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DV seemed commendably wide-awake after his travelling ordeal, so we went off to get a meal. Apart from the unexpected side dish which consisted of cubes of raw fish, this was rather pleasant, with DV adapting to Japanese etiquette with remarkable speed and avoiding all our ruses intended to make him breach it - George made far more chopsticks-in-rice cock-ups, predictably enough.

Strolling back from the cafe through the local Camden-style market, we stopped in at Ueno's local Shinto shrine, while trying to avoid glancing at the disturbingly mature-looking schoolgirls. Soon it was off to Nihombashi station to meet Yuhei for the evening's entertainment - only to find that we'd been directed to the wrong station. We phoned Yuhei again, only for our batteries to expire halfway through his explanation. We managed to piece together enough information to get where we had to go, and then found ourselves with an hour or two to kill waiting for Yuhei to join us from work. What to do? Wisely, we decided to get a beer ...

Having found somewhere that seemed as if we could buy drinks without being expected to get food, we ordered four of them. Shortly after the beers arrived, the inevitable : we were presented with four little plates, each containing one small, cooked, but still whole fish. Despite our protestations, we couldn't get the staff to take them away, so we resolved not to touch them with a bargepole in the hope that we could avoid being brought anything else. Luckily, this seemed to work - we now suspect that George's clumsy attempts to order a particular kind of beer may have provoked the arrival of the unpleasant snacks. Having been charged a cool Y800 each (that's just under a fiver - actually not particularly expensive for a beer, so we hadn't been ripped off), we headed off to wait for Yuhei.

The plan for the evening consisted of going to a bar with a massive TV screen, where we had pre-booked a table. Yuhei's workmates were to join us, and the Y4000 charge would cover all we wanted to drink and eat. So when Yuhei turned up at the appointed time, we headed for the impressive venue. The table was right in front of a 100-inch TV screen set into the wall of a small but stylishly-decorated bar, and refills of drink came along whenever we requested it.

Now, most of you will remember what happened in the match : France nil, Senegal one, with the man christened by Sultoon as Papa Smurf Niep sticking in the crucial goal, inspired no doubt by the efforts of his amusingly named team-mate Kh Fadiga. Needless to say, we were all on Senegal's side and cheered them drunkenly as France amusingly failed to impose themselves on the match. Frank Leboeuf became the butt of our singing (along with Vieira - see below), and the strains of "He's bald, and he's fucking shit", "He's shit and he's fucking bald" and even "He's fucked and he's a balding shit" echoed around the increasingly loud bar as the evening went by.

Meanwhile, there was value thronged all around us - not least from Tommo, Yuhei's colleague, who seemed to be the Japanese equivalent of a bit of a wide boy, and was certainly a massive name (more about him at a later date). George held court to the two young ladies sitting to his left (and pictured here) - he enjoyed a long conversation with the pretty one, although later denied that this meant he'd been having a look. The rest of the bar soon became pretty enthusiastic and whipped up a good atmosphere - in fact, the Japanese at a nearby table breached etiquette far more often that we did, even managing to break a glass while banging glasses together and shouting "Kampai!" (Cheers).

Soon the evening descended into a drunken farce, with myself in as much trouble as anyone (Sultoon being a close second). On the tube home we encountered a Frenchman who seemed to be in reasonable spirits despite the result, and began our song for the evening. He joined in enthusiastically as we sang "Vieira, oh-oh-oh-oh, Vieira, oh-oh-oh-oh", but soon became disgruntled when we concluded, "He comes from Senegal, he lost to Senegal". Sultoon, meanwhile, kept repeating the words "Djibril CHEESE" to him, having decided that this was the correct way to pronounce the name of the young French forward.

Having done our bit for foreign relations, we gradually staggered back to the ryokan, where I simply passed out on my bed, still in my Japan shirt. A great evening - still plenty to look forward to tomorrow ...