Carbonite Hangover

You may or may not remember a trip to Europe that I took last year to watch the soccer championships. While I was in Austria pounding Bavarian beers at our hostel in Vienna I met a Japanese guy who is from a town not far from Hagi. I rang him up one day and told him I could come visit for the weekend to catch up and that sort of thing.

Shimonoseki is the largest city in Yamaguchi prefecture so I was pumped that we were going to make a wild night out of it. After Yuichiro picked me up, I noticed we were slowly drifting into the country. He told me we were going to eat dinner at his house which is unfortunately not located in the kind of night locale I was expecting.
At his house however, there was beer by the kegload and he told me that we would be going scuba diving the next day, so my mood had certainly perked up a bit.

What I didn't predict was the quantity of beer and wine I would consume in one night, and after waking at 6 AM sharp to drive to Nagato I felt about as good as Han Solo just after waking up from his carbonite sleep.



While coping with what I call a "Carbonite Hangover", the scuba diving had certainly tested me, but I fought bravely against the urge to reverse my bowel movements into the mouthpiece of my oxygen tank.

Here is a photo of me losing the battle against the Carbonite Hangover. While everyone was eating lunch I passed out in the grass in this uncomfortable position while my newly acquainted friend Taka mocks me.



Here is a photo of me in better spirits after napping for a bit. Yuichiro is the fellow on the far left. Some other girl in our diving group was celebrating her 50th dive.



There was a moment when Taka led me into a cavern about 15 meters deep, where the suns' rays could not penetrate, and the temperature had noticeably lowered. We reached a dead end and I got a feeling for some reason that Taka might rip my oxygen tube from the tank like Roger Moore does to that dude in Never Say Never again. I had to turn around just calm myself down. Another symptom of the Carbnite Hangover is paranoia.

This is Taka and me posing for a photo.



Then Taka said he wanted to be cool like me and pose with his shirt off too.



On Thursday I leave Hagi for Fukuoka, and Taka and I are going drinking for what will be the last time before I head home on Friday morning from Fukuoka Airport. It is impossible for me to describe how much fun I've had the past two months, so I won't.