I reached my laboratory on Ookayama campus at 7:15 a.m., leaving me 30 minutes to catch up on emails before everyone arrived. Several members slept overnight in the laboratory, as is often their wont. I once found it strange that members' lives revolved around the laboratory, but as the year has gone by I have come to feel similarly. We often eat two meals a day together, and I have also spent the night at the lab to watch important football matches on the projector. It probably also helps that we have had numerous NOMIKAI drinking parties that are the primary way of strengthening relationships in Japan.

Today would include numerous activities that would bring us closer: white-water rafting together, stripping down to our birthright at an ONSEN (hot spring), a night of no-holds-bars drinking in a NOMIKAI celebration (professor's included), and sleeping the night off on the floor of the wooden lodge.

Back to this morning, though, when we piled into half a dozen cars for the 2.5 hour drive to Saitama Prefecture, which is North of Tokyo. I was riding with Shindo-san, who has a never-take-anything-too-seriously attitude, which is somewhat uncharacteristic for Japanese. Would you trust the guy, pictured to the left, driving you around Tokyo's narrow streets?

Before going rafting, we stopped at a traditional Japanese restaurant where all 23 of us sat on TATAMI (畳) mats and ordered dishes like TONKATSU (とんかつ, or pork cutlet) and UDON (うどん, or thick, wheat-based noodles). I have never been flexible enough to find a comfortable sitting position in such circumstances, so I broke custom and spread my legs flat underneath the table. I am fairly certain this is a big no-no - one should never point their feet in someone else's direction (I believe this has Buddhist origins) - but amongst friends it doesn't seem to matter. One thing that did matter during lunch was keeping track of the first game of the NBA play-offs, which were taking place in Boston, thousands of miles away. I was constantly refreshing the scoreboard on my mobile phone as I rooted on the Celtics from a somewhat poor vantage point. (The Celtics ended up winning the game 98-88.)

We reached the white-water rafting lodge complex at around 13:00, but there was about an hour's worth of waiting before we would set off. We unloaded most of our gear and left in the lodge, as this was where we would sleep later in the evening. Since everything was being arranged through a single operation and we had so many people, the price for the weekend was more than reasonable. However, rather than idling around doing nothing during the wait, we broke out the athletic equipment and started knocking balls around. I juggled a football with a few other guys while the less-skillful satisfied themselves with a volleyball.

The most exciting activity came when I pulled everyone aside and used my shoes to draw a ring in the middle of the gravel parking area. The competition was simple: a make-shift sumo tournament using only one's hips. (The only real rules were not to use your hands, and the first person to step out of the ring or fall down loses.)

I was half-expecting to get dominated as many of the lab members are black-belt martial artists, but I ended up going 6-0 before I was finally defeated by a newcomer to the game. Obviously, he was fully rested, whereas I was tiring by this point. Obviously.

Shortly afterward we prepared to go rafting, which amounted to a 20 minute speech on the dangers of the river. May has been a strange month in Tokyo as it has rained every other day, so the river was running 20 meters wider than normal. Coupled with the jagged nature of Japan's mountains - 70% of the country is considered mountainous - the rapids promised to fulfill everyone's expectations.

I immediately hopped in the front of our boat, but caught a fair bit of flack from the safety instructor when I could not understand his instructions, which were delivered in colloquial Japanese. As the "head of the boat," it was my responsibility to lead everyone, which would be fine when there are actual rapids (I have gone rafting a few times in the past, and it isn't like it is THAT hard). However, the guy decided to make an example of me, which nearly cost him an oar to the head.

As for the actual rafting, most of the rapids were only a level 1 or 2, but there was one section that featured level 3 rapids. Obviously, taking pictures was impossible.

After rafting, we were all freezing cold from the water and had three hours to kill before our evening BBQ. So, we headed for the local ONSEN (hot springs), which was a real steal at only 600 yen ($6USD). This is not the kind of place where one can walk around snapping photos, but I was able to snap a few shots from the outside - they should give a good indication to the high quality of Japanese ONSEN.

Inside, I took my shoes off at the door, placing them in an individual locker and slipping the key cord around my wrist. Then, I was handed a nylon bag containing towels, a robe, and another locker key where I could leave my clothes. (From here on, the men and women were divided into separate facilities.) I stripped down in the men's changing room, and headed into the bathing area where I spent 15 minutes washing myself with the provided soap and shampoo. The bathing area consists of a semi-partitioned space with a small stool, a wooden bucket, a faucet, and a shower head. Before anyone enters the hot springs they should clean their body to ensure the water is kept clean.

Like most ONSEN, there are several hot spring options: the electrically heated indoor bath, and the actual hot springs (usually 40cm deep, although there is usually an additional bath, only 20cm deep, that is meant for lying down). Additionally, there is usually a sauna with a cold-water bath outside. One of my favorite things to do is to endure the sauna for as long as possible before heading into the cold water bath and fully submerging myself. This usually slows my heart-rate down significantly, and after a while it actually becomes difficult to breath.

After 1.5 hours of total relaxation, I threw on my robe, shaved, brushed my teeth, and joined several friends for a beer on the TATAMI mats. Honestly, this was the highlight of my day: an ice-cold Asahi beer in a frosted mug. And on an empty stomach, with hardly an water in my body after rafting and sweating it out in the sauna, I was well on my way to getting drunk for the evening.

Dinner consisted of an Asian-styled BBQ, which basically means sitting around a table and cooking the food on burners built into the table. While this isn't the American concept of a barbeque (where a grill immediately springs to mind), there is still good food and plenty of alcohol. I sat with my professor and half a dozen other lab-mates, which may have been a mistake because we all deferred to Okuma-sensei so he could eat to his heart's content.

Afterward, at around 9:00 p.m., the real fun began. 22 people piled into the main floor of the lodge (Sarah-san, an Iranian graduate student, does not drink and so went to sleep early), and the OSAKE (alcohol) and TABEMONO (snacks) came out. As I have mentioned time and time again, there are NO STIGMAS against drinking in Japan. And truthfully, this mentality makes far more sense because it is a fun-loving atmosphere where people interact and enjoy themselves - professors included. I will not mention what was talked about or what went on, but I will go ahead and upload a few photos to give an idea what the venue was like...

The best part about the night was that no one had anywhere to hide. Since the party took place where everyone would later sleep (or pass out), it was guaranteed that everyone got suitably drunk, which is the purpose of the entire engagement. However, since this concept of drinking is not universally shared, I also want to point out that NO ONE threw up, which is absolutely remarkable considering the amount of alcohol consumed. I suppose this is why I am now so open about the concept of excessive drinking. In European countries, drinking is a part of the lifestyle, but it should never be done in excess. However, in Japan they take this one step further: drinking SHOULD be done to excess because that means you are fully opening up and enjoying yourself. However, there are never and fights or problems caused, and everyone looks out for each other, so this approach works better than any I have ever seen - it is somewhat counter-intuitive.

Read the following for a more detailed look into the background of Drinking in Japan.