"Poker Night" or "Renoucning my Citizenship"

Is it possible for me to cast my absentee ballot late? Why didn't any of you tell me there was a federal election looming?!! I leave the country for two months and this is what happens?!!

So last night I hosted a poker game at my place and it all went over fairly well. If you're wondering, I invited the Kyoto guy who posted a comment on my blog back in December, his name is Swedish Carl and he's a bit of a pro. Also in attendance were Canadian Justin, British Graham, American Frankie, and spectators Australian Mark and my roommate Will, all of whom you've met before. Four of the five guests attested to the fact that my apartment is horrible and I should move out as soon as possible. The other one lives in a dorm and thought my apartment was lovely.

Since I work until 9pm, the game didn't really start up until 11:30 or midnight, and it went through most of the night and the local 7/11 was blessed with periodic visits of foreigners purchasing alcohol. After Frankie and Graham were knocked out of the game, they left with Mark for a nearby bar called Fly Over which is supposed to be "good" (not really) on Tuesday nights. A little after 4am, Carl and I had both lost all of our chips to Justin and he pocketed the winnings of 7,000 yen ($70). I hate losing.

Justin, Carl and I set off to meet up with the others (the trains for them all to go home don't start up until 5:30am). Justin and I both made the claim that we were Geography Champions, so we held a competition along the way, but I clearly destroyed him. Yes, I know the capital of Turkmenistan, it's Ashgabat. When we arrived at the bar, they were just closing up and the others had drunkenly wandered off somewhere. We met up a little bit later near the rail tunnels of Shinosaka and all made our way to Nishinakajimaminamikata (the next neighbourhood over) where I claimed that there would be some izakayas (Japanese-style bars). I was wrong, but we found a vending maching restaurant where we ordered some food.

By vending machine restaurants, I mean restaurants where you walk in and instead of waiters, they just have big machines with buttons. You insert your money into the machine and it prints you out a ticket, you give that ticket to the chefs and they cook and deliver your food. It's clearly a much better system than having to make small-talk to anyone. They're absurdly popular here with businessmen.

At 6am they all went home, and so did I. When I woke up today, I jumped out of bed, thinking I was somehow late for work since I forgot to set my alarm. But no, work starts at 5pm and it's kind of impossible to be late by oversleeping. But it's time for work now, so I'll continue this later.