Kuniko and I hit the trails early to do some shopping – first we went to Carrefour to pick up some hard to find things. We loaded ourselves down with groceries, and even stopped in for a quick Starbucks coffee.
Once we got back and stuffed everything in the fridge I sat down with Kuniko and taught her the basics of poker. She didn’t really want to play with us, but I thought it would be more fun if she could play a few hands. She caught on quick, but I could tell she wasn’t that much interested.
About an hour later I suddenly remembered that it was Antoine’s birthday on Saturday, so Kuniko and I went right back out and walked over to Carrefour again. We picked up a strawberry shortcake, and they even wrote Antoine’s name in Japanese characters for free on a little piece of chocolate. The lady that we talked to was wearing a microphone, and so as she took our order and spelled out Antoine, every customer in the bakery section could hear what we were talking about – how strange.
Soon we walked over to the train station to meet up with everyone. Just before we left Nel called up and said that he could make it and asked for last minute directions. Everyone started showing up at Higashi Futami station – Carrie, Struan, Antoine, and Nel all appeared separately, and so all together we walked back through town towards my place.
Everyone came in and looked around, and we settled down for some poker. At first Nel and Kuniko didn’t want to play, but gradually we talked them into it. Kuniko’s poker debut turned out nicely – she won the first game she played, and two hands later beat me with a full house… ouch! We played a few strange games, and some normal ones as well. Cincinatti turned out to be the most popular game we played.
The sausages turned out great for dinner, and I opened a couple of bottles of red wine, too. After a dinner break Kuniko and I brought out the birthday cake and let Antoine blow out the candles and cut it up for everyone.
At around ten o’clock we decided that we should head back to the station and go our separate ways. It was a really nice night and everyone was fun to hang out with. I’m hoping that we can do it again sometime soon.
