Birthday Madness

Well, it wasn't really my birthday that was mad, as the title of this blog entry might imply. My bday happened to fall on the same day as the annual Okinawa JET Halloween party. Which was madness. This picture above is my birthday dinner, which my wonderful friends (in the picture) took me out to, at a Mexican restaurant here (in Okinawan, such places are actually run by Mexicans, as opposed to the mainland). Wow, it was really fantastic to eat cheese again after many months of no cheese. Update on me and cheese: my Japanese friend Yuki, who is married to a marine and pregnant, just let it drop in conversation last week that the US army gives her free CHEESE from the American stores on base, as part of the package deal for being pregnant. Apparently, as much cheese of various sorts as she wants, none of which she wants, because she doesn't know how to eat cheese, so I will shortly be receiving rations of said cheese. SUGOI! Where was I? Right, my bday. After the happy bday meal, we proceeded to don our costumes (those of us not already dressed to impress) and bused our merry way over to Paul and Mikes, a Canadian bar on Kokusaidori in Naha run by ex-JETs who liked Okinawa so much that they never left. There, we met about a bijillion other JETs and partied like there was no tomorrow. Ah, but there was a tomorrow, full of futatsuyoi. Here, a sampling of fotos! Nancy and Yvonne are the nuns from hell!
Andy, Jaimee, Dave and Alisa were all very well dressed.
Robyn (the nurse) did Abi's makeup and hair for him.
Amy, Jenny, and Christina all made their own costumes and won best group prize for female superheros!
Cat in the Hat won best female costume! There's Christina too.
Juli from Hawaii was the world's cutest Goya Girl. goya is a very bitter vegetable that they eat here on okinawa.
Michael is Scottish. Doesn't he exude that quality?