kangeikai (welcome party)

The first year teachers had a welcome shindig for me on Wednesday. We went to a tiny restaurant in an alleyway. The woman who organized it gave me a map, but apparently, they were all still afraid I would get lost, so the baseball coach sat down with me to explain how to get there. That was funny because he waited till all of the other women were out of the staff room to talk to me. Anyway... I made it there on time, along with three of the other teachers. The other five teachers that came were late, including the baseball coach. As it turns out, he was late because he got lost! The directions he gave me were a little off, but I figured it out well enough from the map. The sushi and sashimi were delicious, and there was an infinite stream of beer and sake. The baseball coach and the one fat teacher at my school made sure everyone's drinks were full at all times. I think they wanted us drunk! My teachers thought it was hilarious that I wouldn't eat the raw shrimp. If it didn't have its head attached, I would've eaten it, but those eyeballs really freaked me out. They eat the body then suck the brains out of the head of the shrimp. (The next day one of the English teachers was telling me how "dericious" shrimp brains and fish heads are.) After the sushi, six of us went to a blues bar and played billiards. We did paper/rock/scissors to figure out who would be on what team and who would break first. In Japan, paper/rock/scissors is called janken and everyone does it. I think they come out of the womb doing janken. Anyway, I had a very good time. The teachers here are great!