Birthdays, Fall and Christmas

Here you go mother, another blog post.

So for those of you who don’t know, AKA the two of you who aren’t related to me who read this, I’m officially coming home for Christmas. I bought my ticket and everything. My Visa’s still smoking a little from having that much put on it, but I’m still really excited. I’ll be home from the 23rd until the 5th of January. Parties and fun will abound.

And now back to Japan. It’s finally Fall. And a Fall I recognize. It went from over thirty degrees to ten in a matter of days. Honestly. I had to get one of the many extra blankets out of the cupboard so I don’t freeze at night. I am glad that I no longer feel like I’m going to die all the time which is what kept happening when it was that bloody hot. I feel a bit more at home now though I do fervently wish that my apartment was insulated. Or had heating beyond my two little kerosene heaters. And I’m not turning those suckers on until I absolutely have to. They scare me a little. I am planning on trying out my kotatsu tonight, provided it stays cool today and it’s not just a morning cold thing. So my next blog may feature my love of my kotatsu. We shall see.

As many of you know, I just had my birthday so I’m no longer the youngest ALT here. Well I still am but Emma’s 22 as well so it’s not as obvious anymore. Since Josh’s, another ALT, birthday is the 22nd, we combined mine and his birthday parties into one massive good time. And because everyone has just finished or are about to finish their Sports Festivals (Undokai) we decided to make it Night Sports Festival themed.

Night Sports Festivals occur at the enkais the teachers have after a school’s Sports Festivals. They involve a lot of ridiculous events that get progressively more hilarious as the teachers drink more. I only had one instance of a Night Sports Festival and it involved a hula hoop. And a lot of drunken catcalling from both teams. My team blatantly won. 3 times. But the other team kept saying it was just practice and didn’t count until they finally won one. Jerks.

So in this tradition, we, the ALTs, had the Poondokai. With events such as Dragon Boating, four team members use straws to drink alcohol out of a long container with the fastest team winning, and Pull the Cushions Out From Under the Person Jumping From the Seiza Position. That one involved a tiebreaker.

Danielle, one of my fellow Canucks, also taught the other non-Canadians how to shotgun a beer. I hadn’t realized until then that it was a Canadian thing.

It was a lot of fun. I couldn’t drink anything as I had to drive back to Miya, stupid trains stop running to Miya at like 9pm, but it was still fun to get involved with. We rented out the big room at the Karaoke place in Takayama so of course, at the end of the night we were all singing karaoke. It got hilarious.

All of us got super into both the Disney and the Spice Girls songs.

I apologize for not blogging earlier. I just discovered the joys of Japanese Amazon. It’s pretty much the same as Canadian or American Amazon but with one wonderful difference. You can pay for your orders at the Convenience Store. In cash. This makes me unbelievably happy. As does the fact that they sell English books on their site. I only bought 3 so far and one of them is sort of work related. The other two are the sequels to the book I bought 2 days before leaving. I spent all of yesterday reading the first one and I’ll spend the next two days, when not at work, finishing the other one. Don’t judge me.

Anyway that’s it for now. Bye!