Farewell Enkai

On Wednesday night I attended the Shonan farewell enkai, a glorious excuse to eat and drink to my hearts content. There is always an element of luck as to how good the first part of the evening is, as there is a "seating lottery" to decide which table you are on. Luckily for me, I was on the same one as both Yoshida sensei and Yoden sensei. The speeches were a lot shorter than expected, during which me and Yoden sensei were eyeing the tasty treats laid out before us. We had all kinds of sashimi, raw squid, smoked salmon, pasta, dumplings, sushi, and steak!

As this was a farewell enkai, after the first few courses people moved around the room, eagerly filling up the glasses of teachers who are leaving, who are then obliged to drink what they are served. This led to queues of people trying to get the leaving teachers, including Ono sensei and Kagawa sensei, reeeally drunk. Not that any teachers needed encouragement for that, and the enkai soon descended into the drunken state that these things always do. At the end we all formed an arch with our hands for the leaving teachers to walk through, and then all 40 or so of us linked arms to sing the school song at the top of our voices!

After the official first party came the unofficial second party, which about 10 teachers went to. I was taught lots of Okayama "ben" (regional dialect) by Kawahara sensei and Kagawa sensei. There was also a drink called "very very very sour" (which Japanese people pronounce "berry berry berry sawaa" which everyone seemed to be drinking, even though it was terrible. Star of the show was Miyoshi sensei, the teacher who helped set-up Shonan High and is leaving after 4 years. He was unbelievably drunk- consistently- for about 2 hours, and at the second party was saying all kinds of outrageous things which had everyone in hysterics! After long, drawn-out farewells, 7 of us raced to get the midnight train back towards Kojima, and I said goodbye to Ono-sensei, then Kagawa-sensei.

It was a really nice evening, and there’s a great spirit among the Shonan teachers, especially many of the leaving teachers. The new bunch includes a lot of young teachers- Nishimura sensei, who’s the same age as me, Kawasaki sensei, who is the new English teacher and is 25, and a PE teacher who is 22. There are also three new female teachers who are all in their early 20s, but theres only so many names I can remember, especially when drunk.

Today I was once again at a loose end, so me and Yoshida sensei popped outside and played target golf, a ridiculous game involving golf balls which shuttlecock-bits attatched, and circular target nets. I was pretty rubbish, but it was good fun.