Dashite, Itte, Aruitte, Aruitte

You know the drill--pics first, arrangement and explanation when I am not drunk.
Update: Dear god. Ok. Here we go.
So, I went to Ushibuka to participate in the Haiya festival. Haiya is a traditional Japanese dance (the same one that terrified me earlier in my tenure here) and the festival has a parade and general...festivities.
Our group's name was chosen for us and it was, oh so awesomely, 'Hello, how are you?' Oh yeah.
Char tapped me to make the sign. I did. The sign was found to be grammatically incorrect by me the morning of the event and so I made a second sign, which, frankly, sucked a little harder than the first:

So, here we are the whole crew, suited up in our happis and ready to go!

A few individual shots:

Alcohol was omnipresent...I was drunk by the end of the walk over to Laura's, which I blame entirely on how awesome I was the rest of the night. A few of you have partied with me before; I am talking PARTY, not hanging out at The Green or chilling at the pub on Broadway. I mean full on party. And that, my friends, results in my drunk picture hall of fame, which include such luminaries as this:

And the number one of all time, this:

Nice, right? Well, now we can add this one to the pile:

Mom is so proud of me. You know, there is only so much untagging does.

What happened? I drank a bottle of champagne, danced for three hours, climbed a wall, broke a bottle of whiskey, forced everyone to play kings, got a girlfriend, saw my girlfriend naked, watched two dudes make-out, and gave free massages and makeovers to anyone who wanted one. I think I might have had someone's cigar, too. Typical for my nights in the states, but an unusual surprise here. The surprise being: fun.

I regret nothing. Anyhow, I am not one of the ones that got naked or the dude who vomited in the sink. Twice. And ended up looking like this:

Here are some pics of the general festival:

My friend Dana redid it all over again the next day (with I imagine, a great deal of unenthused exhaustion, as this was the best and most excited looking pic I could find) in a yukata:

She looks good in it, though.

I also bought myself a new pair of shoes, which are awesome. 2 dollars and they were mine to walk home in--it is really nice having small enough feet to fit into Japanese sizes. My gf is JEALOUS:

I look real pretty here, btw:

Yeah, my lady is hot but she is real bitch to maintain, guys. Seriously.