Last week, I went to "Nomi-kai" twice. ("Nomi-kai" means drinking with friends, coworker, or cutomer in a Japanese bar or restaurant.)
One of them was Nomi-kai with ex-coworker on Monday. There were two colleagues besides me. One was my senior by one year while another was a person who was employed same time and same department. We talked about situation of the company, other coworkers, and ourselves. For example, we discussed marriage, salary, and our future plan.
On the other hand, another was Nomi-kai with my bosses on Friday. There were three bosses and one partner. We remembered old days, our project, our customer, our failure and success. After we spent 4 hours on first Nomi-kai, we went to the house of one of my boss's. His wife also joined and we kept talking and drinking until 3:00 am.
I think it is normal that people often meet and drink with their colleague. I mean the former case.
I don't know if this is normal or not. I mean, do people meet and drink after the project over? Thinking from my short experience as an office worker, it's not normal.
I wish we can keep this peculiar relationship for long.