Friends + Vodka + Japan = A Necessary Sequel

My last night in Tokyo was the finest. And I don't mean Moet & Godiva Chocolates fine. I mean, fantastically fine-it-should-be-bottled-and-sold-in-department-stores! It is a fitting end to a most excellent leg of this adventure.

When I return from Kamakura, the hostel is packed with new and 'established' guests. Everyone is in the most jovial of moods. My kinda people. Staff and travellers convene at 'the table'. One of the guys brings out a bottle of Vodka which we proceed to drink. Straight. I am more than tipsy. I suspect I am also high on life. We laugh long into the night and early morning. We tell stupid jokes, practise our very embarrassing Japanese, rehash the worst and best hostels ever and revel in mischief. At one point, a Japanese rendition of "Do Re Mi" is belted out.

There is Mariko (the most well travelled Japanese person I have ever met), Kei (coy and sweet), Ken (one of the hostel's staff), Shintaro (another staff member) whom we have renamed 'Brad Nandei' for the evening, Katie (British girl who has just returned from Kyoto), Andrew (soccer hooligan from London who is in Tokyo barracking for Liverpool's football team - go figure), Lena (my room-mate who is teaching rugrats English here) and Warren (Harvard student who is insanely good-looking and sweet... and 20 years old: *rolls eyes* here we go again).

I've been here only 1 week, but my world has changed again. New encounters and new friends enter my life, whether it is for a moment, or a day, a week or a lifetime. Regardless of time, I feel blessed to have met these people, to have experienced this city and left 'normal'. I think back over my all-too-short stay in Japan, and a Cheshire-cat smile comes over my face as well as a wave of nostalgia and sentimentality. A case of 'homesickness' before I've even left the coop (yes, it is just me that gets it). I feel overwhelmingly sad that in less than 24 hours - I will be on a plane elsewhere. I already miss my new posse of buddies, some of whom I have gotten to know very well since I first arrived.

But it's a small world. And plane tickets are cheap. It's not 'Sayonara'. It's 'Jaa ne' (see you later). May our paths cross again.