Enkai and Beer Garden

Aug 12-Aug 17

So our first enkai was a lot of fun but not really what I was expecting. Everyone had told us about all the drinking and crazy stuff that we may need to be on the lookout for, however ours was actually just the four of us BOE ALTs, the two young Japanese ladies that work with us, and our supervisor and the boss lady. We met at a nearby Chinese restaurant and they just kept bringing out tons and tons of food and, when our cups ran low, more drinks. Really though nobody had more than three beers and I actually only had two because I was enjoying the food much more. So there was some loosening up and chatting. Everything was in Japanese but luckily John could translate when one of us couldn’t follow along. Also, since it was our first one it was free! Overall it was definitely an enjoyable experience.

In other work related news we had the first preparatory meeting for the JHS speech contest that all the JETs get to be judges for. Apparently being a judge we also get to teach the kids an English song and facilitate group discussions about their summer vacation. Should be interesting…I hope.

I don't have a lot of photos for this post so I will show how we passed the time at work the other day. One piece was missing :(

Friday night Katie and I joined Cody at his open ping-pong practice. It was surprisingly fun and very good Japanese practice because no one spoke any English. Katie and I didn’t play too much but it was still enjoyable to watch Cody and all the other skilled players that were there. One very nice lady did talk to us a lot and gave us omiyage (souvenirs) cookies she brought back from Okinawa.

This past weekend I spent a lot of time cleaning. Thanks to John, my shower pipes are now cleaned out. To continue with the trend of having to get stuff fixed, my microwave is no longer working correctly and John couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it either (so it wasn’t just user error). Eventually the BOE is going to cut me off and say that I can’t bring them something broken every week.

Saturday night was another festive get-together of the Toyama JETs. This one was a beer garden, where you pay a set fee and get all you can eat and drink for about two hours. This was of course a ton of fun! There were at least 40 (very rough estimate) foreigners from various countries around the world. All of us together were definitely loud and we probably confirmed the stereotypes of all the Japanese people in the room. After the two hours there was another all-night party at some beach place but all of us Himi people (Himians? Himi-ites?) decided on an hour of karaoke before catching the last train back to Himi.

Not just a beer garden but a beer paradise!

On Sunday I found a catholic church fairly nearby! But I don’t know what time mass is yet. John is going to help me figure that out so I can go two weekends from now. I can’t go next weekend because a space opened up for the Mt. Fuji trip!! The hike starts Saturday and we are supposed to reach the summit in time to watch the sunrise Sunday morning. Also, it is the second of the three sacred mountains that I will get to climb. Personal goal for the year: climb all three!!!

I actually took this on the way back from Tateyama. This was inside the Himi train. Hattori-kun is the blue ninja guy and he is everywhere in Himi. I'm pretty sure he is riding on a buri. He is a manga character and the guy who drew him is from Himi.

Yesterday was Joe’s birthday so Sunday night Katie and I bought some balloons, drew all over them, and taped them to his door. Yesterday we went out and had dinner together at a curry restaurant and then went back to Cody’s house and watched some movies. The movies were Sunshine and Clue. Both were good but in very different ways. One was an intense sci-fi movie and the other was an old, goofy comedy. I’ll let you know what we do for my birthday in the next post.

Ummmm....anyone know how to rotate photos??? Anyways, here is Joe's door with some balloons and a samurai sword filled with candy. Not the best looking but it's the thought that counts, right?