Goodness gracious, what a crazy couple of weeks....
To clear a few things up, yes I did feel the Earthquake last weekend and no I did not forget about my promise to update more. The earthquake was a bit *unsettling* for lack of a better word. It was 9:30 in the morning and I was still all tucked up in bed. My bed started to rock, and since I was staying with Ozzie Jen I thought she was up to her usual shenanigans. I turned over to yell at her to stop shaking the damn bed when I noticed two things. One, I was alone and two, the ceiling light was swinging back and forth on the chain. About .5 seconds of blind panic set in until it *thankfully* subsided. I called out a tentative “Jeeeeeennnnn?” only for her to yell back through the wall, “Yes. It was an earthquake. Now go back to sleep.”
So I did. No big deal. (This time at least. We are biding our time here in Shizuoka for the big Tokai quake. Could be any second… guess I better put together a quake safety kit because I haven’t really made my peace with a bunch of you assholes out there.)
As for the promise to update more, well I’ve been too busy trying to stay sober to post much. This “oh-so-conveniently” brings me to my next topic.
ENKAI.
Roughly translates to ‘party’ but the Japanese take it a bit more serious than that. The Japanese are internationally renowned for their work ethic, but I feel their party ethic should be equally commended. It’s common practice to have an enkai at the end of the work year (March), the beginning of the work year (April), for winter holidays and the new year (December), when people leave or join the company, after an event (such as graduation/midterms/finals here at school!)… basically whenever they can get away with it. Now this is no typical office Christmas party making chit chat with imbeciles and trying to avoid your boss… this is all out craziness. There is no stigma attached to alcohol here as opposed to the States, and you are seen as quite the oddball if you don’t drink. The point of the enkai is to relax from work and bond with your co-workers, and there is no better bonding than the “building better friendships with booze” ritual. It works out great for me because after about 30 minutes no one gives a crap that we don’t really speak the same language. We have the international language of love and liquor to keep us cozy J
Maybe a little bit *too* cozy though because I SHAMELESSLY flirted with Cutie Sensei… (Among others… ok, among everybody. We all know how Mandelina gets when she’s drunk). Uhg, how do I get myself into these situations??
Regardless, a fabulous evening was had. It started off all diplomatic with honoring the teachers who were leaving this year. They gave speeches and we watched slide shows of fun times from the year. Unfortunately my principal and 3 of my favorite teachers will be leaving. When it was time to present these fabulous flower bouquets to the departing teachers, everyone had already had a few too many drinks. It was all supposed to be very serious and honoring their work, but when my VP bows and offers up the flowers to our Principal he just stares. Everyone is wondering what’s wrong when he exclaims to the Vice Principal, “I don’t want flowers from you old man, couldn’t you get some young, cute girl to do it?” Everyone busts up about it, but all of a sudden the VP turns around and says “Amanda-sensei, get up here.”
MAH!!! Craziness. They made me offer up the flowers amidst whistles, catcalls and laughter all while I’m trying to remember my uber polite Japanese and doing my best bow. Well, it broke tensions at least and that’s when the real craziness started. The flowers were passed, we all clapped, and suddenly there was more liquor than I had every seen in my life. In the course of 4 hours the following went down….
*I drank 5 Cassis Sours, 6 beers, 1 sake, and a Chu-hi
*Ate 2 meals (which included raw snails, bamboo shoots, and Shrimp tofu pudding….)
* Several male teachers kissed one another (Almost imploded at that point)
* Random fruits and whipped cream were licked off people (Squeed myself right there)
*Saw several teachers get pantsed.
*Sang crazy karaoke
*A teacher got stuck in a closet at the Izakaya (Japanese Traditional Bar)
*Was informed about “Japanese Culture” (which ended up being whacking the major nerves in the thigh and making people crumble to the ground in pain. In the pictures below you can see this being performed on one of my teachers (Who, if anyone knows Ouran Host Club manga, reminds me of Hunny and a crazy Lolita complex))
*Screamed the school war chant at the top of our lungs
*Used Shrimp exoskeletons for ninja weapons (see pictures below)
*Taught Japanese teachers how to make American gang signs.
I’m sure there was more but I may have been too drunk to remember it all. It doesn’t help that I have walked in on several hurriedly shushed whispered conversations at work in the past 2 days… I’m gonna try not to think about all that and leave you with crazy pictures of some of the fun.
Sayonara my friends!
