Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to catch up from the weekend, so this will probably be a multi-blog post. School started back this week, so I’ve actually had to do work. 
My mom and I used to have a game in which whenever we saw an airplane way up in the sky, we’d try to guess to where it was flying. It started one summer day when we were laying in the pool, and I asked Mommy where she thought that airplane waaaaaaaaay up in the sky was going. She said San Francisco, but the plane was flying east. We laughed and laughed and laughed about that, and thus our guessing game was born. On Friday evening, I saw an airplane and asked Ian to guess where it was going, thinking to myself Korea. When he said “Korea,” I nearly jumped out of my seat! Out of all of the answers possible, we both came up with the same thing! We have the ability to read each other’s mind!
Friday night we had an enkai (drinking party) to welcome the new JHS teachers. I’m not a big fan of enkais, but this one was actually fun. It started off awkward like normal, but after my co-workers downed a few beers, people started talking to us. It was at a yakinuki (Japanese BBQ) place, so the majority of the meal was meat. Since it was Good Friday, I couldn’t eat it. Luckily, they had some vegetables and salad, so I was able to make a meal off of that. When people asked if I wanted meat, I was able to put together a very basic Japanese sentence explaining that I was Catholic and couldn’t eat meat that day. I said that Sunday was a very big holiday, Easter, and was able to convey some of the traditions that we have, such as the Easter Bunny leaving candy and dyeing eggs. Thank God for iPhones! I don’t know what we would have done had we not been able to pull up pictures from the internet to explain some of the things. (Think about it. If you had never heard of a giant white mysterious rabbit leaving candy for your children, wouldn’t you be confused?) I had my bunny ears in the car and brought those in. Each and every one of my co-workers enjoyed trying those on (below, left). Some embraced the ears on their head and made faces, others awkwardly sat for a moment and pulled them off, and still others just laughed.
I stand by my claim that Ian is the Asian whisperer. The Japanese LOVE Ian. They wanted to sit next to him, talk to him, drink with him, etc. The art teacher sitting next to Ian challenged him to see who could drink the most, which is a really, really bad idea. Ian can hold his liquor, but the Japanese lack enzymes that break down alcohol, so many are seriously one beer drunks. Beer for beer, they kept up the ruse until beer number six. In the middle of that one, the art teacher left the room (to presumably throw up in the bathroom) and returned to gather his things and stagger out the door. I learned that one of the math teachers is ridiculously good at English. Get a little alcohol into the Japanese, and you never know what’ll come out! 
Although he’s always nice to me, he hasn’t said two words in English to me since I got here.
After the enkai, we drove to Mary’s to spend the night. Since we were leaving on Saturday morning for Kagoshima, she said that we could stay with her. I kind of felt bad for her because we were so engrossed in our Hunger Games books that she started playing Play Station by herself. 
Sorry, Mary, but we HAD to finish those books!! Rebeca and Yuusuke drove in to spend the night at Mary’s as well, but I fell asleep long before they got there.
When I woke up on Saturday morning, I had a dream fresh on my mind. I dreamed that I was still working at the Parlor (the restaurant where I worked for 7.5 years). For whatever reason, I was there working, but I didn’t have to. Everyone kept asking if I knew that I wasn’t going to get paid for my work, and I kept saying yes, but that it was fine. I didn’t even have the right uniform on, but dang it, I felt happy to be there! Ah, silly, silly dreams!
Arg! I haven’t even begun the story about our trip, and I know that if I keep going, this blog will become too long. Stay tuned for more!
No comments:
Post a Comment