dip a spoon laced with sugar into the alcohol, light the spoon, dip it, stir it around, then shoot it like tequila. The absinthe had absolutely no effect on me (apart from tasting vile and producing a violent stabbing in my brain the next morning), and as I was lighting my spoon in the kitchen, I couldn't help but feel like I was about to ingest something quite, quite different...

In spite of Niku and Nikyu throwing on some Abba (which Nikyu insisted he didn't have, liar) and encouraging a half-arsed living-room groove, around midnight a good percentage of the party squeezed onto the balcony (a rare luxury in this country) and chilled. I know this to be a fact, as the Moby MD came out...

In Japan, the house party scene is a bit of a peculiarity. Quite a few of the Japanese contingent commented that it was unusual to have a big party with a lot of people who don't know each other (which is the total point of a house party where I'm from). The Japanese love their groups, but tend not to mix them. Thankfully, their love of alcohol will always supercede their bashfulness about mixing with a bunch of strangers, and the conversations and flirtations carried on til around 5am.

Unlike most normal parties, where guests get the "hint" by the music stopping, Niku starts the washing up. Who said Englishmen weren't domesticated?