The Enkai

Okay people this post will be much shorter than the last one.

So lately I've been having more and more of those days where you catch yourself and realize that life is just about perfect. Even when the off-days come and you just want to go home and sleep, I find that there's absolutely no room for complaints. I wake up and go to work where I get to hang with great kids. When 5pm rolls around I head out, ride my bike to wherever I need to go and do whatever I darn well please for the rest of the night. Hanging out with friends, studying Japanese, hopping on my scooter and getting groceries down the street. It's just great being here and finally getting to the place where I can't imagine things being better. I know days will come where I'll be ready to jump on a plane and head back to America, but life is good when where you are is where home is. Being out on my balcony (yeah, I've got a balcony on the 4th floor with a great view!)looking around at everything going on is wonderful. Even though there's nothing spectacular to see. It's just good.

That being said I had one great day this last Saturday. I had to be at work this Saturday at 7:00 am because my Jr. High had the annual sports festival. This is basically like the field days we american's have in elementary school with fun events like the 3-legged race and relays and races only it's for Jr. Highers. The days started off pretty boring, but around lunch time there were some events that teachers got to take part in. Two to be exact. One was tug of war: teachers and parents against the students. The other one was a relay with the teachers from each grade competing against each other. I had a blast! My team got last, but it was SO much fun.

Here are some pics of my students from the sports fesitval.


9th graders with Ms. Lacey's shades


One of my english club girls getting her announcing on. I was so proud of them. They are only 7th graders and they did a GREAT job of making announcements for each event all in English. Way to go girls!


This is one of the 7th grade classes. Gotta love the kids! This was taken after the festivities at the end of the day.


I thought Pocahontas was long gone, but come to find out she was just hangin in Japan as a 7th grade girl. It was funny, so I took a picture.

These are pics from the Enkai. An enkai is a really expensive party that all the teachers go to. It takes place in a Hotel conference room and there are speeches and food and drinks, and people getting crazy. Do I condone even getting a little buzzed? NO, I don't, but Enkai's are a part of a teacher's life over here and a great opportunity to build relationships with your fellow teachers. You all come together to talk and relax and just get to know each other outside of the school setting. At school you constantly have to be professional and enkai's are where teacher's let their guards down. I can't deny it's a great time to find out who actually CAN speak english. They relax and sure enough english just starts coming out. I work with really fun people, but I rarely get to see it and they rarely get to see it in me. After the enkai was over, a 2nd enkai took place at a karaoke place.
Here are some pictures from that.



One of the two guys singing here is my 2nd grade English teacher. The guy in the striped shirt is the 2nd grade PE teaching assistant.
They were getting into the music as you can see.


The man standing up "conducting" is my vice-principal.

I had a great night. Mostly because of the karaoke-ing. At first I was really shy and didn't want to sing. I'm perfectly happy bursting out in song in the privacy of my own home, but not in front of people I know and certainly not people I work with and have to face in the near future. HOWEVER, there was one teacher that, oddly enough, doesn't speak english, yet knows every single word to Jon Bon Jovi's "It's my life" WELL, this teacher wanted me to sing it with him and I really didn't want to because I know how I sound. I didn't want to leave him hanging though so I stood up with him in the room surrounded by my co-workers and was just about to pee my pants when the room started clapping and cheering b/c they were about to hear the white chick sing. This actually helped me to "feel the mood" and in no time Mr. Sato and Ms. Lacey were belting out the words to "It's my life" with all the heart and soul only found in the church choir on Sunday mornings. This guy was good. I couldn't believe that he knew every single word to this song and I had an absolute blast singing it with him. After that the gloves were off and I was ready to go a second round of whatever Jon Bon Jovi song Mr. Sato had memorized. I can't remember what else we sang, but there were at least two more. Oh to connect with fellow Japanese teachers through the awe-inspiring lyrics of Mr. Bon Jovi. With all of my heart Jon; I love you.

Story time...I dare you to read every single word.

Okay, so here's the skinny on what exactly went down in Tokyo...

Day 1, arrive at Ueno station and walk around a little while in Ueno park only to see that the museums we want to go to are closed on Mondays and so we make an executive decision to return on Wednesday to see them right before we leave.


Tokyo Tower was on the way to our hotel so a special photo session was in order.

We then decide to head to our hotel, get checked in, drop off the bags, and head to the Harajuku area. This is the part of town where the youth of Tokyo hang out, shop, and dress like Little Boepeep because they appreciate her taste in fashion.

After haning out there and shopping (looking around at things) we decided to splurge on supper and eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. We had a blast there just eating and talking and watching old 80's music videos on the televisions.

After that we decided to go walk around a part of town. So for about an hour we wandered aimlessly through the busy streets of Tokyo near a train station. Just walking around in Tokyo makes you feel like you're actually doing something. Along the way of course we had to do Puricura. This is just a place where you can go get booth pictures taken with friends. They're a ton better than the ones in America. Here, after you take the pictures you get to decorate them with words and shapes and designs. It's fun stuff.

Day 2 We took our time getting up that day and checked out of the hotel around 11am and headed straight for Disney Sea.


We spent 10.5 HOURS there and had a great time.

So we booked a hotel for the first night, but decided to wing it for the 2nd night because we were pretty sure we could find a place cheaper than 6,000 yen a night PER person like the hotel we stayed at the first night. So we start looking for a place to stay at the capsul hotel we found in a travel book Janet had. Unfortunately they were booked for the night. Our plan A was to find a capsul hotel and we really didn't think this would be difficult, but it was. Luckily we had a plan B. Plan B was to go to a Karaoke place and just buy a karaoke room from midnight until 5am and pay 1,000 (a little under 10 bucks) yen a piece. This sounded adventurous enough to all of us and we were up for it. However, there was one last capsul hotel to check on before resorting to plan B. Well, little did we know that God had something a little cheaper than a karaoke place for us to stay. I should tell you that none of us wanted to pay for another hotel and we were pretty sure all the capsule hotel's would have been full for that night and so we were fully expecting to have to pay 1,000 yen for a night at karaoke which was great b/c 1,000 yen is way better than 3,000 yen which is what the capsule would have been. So we were thinking 1,000 isn't as great as free, but it's way better than 3,000. here's where the rambling takes a turn for the better...
We were standing on the sidewalk looking at this capsule hotel, trying to figure out which floor of the building it was one when three japanese people walked by us. They walked a little slower and they were almost past us when the woman piped up and started speaking english to us. They asked us if we needed help and where we were from and if we needed to find a place to stay for the night. We answered all their questions and just kept on talking. Well, after about 20 minutes of talking, the old japanese man said that they all had this friend that lived near by and that we were welcome to go to her house, so they could help us find a place to stay for the night by calling some hotels for us. The three of us looked at each other trying to decide if the other two were cool with going with them. Luckily I was with the two coolest Americans ever and they were just as cool with it as I was, so off we went with our 3 newest friends in the world. Come to find out, they all work together and the woman's house were walking to is Korean and is a friend of all three of them. So we arrive at her apartment and sit and talk for a while. They can all speak a little english so we sit and talk until about 12:30 that night. To try to make an already long story a little shorter, we end up being invited to spend the night there and once again we all look at the other two trying to find out if the other two are cool with it using only our eye contact to have a conversation to make sure the other two with cool with spending the night. So 3 americans, 3 japanese, and 1 korean all get ready for bed in a tiny 2 room apartment. We get the bedroom and the four natives get the living room. All that is seperating us from almost complete strangers is a sliding door kept slightly open as to let cool air into our room. So we all lay down and try to get to sleep, but there's one problem. The japanese woman has had a little too much to drink and starts to cry. The other three try to calm her down b/c they know this must sound horrible to the three strangers they've invited to spend the night who are probably well awake, and after some time finally get her to stop crying and go to sleep.

The next morning we all woke up, said thank you, left a small gift, took a picture together,


(I'm standing by the Korean woman, Janet is by the young guy, and the older Japanese woman is behind Rebecca b/c she's still in her pajamas. The older Japanese man had already left for the day.)

exchanged phone numbers/email and headed out to start the 3rd day.

Day 3 We headed straight to Kabuki Za Theatre.

Kobuki theatre is old, traditional, representational, Japanese theatre. It was 900 yen for 2 hours of not knowing what in the world was going on on the stage. Fortunately they had english translation ear pieces to listen to while the play was going on. SO for two full hours, we stood in the nose bleed section (you get what you pay for) and listen to the actors whine on stage while listening to the story line with ear pieces. I loved the whole thing and wish I would have brought binaculars. We viewed the whole play at around a 50 degree angle from about 40-45 yards away. I'm seriously glad I went. It's part of old Japanese culture so it needed to be seen, even though most Japanese people really haven't ever seen it. Oh well. It was fun to me.

Then we headed back to Ueno park to go through the museums. The first one was Janet's pick and it was an interactive museum where you got to walk through life size replicas of Japanese houses and shops from back in the Edo era. Really cool. The second museum was my pick. It was the National Museum of Western Art. They had a special exhibit from Dresden, Germany. Good stuff.

Then, it was back to the train station to head home. I had a great time with Janet and Rebecca in Tokyo, but I was glad to finally sit down again and relax on the way home. I had a great time with the two coolest americans in Japan.

Well, you've done it people! You've read the longest post in history. Sorry it wasn't the most fasinating reading you'll ever do, but you can't win 'em all.