STAR TREK at last

It was after Jean-Luc Picard had been assimilated by the Borg but before Karl dropped my Barbra Streisand biography into the toilet that I realized how awesome small house parties can be.

Let me start at the beginning...

Living in a small town out in the inaka that's accessible only by car and helicopter usually means I don't have many visitors. This past Saturday, however, was a wonderful change to this as Karl, Lisa, Phil, and Tamara all made their way to Ajimu for a visit and some Star Trek watching. Gathering everyone up in my little car in Usa (five people maxing out the engine's power capability), we made our way from the train station to the legendary Usa Shrine.

Happy sweaty people


Tamara and Karl fighting to the death

After the shrine, we headed south into the mountains towards Ajimu. Having five people in a small car like mine is not only a little cramped, but it's also illegal (sorry mom). Fortunately Lisa is a quick thinker and managed to always duck when a police car was near. We managed to dodge the po-po all the out to Higashishiiya no taki--the tallest waterfall in Kyushu that's located about 10 minutes from my house. We swam in the coldcold water with a lot of laughing and screaming as Japanese people watched us at a distance. When we were leaving, we saw a very different kind of site...a young woman accompanied by a man with a camera nonchalantly and quickly removed her top to pose for a picture in front of the waterfall. Sugoi! Nudie photos in the wild!



Trekking to and swimming in the falls...no one is nude in this photo.

Later we returned to my house and prepared for the highlight of the evening--watching Star Trek! I had been waiting and hoping for this moment since I returned to Japan with DVDs of the show and now that I had found some fellow fans of the scifi series, it was time to enjoy. To make things a little more interesting, I devised a drinking game we could play while we watched. The rules were simple: drink a "generous mouthful" whenever a crew member says "engage", "open hailing frequencies", or any number of other familiar lines. There were also rules about drinking whenever there was a RED ALERT, Klingon was spoken, or there was sexual tension between characters. By our third episode of TNG, we were feeling pretty good.


The rules (numerous, but funny)


Phil is energized for adventure

But then Karl had to go and drop my Barbra Streisand biography into the toilet. Sigh, this is where events took a very different turn. Feeling the need for justice, I challenged Karl to a fight in the elementary school playground next door (remember, I live in the middle of no where with no neighbors so this kind of thing is okay to do). I think I won the fight, but I wanted to face another challenger so I called Phil out into the dirt (and he was calling me Little Bo Pete and stuff so in the spirit of Klingon honor I felt the need to take him down). This fight didn't go as well...see photo below.



Nonetheless, the night was still awesome. Lisa really came through and regulated and made us drink water and eat bread (thanks Lisa). By latesomething o'clock after Phil had made a random peanut butter dip and Tamara had critically disassembled another episode of Star Trek, we gathered our futons and went to sleep. It was good to have people over and share Ajimu with them (isn't it such a lovely, safe town?). Glad you guys came! Let's do it again!