This weekend was groooit; I got to do a bit of good ol' binge drinking, see one of the most beautiful sights ever ever ever, meet more Nihonjin, and avoid watching England draw with a team they should have thrashed easily. Plus you all get to learn a bit of Nihongo (日本語)...
えんかい (enkai) is a Japanese drinking party
雲海 (unkai) is a "Sea of Clouds"
Kojima Festival Day
On Saturday and Sunday it was Kojima's local festival; que floats parading up and down the roads round where I live, and 16 year olds failing dismally to direct traffic with orange sticks. The simple task of going to DeoDeo (the king of electrical retailers in Japan) to buy a lightbulb was transformed into what felt like a samurai battle; well, several hundred Japanese people with sticks versus me on my bike! As I was cycling past everyone shouted out 'Hello, hello!', and suddenly it felt like I was the parade instead. I saw one of my students from Shonan koko though, which was nice. Sadly I 
didn't have time to join in the festival, or watch the climax on Sunday evening; I was off for nomikai drinking party fun!Nomikai Fun
A nomikai is a Japanese drinking party, where everyone gets completely wasted and anything said is forgiven and forgotten when you return to work! Its the main way that work-obssessed salarymen blow off steam, and is normally 2 hours of all you can eat and drink, followed by more hours of drinking. I explained that this wouldnt really work in England as people would just get completely trashed; but afterwards I realised this is exactly why it would work in England, and this is exactly how and why it works in Japan! In the tradition of nomikai's I probably shouldn't talk about the teachers and how funny everyone was once they were really drunk- but one sensei in particular got absolutely wasted- and just kept drinking and drinking and drinking (though she laid off the booze at the party the next day :) )! It was so funny...another fell asleep, and others slowly flaked away as we headed to more bars. It was really fun. I started drinking shochu at the end of the night, which is like spirit-strength sake, and its really nice mixed with different stuff as cocktails- the best one I had was 'Umeji Rocku', which I think has plums or something in. Anyway its nice, and really strong.
Party in the Mountains
I somehow overcame the bad hangover that struck me down on Sunday morning, and replaced it by an even worse one in honour of 'Health and Sports Day' on Monday morning. The party on Sunday was at a cottage in the moutains in northern Okayama-ken, that my Japanese friend Yumiko, and her friend Miwa, had rented. It was so much fun, and the dawn sunrise over the 'sea of clouds' is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, even though I was drunk/hungover and hadn't slept at all. Me, Miwa and Yumiko, Chisato (friend/teacher from Seishi koko), a Nigerian guy called Dami, a Canadian couple called Christopher and Sarah, and Noriyaki, a Japanese guy who 
likes car chases and speeding, drove up in the afternoon on sunday. It was so much fun, though the next day there was serious pain, and I couldn't convince anyone to adopt a me/Dan/Steve Brazil cure to hangovers....
1 comment:
I'm intrigued. You see the picture with the two girls, one holding a camera. Well, behind them and behind the hedge, seems to be a guy in a cap. Is he having a slash by any chance??
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