December hit. With a vengeance. Oh MAN did things get busy. Along with the usual week-to-week happenings, piles of Christmas parties and concerts got thrown into the mix all of a sudden. I'll do my best to keep this short and give a day-by-day recount of what has been happening for almost a week and a half.
Friday, Dec. 5th - JET Christmas Party
The JETs have what's called Mid-Year Seminar where they all get together and touch base and have meetings for a couple days in the city. The week culminates with a big Christmas party (which, since I got the hook up, I got invited to). Friday ended, and I ran to the train to make it downtown in time. The venue was a nice, swanky lounge-area with a 7 course meal, christmas music, suits, year-thus-far slideshows... pretty fun night. The nijikai was karaoke, so always a fun time. (And yes... I wailed Grace Kelly... (poorly))
Saturday - Aaaahhh.
What? Can't do something everyday. Just got to relax a bit. woo.
Sunday - Christmas cards and Frisbee!
This day, I was asked to help some students make Christmas cards... was pretty fun. Immediatly after that, I was invited by a student in my eikaiwa class to watch her family perform at this concert (in the same building as the christmas cards... Awesome, since I'm lazy. :D). I was blown away. They were pretty dang good, and then her son played a couple solo pieces on his guitar. Oh MANwas he good! I bought his CD, so now I've got awesome original classical-ish guitar music to listen to. :D
After this, I biked as fast as I could over to the train station to head down to Yatsushiro. Ben, from Kyoto, was down in Kumamoto-ken to play in an Ultimate Frisbee competition with his old team, so I went to meet up with some friends to watch. After an hour and a half train ride (I still never get bored of these things. :D), I found myself at the field just in time for the final game. Really cool too watch... I've never seen this level of ultimate frisbee before (Yeah, you heard me, Martens!). Once it was over, we drove a few hours north to Kurume, where Ben's bus was leaving from that evening, and got some dinner at this awesome ramen place. More purikura, and then we said goodbye to Ben. Then, back another couple hours to Kumamoto, a train to Ozu, and a bike ride home.
Monday - Kikuchi-gun Christmas Party
Once school got out, I ran home and helped Tim make some gratin to bring to the pot-luck Christmas party we were having out at some little shop/cafe thing called Darius. We made it fashionably late (because we're oh-so-fashionable). The place was pretty cool. Small, perfect for our party of 10 people, and all dressed up for Christmas. After dinner, we sang Christmas music (actually, we all sat and listened to Holly rock the crap out of some christmas standards... :D) and called it a night. On the way out, Kana managed to get her car stuck up on a curb, so all of us Men-folk did what we do best around car trouble: we stood around staring at it and going, "Yeah... mm hmm...." until finally someone thought of a good idea to help her out. She made it home safely and her car still functions. :)
Tuesday - Eikaiwa Class/Christmas Party
Everyone brought some snack food, so instead of a class, we sat around eating and talking. We all asked questions about Christmas in America and in Japan. Then, I busted out the cheap-o presents I bought them for an attempt at a White Elephant gift exchange. (I just ran to the hyaku-en shop and bought anything from pens to christmas ornaments to a bungee for a bike basket...) I think everyone had a good time... last Eikaiwa class until February, so things might get easier for me.
Wednesday - Class, as always
Went to my Japanese le
sson. Same as always... oh, except this week, I got partnered up with someone else, so I didn't get my own private lesson. It was good to review a bit, and also to have another person to have to bounce some Japanese off of. OH, and at the beginning of the lesson, I successfully told my teacher what I did last weekend entirely in Japanese. (Granted... BROKEN Japanese... "Friday... I went... christmas party... and karaoke... uh... uh... it was fun... " etc. etc.) Oh, and dinner that night was at a little mexican restaurant. Good food!!! Holy cow. :D (Yes, they have guacamole, Anna... though I don't know how you'd rank it)Thursday- Nabe Party
Since Tim's headed off to Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos for a couple weeks, we decided to have a sort of "Good-bye/Nabe Party" for him. Basically, throw a bunch of food into a pot, set the boiling pot in the middle of the table, grab what you want with chopsticks, soak in some sauce, enjoy. Pretty fun night overall. Wooo.
Friday - Light shopping and a night off.
I didn't really have a night off, I don't know why I said that. I stayed at school until about 5:45 working on projects (and keeping up appearances, so the other teachers don't think I'm lazy and always leave at 4:30-4:45...) and then ran home to meet up with Tim. He had some shopping to do for his trip, so I tagged along out to Hikari-no-mori. It's always fun to wander around this mall, I dunno why. Oh, I bought an electric blanket/bed warmer thing that works AWESOMELY. We grabbed some dinner and headed home.
Saturday - Too much...
Tim needed a hand getting his bags up to the train station, so I had to wake up at 6:40 AM and tag along. The plan was, we drive up, I wait with his bags, Tim takes his car back, brings back his bike, he leaves, and I ride his bike home. I found myself waiting at the train station at 7:00 AM and sure enough, a group of my students wander in. The girls ping-pong team apparently had a competition that day. Of course, they all saw me with the bags and were like, "Oh, Sandall-sensei!! Wh-... uh... where are you going?" I tried my best to explain that I wasn't going anywhere, but to no avail. They looked puzzled, so they dropped the subject. A few minutes later, their teacher came in as well and said hellp, and they asked HER where I was going and told her to ask me in english. I tried again to explain (because I don't want the teachers thinking the lazy American is enjoying himself too much on the weekends and spending all his money travelling around... then they'd expect omiage every Monday... :( ). I hope they got the idea... anyway, I eventually biked home and crashed for a few more hours (in bed... not on my bike... heh).
A few hours later, I woke up to get ready to head into the city. The plan was to meet Kana downtown to help me look for clothes stores that work for tall guys like me and then finally check out the castle. (I'm the worst Kumamoto ALT ever, since I haven't even been there yet.) After all that, we were going to drive to Arao and watch another friend perform on her violin (MUSIC GEEK ALERT!!). Shopping was a bust, but I did find some neat stores. Turns out, though, in Japan, Big & Tall means pretty much just Big. The things that were tall enough for me were pretty much tents, since I'm a scrawny dude. Ah well.
The castle... THE CASTLE. Is COOL!!! I took lots of video and pictures, but yeah. Good times. And a lot of it is in english, so that's a plus. I saw less than half of it, though, since we were crunched for time.
We finally drove up to Arao to see this concert, which ended up being the town's Environmental Awareness party, or something. There were a couple of random acts before Julie's violin, but finally, she started playing. Holy cow, she's good. After that, a whole group of us went out to dinner at a "viking-style" restaurant (All you can eat buffet... which turned out to be all you can eat yakiniku. ALWAYS A PLUS).
A long drive and a short train ride back, and here I am. See? Now do you understand why I haven't been around? I'm sorry if I've seemed distant lately... it's just that I've had a lot on my mind. If it's okay with you, I'd like to still be friends... *sniffle*
*roll credits, cue music, yadda yadda*
Catch you all later! ^__^
PS: Oh, and I finally experienced my first earthquake!! Just sitting around at 2 AM and WHAM. Nice. A 3.5 says the report, so I don't know if that's big or not. Didn't feel terribly big and only lasted a few seconds. It was too cool for me to be scared of. :D
