Seats are determined by "kuji" or by pulling numbers out of a box. Luck would have it that I pulled the number that had me give the opening speech and say kanpai! (cheers) My Japanese always seems to be at its most elementary at such times, but luckily they wanted the speech to be mostly in English. I also got to wear a giant bow on my head for the rest of the night: woot!
I got a golden ticket...So everyone sits in their randomly assigned seats and spends the next two hours eating lots of small dishes and drinking as much as they'd like (and maybe a bit past that for some folks...) Since this was the end-of-the-year party, they had all sorts of things planned aside from stuffing face and bladders:
Always a schedule, always a plan of action to follow!Aside from a few other speeches and whatnot, the main event was a ten-part presentation from various teachers. Some teachers told jokes with background music playing (I didn't get 'em...) while others did some prop comedy:
This one had the two teachers comparing the teachers' running speeds, among other qualities. I'm still struggling with Japanese humor, hehe.
Flying melon bread!? Note that the sunglasses mean that she's being funny!
I don't actually remember what this one was about. The guy on the left is the principle though!
That black box is actually something we used in English class a few weeks back. The vice-principal had to figure out what he was touching without looking. They must really like melon bread...I was involved in two bits: one was a comedy bit where I kept mispronouncing English words and my Japanese coworker guy (same as the above picture) would respond with the proper pronunciation. (well, close enough anyway!) It goes a long way to be a good sport in these sort of things! Especially considering the next section they had me in: they brought me up to the front and then had a small discussion of my "bad luck in love" and tried to cheer me up a little bit. It was a mix of cute and intrusive, but I've learned to roll with the differences in privacy while here in Japan. The luck they offered me must've worked though, since New Year's was a lot of fun! (more about that in a later post)
I'm not sure why Santa has some kind of eye scanner as part of his costume...The enkai ended with Santa giving us all some candy, and maybe half of us going to the after party (a.k.a. "nijikai). These almost always end up at a "snack bar" which is a mix of karaoke and paying for girls to chat with you. A bit strange since our group had more women than men, but the establishment was pretty nice in any case! It's great getting to see how good some of the teachers can sing, especially when it's in English!
Unlike my first enkai here in Yatsushiro, this time my bike wasn't stolen; huzzah for remembering to lock it this time! Enkais can get pretty expensive if you go to an after party or two (over $100 in one night isn't unheard of) but it's definitely the best time for getting to know the staff; even if you gotta swallow some pride and booze in the process!
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