Welcome Party
At the end of our four day orientation, we had a big
opening ceremony at Waseda's Okuma Garden. It was a good time, and for most of
us it was the first round of another night out. There were two clubs at Waseda,
Waseda International Club (WIC) and Rainbow Club, who made it a point to show us
around town and invite us to their social events (which 
were almost always nights out
drinking at various bars). They were some all around good people, and we had a
party with them at least once a month for the rest of our time there. In
Takadanobaba, which was where most Waseda students went out, there were bars
that specialized in hosting club parties. These places had huge areas set up for
groups of around 50 drunk, loud, and sometimes indecent students to socialize
in. They were on a "nomihodai" drinking policy, which meant that you can drink
as much as you want for a set time, usually 2 hours, for around 2000 yen per
person. Not a bad deal at all in Tokyo. The other place in "Baba" where you can
find Waseda students any night of the week is a bar called "The Hub". It was the
unofficial starting place for any night out in Tokyo for us. My roommate for the
orientation was a country bumpkin named Dana Franklin. He was one of those guys
that was stubborn as hell and always wrong about things, but amusing to listen
to, so I let him hang around. *Note* If you are reading this Dana and dont like
it, well, learn some HTML and write your own damn version, because you know I am
right, again. He was lucky enough to get the AIEJ scholarship, which was about
$800/month, and paid round trip tickets. I think that the AIEJ would be very
disappointed to know where most of that money went. Let's just say that Dana
never paid for any of his drinks with his own money. That goes for about 75% of
the other CSU students who won the scholarship. Another wild man was a Rainbow
Club member named Takaaki. He later went on to found the infamous "Hub Fight
Club" with me and Anthony Swanson. Any party with Takaaki and Dana was bound to
get shut down sooner or later. I can safely say that they were a very bad
influence on all of us for pretty much the whole year, and I can only thank god
that I no longer must be exposed to their bad taste and uncouth behavior.
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