The Chrysanthemum Journal, Issue #46
Here we find ourselves gathered once more after having spent, what, a month away from each other? I do apologize for that, and I meant to write something last week, but I wasn't really sure I'd be able to come up with another entry after that so soon, and I wanted to be able to leave an entry for my New Year's trip. I'll be heading off to Tokyo once more, hopefully to see more of the place but also to throw myself headfirst into the crowd at Meiji Jingu on the Eve and maybe bodysurf all the way to the front.
But that's next week. Here and now it's time for my December Report! Open up them eyes and read well!
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As many of you know, or would know if you read this journal as well as I type it (okay, so I make some typos, but you know what I mean!), December 7th was my Japanese Language Proficiency Test, also known as the JLPT. Now while some of you may be thinking that I was probably freaking out the closer the day actually came, the opposite is so much closer to the truth. That's because, when it comes down to it, I am an awesome test-taker, and I've found that the more effort I put into my studies, the more nervous I actually become. That's why I rarely ever study before my tests (sorry to disappoint any of my professors reading this), because I've always been of the belief that if you aren't already aware of what's coming up, there's no point in forcing it into your head. Generally, I stop myself from studying for about a week before tests. Let me clarify, though, that studying before a test comes up is perfectly acceptable. I'm always glancing through grammar books, discussing fine points of conversational Japanese with my fellow staff, etc.
Speaking of which, I did receive a rather ill omen right before the test. 3 days before I was to put pencil to paper, my dictionary suffered a tragic skydiving-related injury. That is, it tried falling from a great height without the aid of a properly-prepared parachute. At the moment, she's in critical condition. She can be brought back to consciousness given the proper stimulus (pressing the power button), but generally, she says one word and passes out once more. There's also massive internal bleeding that seems to be spreading despite our best efforts. At this point, it's best to cut our losses and go on to a new machine, but that option also requires a great amount of money which isn't covered by any insurance.
But I digress, back to the test.
On the 7th, I wanted to get to the testing site early. Not, as I mentioned earlier, so that I could get in some studying, but so that I could visit the shrine I'd seen on Google Maps. So I woke up not too far after the crack of dawn and zipped off to Kyoto University. I'd been told that this was in my favor, as taking a test in an academic atmosphere meant I would absorb some extra knowledge. Bonus points. So I got to the university and immediately made my way to the shrine, where I enjoyed a brief little stroll and some odd diversions. Not sure if I was praying to a god of education or not, but can't hurt!
I'm not allowed to talk about the actual content of the test, but I will say that I think I may have passed. However, if I did, it was by a hair's breadth. Probably. I won't know until February. One thing that was kind of troublesome is the amount of prep time taken up. The test started around 10 and lasted until 3. 30 minutes for each test was devoted solely to going over the rules, handing out answer sheets, test booklets, and verifying that the faces in our photos match the person in the seat. For all 3 sections of the test. Seems to me they could cut that down a lot. I was amused at the soccer-like penalty system. You got a yellow card as a warning for some actions, like chewing gum during the test. You got a red card for others, like having your cell phone go off during the listening section (which would be a lot of trouble given that the room moderators don't control the listening. It was all piped in through the speakers). Two yellows = a red card, and immediate ejection. Fortunately, I got a wonderfully well-behaved group. Even with the guy in front of me suffering from a cold, I didn't hear a single sniff or cough.
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So, after the test, I had plans to meet up with an old friend from my original training group: Matt, whom I had met way back in the year for my first trip to Arashiyama and the monkey park. But that wasn't to be until and his friend had finished exploring Osaka for a bit. So I went back home, played some UFO Catchers, won a Predalien and a Zenigata figure, did my shopping, and scooted down to Yamashina to meet him. Originally, we'd planned to eat some Chad-Kebabs and head back to my place, but the bar was closed, so we just went back to Katata, ordered a pizza, and slipped into my apartment.
Spent the rest of the evening chatting for awhile before my Predalien was rousted from his position on the shelf above my closet and jumped down to attack Matt. Fortunately there was no blood shed. I assume Matt's head to be rather hard, or the Predalien simply thought Matt wasn't enough of a threat. Or Matt's already spawned another alien. Dunno. After that, Matt revealed that he'd brought his DS along, so we ended up playing Mario Party twice before finally drifting off to sleep.
The next day we woke up early to go and catch brunch at the local Coco's before seeing them off on another Osaka adventure.
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After the tragedy or possible victory that was the test was completed, I was really looking forward to going to see some non-Christmas Christmas lights. That's right, it was time once again to go and visit that special light show known as Luminarie...or Ruminarie. I never know which is the proper one, though I assume the former since it reminds of Luminous.
Tha plan was to meet with some friends down at Sannomiya station before zipping over to Motomachi and proceeding to the show from there. Didn't quite work out. I went down to Sannomiya, waited until the appointed time, and became slightly worried when I noticed that I was the only one. So I called up my co-coordinator of the event, asked how she was doing on getting there. Was met with "Whaddya mean? It's tomorrow, you numbskull!" only much less archaic and not nearly as insulting. More like "Oh, I'm sorry, Chad, I guess there was a mix-up." Oh, indeed there was. Never one to be deterred, I instead phoned up another teacher I knew who was heading to Osaka for a get-together and met up with her and her friends for their outing, which started at a nice old-fashioned izakaya. Played a drinking game called categories, where one player calls out a category and everyone has to say something belonging to that category in turn, and in a certain amount of time. Our poor Japanese compatriots ended up on the short end of the stick quite a few times unless we helped them.
After drinking, we decided to make it an all-nighter and planned to zip off to a certain club, Pure, to dance the night away. Didn't work out like that. First, no one was sure if Pure was even open on a Sunday. One of our group said he thought it might be open until 2. We weren't satisfied with that, so we ended up asking some locals, who ended up telling us to take a taxi and just say "Nightclub" to get a good one. That option was less appealing, so we went to Shinsaibashi to check out Pure. Closed.
On the way to Pure, though, we had come across another club open until 3, so we zipped back that-a-way (<-) and entered that club. A bit of a burden came up when we were told that the coat check was full and that we would have to carry all of our stuff with us, but we ended up dumping it on some little platform and someone was always staying around it just in case. Of course, I kept all valuables on my person. Then I learned a new skill: dancing for 2.5 hours straight. To be perfectly honest, I thought that with the heat, the smoke machines, and my asthma, I'd be out in seconds flat, so I was surprised at my own stamina. Our group was pretty popular when we were together, but many of us split off on occasion, and I pretty much spent the last hour in the front row dancing with some guy wearing a fake afro, a full set of grills and some of his friends.
After the party, we proceeded out of the club, amusingly getting hassled along the way by one drunk girl who kept telling us to "shut up," though it took us a while to get that. I say it was amusing because we hadn't even spoken to her.
All the way down, and one of our group realizes she'd forgotten a special scarf of hers in the club. I decide to go back in and get it, clearing past the bouncer and to the staff running the elevator, who tells me I can't use it because there's a special sensor which won't allow it to go back up after closing if there are people inside (without a key, of course). He says, however, that I can take the stairs. Seeing no other option and not wanting to go back out empty-handed, I start climbing.
Did I mention this club was 11 stories up? About 5 stories, I thought I was at my limit. At 8, my knees were numb. At 11, I just waited for a few minutes to gather enough strength to turn the door handle, only to find it was locked. Knock, knock, click, open. "What are you doing here?" "My..friend...forgot..scarf." "Okay, but why'd you take the stairs. Just take the elevator next time." Curse you staffer, wherever you are. So, after talking with the manager (who pretty much blew me off), I couldn't find the scarf. Left my info with the coat check guy, and was about to take the lift back down when I notice the "shut up" girl is still there, holding a scarf in her lap that perfectly matched my friend's description. A quick query to the boyfriend as to whether it was hers or not, and I had it in my hands, with the girl admonishing me (this time in Japanese) for forgetting my things. And back down I went.
After returning the scarf, it was off to McDonald's to get a quick bite before first trains. Amusingly, we had to wait a while because the McD's staff wasn't taking orders between 0300-0400, and we'd arrived at 0350. And just when they opened, some ruffians had settled into the front of the line. What gumption!
Food, and first train, and back home...where I had to go to sleep immediately since this was the day that I went to...
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Sannomiya. Ah, it felt like just the previous day that I'd been there. Probably because it was. So I once again found myself in that bustling little village, meeting up with the group I had supposed I was meetng on Sunday, and wandering off to a local Itarian restaurant (Italian restaurants don't exist in Japan). They apparently had all-you-can-drink wine for 90 minutes, and at a low-low price that just shows how good the wine is. Not that I have a clue about what's good and what's bad. After trying white and red and rose, I just settled for anything that said Brut because I hate when my wine is sweet, gosh darnit! Plus, I'm quite the brute myself.
And the pizza wasn't bad, either.
Did I say lights? Yes, there were lights to be seen. After our party grew a bit more, it was off to look at the pretties. I think I may have mentioned this last year, but all of the lights in Luminarie are hand-painted, donated by the Italian government to commemorate the Great Hanshin Earthquake that struck Kobe in 1995. Thus, not Christmas. Which doesn't make them any less beautiful, of course. We had quite a good time admiring the arches, throwing coins at the bells to gain our eternal salvation, and simply chatting, before we zipped off to an izakayato top off the evening. I think I was the first to leave, though, given that I couldn't afford another all-nighter and my last train was something like 10:30. Oy.
The night was really much more interesting than 2 paragraphs might make it seem, but when the main focus of an event is conversation, food, and lights, it's a bit difficult to stretch.
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Sad news, boys and girls. The staff at Katata is losing a good portion of it's main body. About 60%. That's right, my manager and JET are both leaving, the former to move to Kawaramachi school in Kyoto, and the latter to do some world-exploring in Africa before finding a new job. That leaves just me and the Saturday kids' teacher.
In recognition of this, we decided to go out on Saturday, for the first time all gathering together as one. First we stopped by our favorite yakiniku place and stocked up on delicious meats and rice before scooting out of there and on to the main location, the new Raju's which opened in Katata just recently. No idea why, but we wound up being the only customers in there from 2230-0100. Not that we were complaining. We felt like we had rented out the place just for us. Neither were we bad customers. The beer was free-flowing, and the bartender even allowed us all to test some new concoctions he'd been working on. We ended up playing all kinds of contests, mostly dealing with drinking, but Takeshi said he wanted to arm wrestle me just once before we parted. So we set ourselves up on one of the upturned barrels and went. I kept moving him down to a near pin before he would burst and push me back up to dead center, never further. Then I realized my mistake...I was kneeling and Takeshi was standing. So I shifted to a standing position and took the prize. But it was a pyrrhic victory, since wrestling for a full five minutes had severely strained our arms. We were quite alright by the time we left, however.
But no, this was not the end of the party. Rather than break up our first and last gathering, Chika and Chizuru decided to skip the last train and join Takeshi and me at my apartment (Takeshi couldn't drive home since he'd been drinking). We popped into the nearby Lawson to procure more libations before proceeding to the apartment. There we spent quite a lot of time playing vidya games and generally chatting. At one point, I brought out Fatal Frame, but I couldn't get past the first battle without the girls begging me to change, so we switched to Soul Calibur 4 and beat the stuffing out of each other for a few hours before bed. We all had to get up early tomorrow for the Xmas party the next day.
Oh right, speaking of which...
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Hey, guess what?! It's Christmas!
I must apologize to many of you for the fact that I only just sent off my cards/gifts on the 22nd. With all the various outings that I've had going on, there's been very little time. I've pretty much received all I'm going to get. Lots and lots of dress shirts, pants, bleu cheese dressing, jerky, Spaghetti-o's, candy canes...eveything but the Call of Duty game I asked for! GRRR! No, just kidding. Thanks for all the great gifts. Couldn't possibly ask for anything more.
As I mentioned in the last part, we were to have a party, and all of us overslept...woke up around 11. Party at 1. The girls couldn't even go home (though one wasn't really required to go the party). So we slipped out into the midday sun and trudged to the school, where we started feeling a lot better once we started getting everything ready. Wrapped cotton up in tape to make nice, fluffy, flingable snowballs (don't use tape and they crash into the ground immediately upon release). A nice snowman decoration on one of our spare whiteboards, etc. And Takeshi went out to do the shopping.
The party turned out to be a huge success. We had only 6 kids show up, but we had plenty of games to keep them entertained. While we'd originally planned for a darts-style game with the snowballs, the kids all wanted to make their own, and started throwing them, and so we had a 15-minute pointless snowball fight to work out some spare energy before playing pin-the-carrot-nose on the snowman, followed by melting that same snowman by throwing wet tissues at it. Then we took an idea from Chizuru-sensei and played a gesture game for awhile. Every kid wound up with presents as a result of winning something, so it all worked out well. And at the end, we sang a couple of songs, including the Rocky version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" which involved lots of jumping and stomping, none of which pleased our downstairs neighbors, I'm sure.
After the kids and cleaning up after them, Chizuru-sensei went home, but the rest of us weren't finished yet. We had yet another party to attend. A student had invited us to his friend's club, a place that often features soft jazz. Every year he gathers people for a party and everyone has to perform something. Some people did a piano piece, others sang. I sang "Stille Nacht," my manager sang Celine Dion's "My heart Will Go On," and as a group, we all sang the "Biwako Rowing Song", about a group of young men traveling to different places along Lake Biwa and their appreciation of each place's beauty. (English version here and an absolutely fantastic version by John Denver here - about 4:00 in). Then I got up again to sing "O Holy Night," followed by Elvis Presley's "Blue Christmas," dedicated to Chika and Takeshi. I was impressed with the latter, as I had to recall the lyrics completely from memory, as the song's not in my collection and I've only ever sung it once.
Finally, we returned to our various homes. On the 22nd, I did nothing but send gifts home and send Xmas cards to lots of you dear readers.
23rd was another party, this one for adults. This one also had a rather small turnout, but that just made it more cozy for conversation. We listened to music, exchanged stories, sang songs, ate pizza, and threw styrofoam airplanes around for a couple of hours before disbanding. 5 of us, including Takeshi and Chika, decided to go back to my place for more gaming and more conversation, and we also ended up having a little manga reading, as well. Everyone got a character made in SC4, and we again had fun beating the stuffing out of one another, baffling at how something like a giant hammer could literally shatter cloth.
And then we finished, people went home, and here we are. Abrupt ending, I know, but I wanna watch a movie, so I'm gonna send this one out early.
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So there you have it, my last entry before the New Year. Have a great holiday season everyone, and I'll see you all some time after the 4th!
Pics:
Busted Dictionary - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/BustedDictionary#
Test Day - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/JLPT#
An Average Day - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/Day#
Clubbing - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/Clubbing#
Luminarie - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/Luminarie#
But that's next week. Here and now it's time for my December Report! Open up them eyes and read well!
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As many of you know, or would know if you read this journal as well as I type it (okay, so I make some typos, but you know what I mean!), December 7th was my Japanese Language Proficiency Test, also known as the JLPT. Now while some of you may be thinking that I was probably freaking out the closer the day actually came, the opposite is so much closer to the truth. That's because, when it comes down to it, I am an awesome test-taker, and I've found that the more effort I put into my studies, the more nervous I actually become. That's why I rarely ever study before my tests (sorry to disappoint any of my professors reading this), because I've always been of the belief that if you aren't already aware of what's coming up, there's no point in forcing it into your head. Generally, I stop myself from studying for about a week before tests. Let me clarify, though, that studying before a test comes up is perfectly acceptable. I'm always glancing through grammar books, discussing fine points of conversational Japanese with my fellow staff, etc.
Speaking of which, I did receive a rather ill omen right before the test. 3 days before I was to put pencil to paper, my dictionary suffered a tragic skydiving-related injury. That is, it tried falling from a great height without the aid of a properly-prepared parachute. At the moment, she's in critical condition. She can be brought back to consciousness given the proper stimulus (pressing the power button), but generally, she says one word and passes out once more. There's also massive internal bleeding that seems to be spreading despite our best efforts. At this point, it's best to cut our losses and go on to a new machine, but that option also requires a great amount of money which isn't covered by any insurance.
But I digress, back to the test.
On the 7th, I wanted to get to the testing site early. Not, as I mentioned earlier, so that I could get in some studying, but so that I could visit the shrine I'd seen on Google Maps. So I woke up not too far after the crack of dawn and zipped off to Kyoto University. I'd been told that this was in my favor, as taking a test in an academic atmosphere meant I would absorb some extra knowledge. Bonus points. So I got to the university and immediately made my way to the shrine, where I enjoyed a brief little stroll and some odd diversions. Not sure if I was praying to a god of education or not, but can't hurt!
I'm not allowed to talk about the actual content of the test, but I will say that I think I may have passed. However, if I did, it was by a hair's breadth. Probably. I won't know until February. One thing that was kind of troublesome is the amount of prep time taken up. The test started around 10 and lasted until 3. 30 minutes for each test was devoted solely to going over the rules, handing out answer sheets, test booklets, and verifying that the faces in our photos match the person in the seat. For all 3 sections of the test. Seems to me they could cut that down a lot. I was amused at the soccer-like penalty system. You got a yellow card as a warning for some actions, like chewing gum during the test. You got a red card for others, like having your cell phone go off during the listening section (which would be a lot of trouble given that the room moderators don't control the listening. It was all piped in through the speakers). Two yellows = a red card, and immediate ejection. Fortunately, I got a wonderfully well-behaved group. Even with the guy in front of me suffering from a cold, I didn't hear a single sniff or cough.
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So, after the test, I had plans to meet up with an old friend from my original training group: Matt, whom I had met way back in the year for my first trip to Arashiyama and the monkey park. But that wasn't to be until and his friend had finished exploring Osaka for a bit. So I went back home, played some UFO Catchers, won a Predalien and a Zenigata figure, did my shopping, and scooted down to Yamashina to meet him. Originally, we'd planned to eat some Chad-Kebabs and head back to my place, but the bar was closed, so we just went back to Katata, ordered a pizza, and slipped into my apartment.
Spent the rest of the evening chatting for awhile before my Predalien was rousted from his position on the shelf above my closet and jumped down to attack Matt. Fortunately there was no blood shed. I assume Matt's head to be rather hard, or the Predalien simply thought Matt wasn't enough of a threat. Or Matt's already spawned another alien. Dunno. After that, Matt revealed that he'd brought his DS along, so we ended up playing Mario Party twice before finally drifting off to sleep.
The next day we woke up early to go and catch brunch at the local Coco's before seeing them off on another Osaka adventure.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
After the tragedy or possible victory that was the test was completed, I was really looking forward to going to see some non-Christmas Christmas lights. That's right, it was time once again to go and visit that special light show known as Luminarie...or Ruminarie. I never know which is the proper one, though I assume the former since it reminds of Luminous.
Tha plan was to meet with some friends down at Sannomiya station before zipping over to Motomachi and proceeding to the show from there. Didn't quite work out. I went down to Sannomiya, waited until the appointed time, and became slightly worried when I noticed that I was the only one. So I called up my co-coordinator of the event, asked how she was doing on getting there. Was met with "Whaddya mean? It's tomorrow, you numbskull!" only much less archaic and not nearly as insulting. More like "Oh, I'm sorry, Chad, I guess there was a mix-up." Oh, indeed there was. Never one to be deterred, I instead phoned up another teacher I knew who was heading to Osaka for a get-together and met up with her and her friends for their outing, which started at a nice old-fashioned izakaya. Played a drinking game called categories, where one player calls out a category and everyone has to say something belonging to that category in turn, and in a certain amount of time. Our poor Japanese compatriots ended up on the short end of the stick quite a few times unless we helped them.
After drinking, we decided to make it an all-nighter and planned to zip off to a certain club, Pure, to dance the night away. Didn't work out like that. First, no one was sure if Pure was even open on a Sunday. One of our group said he thought it might be open until 2. We weren't satisfied with that, so we ended up asking some locals, who ended up telling us to take a taxi and just say "Nightclub" to get a good one. That option was less appealing, so we went to Shinsaibashi to check out Pure. Closed.
On the way to Pure, though, we had come across another club open until 3, so we zipped back that-a-way (<-) and entered that club. A bit of a burden came up when we were told that the coat check was full and that we would have to carry all of our stuff with us, but we ended up dumping it on some little platform and someone was always staying around it just in case. Of course, I kept all valuables on my person. Then I learned a new skill: dancing for 2.5 hours straight. To be perfectly honest, I thought that with the heat, the smoke machines, and my asthma, I'd be out in seconds flat, so I was surprised at my own stamina. Our group was pretty popular when we were together, but many of us split off on occasion, and I pretty much spent the last hour in the front row dancing with some guy wearing a fake afro, a full set of grills and some of his friends.
After the party, we proceeded out of the club, amusingly getting hassled along the way by one drunk girl who kept telling us to "shut up," though it took us a while to get that. I say it was amusing because we hadn't even spoken to her.
All the way down, and one of our group realizes she'd forgotten a special scarf of hers in the club. I decide to go back in and get it, clearing past the bouncer and to the staff running the elevator, who tells me I can't use it because there's a special sensor which won't allow it to go back up after closing if there are people inside (without a key, of course). He says, however, that I can take the stairs. Seeing no other option and not wanting to go back out empty-handed, I start climbing.
Did I mention this club was 11 stories up? About 5 stories, I thought I was at my limit. At 8, my knees were numb. At 11, I just waited for a few minutes to gather enough strength to turn the door handle, only to find it was locked. Knock, knock, click, open. "What are you doing here?" "My..friend...forgot..scarf." "Okay, but why'd you take the stairs. Just take the elevator next time." Curse you staffer, wherever you are. So, after talking with the manager (who pretty much blew me off), I couldn't find the scarf. Left my info with the coat check guy, and was about to take the lift back down when I notice the "shut up" girl is still there, holding a scarf in her lap that perfectly matched my friend's description. A quick query to the boyfriend as to whether it was hers or not, and I had it in my hands, with the girl admonishing me (this time in Japanese) for forgetting my things. And back down I went.
After returning the scarf, it was off to McDonald's to get a quick bite before first trains. Amusingly, we had to wait a while because the McD's staff wasn't taking orders between 0300-0400, and we'd arrived at 0350. And just when they opened, some ruffians had settled into the front of the line. What gumption!
Food, and first train, and back home...where I had to go to sleep immediately since this was the day that I went to...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Sannomiya. Ah, it felt like just the previous day that I'd been there. Probably because it was. So I once again found myself in that bustling little village, meeting up with the group I had supposed I was meetng on Sunday, and wandering off to a local Itarian restaurant (Italian restaurants don't exist in Japan). They apparently had all-you-can-drink wine for 90 minutes, and at a low-low price that just shows how good the wine is. Not that I have a clue about what's good and what's bad. After trying white and red and rose, I just settled for anything that said Brut because I hate when my wine is sweet, gosh darnit! Plus, I'm quite the brute myself.
And the pizza wasn't bad, either.
Did I say lights? Yes, there were lights to be seen. After our party grew a bit more, it was off to look at the pretties. I think I may have mentioned this last year, but all of the lights in Luminarie are hand-painted, donated by the Italian government to commemorate the Great Hanshin Earthquake that struck Kobe in 1995. Thus, not Christmas. Which doesn't make them any less beautiful, of course. We had quite a good time admiring the arches, throwing coins at the bells to gain our eternal salvation, and simply chatting, before we zipped off to an izakayato top off the evening. I think I was the first to leave, though, given that I couldn't afford another all-nighter and my last train was something like 10:30. Oy.
The night was really much more interesting than 2 paragraphs might make it seem, but when the main focus of an event is conversation, food, and lights, it's a bit difficult to stretch.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Sad news, boys and girls. The staff at Katata is losing a good portion of it's main body. About 60%. That's right, my manager and JET are both leaving, the former to move to Kawaramachi school in Kyoto, and the latter to do some world-exploring in Africa before finding a new job. That leaves just me and the Saturday kids' teacher.
In recognition of this, we decided to go out on Saturday, for the first time all gathering together as one. First we stopped by our favorite yakiniku place and stocked up on delicious meats and rice before scooting out of there and on to the main location, the new Raju's which opened in Katata just recently. No idea why, but we wound up being the only customers in there from 2230-0100. Not that we were complaining. We felt like we had rented out the place just for us. Neither were we bad customers. The beer was free-flowing, and the bartender even allowed us all to test some new concoctions he'd been working on. We ended up playing all kinds of contests, mostly dealing with drinking, but Takeshi said he wanted to arm wrestle me just once before we parted. So we set ourselves up on one of the upturned barrels and went. I kept moving him down to a near pin before he would burst and push me back up to dead center, never further. Then I realized my mistake...I was kneeling and Takeshi was standing. So I shifted to a standing position and took the prize. But it was a pyrrhic victory, since wrestling for a full five minutes had severely strained our arms. We were quite alright by the time we left, however.
But no, this was not the end of the party. Rather than break up our first and last gathering, Chika and Chizuru decided to skip the last train and join Takeshi and me at my apartment (Takeshi couldn't drive home since he'd been drinking). We popped into the nearby Lawson to procure more libations before proceeding to the apartment. There we spent quite a lot of time playing vidya games and generally chatting. At one point, I brought out Fatal Frame, but I couldn't get past the first battle without the girls begging me to change, so we switched to Soul Calibur 4 and beat the stuffing out of each other for a few hours before bed. We all had to get up early tomorrow for the Xmas party the next day.
Oh right, speaking of which...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Hey, guess what?! It's Christmas!
I must apologize to many of you for the fact that I only just sent off my cards/gifts on the 22nd. With all the various outings that I've had going on, there's been very little time. I've pretty much received all I'm going to get. Lots and lots of dress shirts, pants, bleu cheese dressing, jerky, Spaghetti-o's, candy canes...eveything but the Call of Duty game I asked for! GRRR! No, just kidding. Thanks for all the great gifts. Couldn't possibly ask for anything more.
As I mentioned in the last part, we were to have a party, and all of us overslept...woke up around 11. Party at 1. The girls couldn't even go home (though one wasn't really required to go the party). So we slipped out into the midday sun and trudged to the school, where we started feeling a lot better once we started getting everything ready. Wrapped cotton up in tape to make nice, fluffy, flingable snowballs (don't use tape and they crash into the ground immediately upon release). A nice snowman decoration on one of our spare whiteboards, etc. And Takeshi went out to do the shopping.
The party turned out to be a huge success. We had only 6 kids show up, but we had plenty of games to keep them entertained. While we'd originally planned for a darts-style game with the snowballs, the kids all wanted to make their own, and started throwing them, and so we had a 15-minute pointless snowball fight to work out some spare energy before playing pin-the-carrot-nose on the snowman, followed by melting that same snowman by throwing wet tissues at it. Then we took an idea from Chizuru-sensei and played a gesture game for awhile. Every kid wound up with presents as a result of winning something, so it all worked out well. And at the end, we sang a couple of songs, including the Rocky version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" which involved lots of jumping and stomping, none of which pleased our downstairs neighbors, I'm sure.
After the kids and cleaning up after them, Chizuru-sensei went home, but the rest of us weren't finished yet. We had yet another party to attend. A student had invited us to his friend's club, a place that often features soft jazz. Every year he gathers people for a party and everyone has to perform something. Some people did a piano piece, others sang. I sang "Stille Nacht," my manager sang Celine Dion's "My heart Will Go On," and as a group, we all sang the "Biwako Rowing Song", about a group of young men traveling to different places along Lake Biwa and their appreciation of each place's beauty. (English version here and an absolutely fantastic version by John Denver here - about 4:00 in). Then I got up again to sing "O Holy Night," followed by Elvis Presley's "Blue Christmas," dedicated to Chika and Takeshi. I was impressed with the latter, as I had to recall the lyrics completely from memory, as the song's not in my collection and I've only ever sung it once.
Finally, we returned to our various homes. On the 22nd, I did nothing but send gifts home and send Xmas cards to lots of you dear readers.
23rd was another party, this one for adults. This one also had a rather small turnout, but that just made it more cozy for conversation. We listened to music, exchanged stories, sang songs, ate pizza, and threw styrofoam airplanes around for a couple of hours before disbanding. 5 of us, including Takeshi and Chika, decided to go back to my place for more gaming and more conversation, and we also ended up having a little manga reading, as well. Everyone got a character made in SC4, and we again had fun beating the stuffing out of one another, baffling at how something like a giant hammer could literally shatter cloth.
And then we finished, people went home, and here we are. Abrupt ending, I know, but I wanna watch a movie, so I'm gonna send this one out early.
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So there you have it, my last entry before the New Year. Have a great holiday season everyone, and I'll see you all some time after the 4th!
Pics:
Busted Dictionary - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/BustedDictionary#
Test Day - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/JLPT#
An Average Day - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/Day#
Clubbing - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/Clubbing#
Luminarie - http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/pigonjinn/Luminarie#