Enkai's are fun!! Nijikai's are better!!

This is a friend of mine! Yokoyama san. At one stage he stuck tape to his nose in order to lift it up and then put his hair back like this! Noone made him do it but we all found it amusing nonetheless. Later, i found out that he was doing an impression of some old famous Japanese singer....
This has got to be my favourite foto since ive got to japan. This is at the after party, which was at the local karaoke bar where i was drinking with all the teachers and PTA. The guy holding my head is my boss (kyouickucho), the guy in the middle is my primary schools principal and the guy to the right is my junior highs principal. And the drunk at the bottom is me......
Once again, just look at my kyouikuchou.....bloody legend!! the guy with head sideways kept saying to me all night "oh...sexcuse me!" over and over again! so i tried my best to distance myself from him a little.....hehe.

Some Undoukai fotos!! Go RED TEAM!!!!!

Me as the AKA ONI (red devil). i got even more wierder stares from everyone than i usually get....but hey thats Japan! look at the shades!! paid 100 yen for them (about $1)
This is actually all the 3rd graders from my junior high school! they won the mukade race (little bastards) and did a victory lap to rub it in!
Look at this! This is both my primary and junior high combined! Only about 130 or so kids! but theyre all cool!
This is Naoki, one of my first graders from junior high, dressed as a girl. He seems to be liking it all too much! In fact a few of the other guys dressed up in the girls school uniform and the girls dressed up in the guys uniform.
sorry....i know this is in no way related to the sports festival but this is a statue of Ryoma, found in Katsurahama, near Kochi City!
White vs Red! Everyone in my junior high faces
off in the tug of war

Sports Days, Enkais, and tambourines

Sorry I haven’t been able to post anything recently as the internet has been down on the only computer I can use to post on my blog. The school computers block the site, among others so it has been really inconvenient for me. ANYWAYS…….

This weekend was quite fun. Friday was a public holiday but my junior high and primary school had its joint Sports Day. It was awesome. Everyone had a great time and noone made any mistakes due to the fact that they had been practicing for it for the last month or so. It went off without a hitch, as they say. I was allowed to join in with the PTA when they had their tug of war and it was quite exhausting. I didn’t know there was to be two rounds. The first round went forever! We were literally at a standstill for 2 mintues. Then eventually the other team gave up and my side won. But everyone was completely exhausted from the first round so the other team won the second round, the final result ending in a draw. I was also in a race with the teachers against the students called the Mukade (Centipede) race where your in a group of 5 people and all ur legs are tied together and then u have to try to run a lap without falling over. For this race I was the AKA ONI (red demon: see picture I will post it later) and got some weird stares (even tho I get them already) from everyone. But the teachers came 3rd which was a pretty good effort I think. My red team won overall on the day so I was very happy and pumped to go to the enkai (party) and have a few cheeky beverages.

The enkai was bloody awesome. All the BOE staff, some people from the village office , the PTA and all the primary and junior high school teachers, gathered after the sports day at the Board of Education to eat and drink heaps and heaps of booze. It was good coz I managed to try and meet everyone there and chat with them, so its safe to say I got very drunk from that because the Japanese are always pouring u a drink of either beer or sake. I don’t know how many times I said I was just fine drinking beer for now but in the end I gave in and drank the sake they wanted to give us. As in most cases in the inaka, most enkais or parties finish around 8:30 or so, so after the enkai ended, a whole bunch of us headed to the local, small karaoke bar where more drinks where consumed. I have a few classic fotos with the head of the BOE (my boss), and the principals of the primary and junior high. It was a great night and I met and made many new friends.

Then early the next day on Saturday, I had to wake up fairly early to go pick Flinty up from Noichi station, which is like a 40minute drive for me. He brought his girlfriend, from England, and we drove into Kochi City to meet up with Vercs. Dan was out camping for the weekend so he kindly said that it would be ok to crash at his for the night. So we met Aaron at dan’s then had a chat and then dropped Matt and his gf off to go somewhere. Aaron and I then proceeded off to Aeon to check out the sights before having to pick up Matt again and then head to our first JET soccer practice. We suck but at least we have a few good players, most of those are poms tho. U can definitely tell who the Australians and Kiwis are in our team.

After training, we went back to Dans to get changed and head back out on the piss in the city. Met up with some of the other people from soccer at Hirome Ichiba and then once we were quite toasty enough, left for the infamous BIG ECHO for all u can drink karaoke. To everyones surprise Aaron was the karaoke DJ for the night belting out some classic tunes. We managed to get some random Japanese guy to come sing with us and after our karaoke stint, those who hadn’t piked were lead off to some random bar by the jap guy. Aaron and I then drank more and got all the people on the dance floor to dance along with us. It then proceeded with me trying to drunkenly tune some random Japanese chicks before Aaron and I decided to go home and crash at about half 3 in the morn.

We were all looking worse for wear in the morning and after watching some random movie and playing some XBOX, we jumped back in our cars and went home to get some rest. Classic weekend!

Fotos from the yakiniku parties

This is a foto of me before drinking two litres of beer after the yakiniku party finished. To the left is Kitamura and in the middle is the head of my BOE (bloody legend)
Post 2 litres of beer within half an hour
Just look at him, my kyoikucho is a bloody legend! hehe
This is what a yakiniku party looks like. U crowd round a 44gallon drum cut in half, chuck some charcoal at the bottom, light it up and cook ur meat and shit on top of a grate! then u sweat ur ass off eating from the bbq and get pissed even quicker!!

The consequences of too much beer and meat and grass

I'm still trying to recover from last weekend’s effort. Although I didn’t get a chance to go to Kubokawa to see the fire tree festival, I still had a pretty good time yet again with the locals here. On Friday night after work, my BOE finally had a welcome enkai (party where everyone lets loose and gets blotto) which was behind the BOE in a shed. i know it sounds dodgy but we had BBQ out back there with lots and lots of yakiniku (fried meat). so we all sat around this BBQ sweating our asses off and trying to eat as much food and drink as we possibly can. One thing in Japan is that u can never expect ur glass to be empty because it isnt, even if u have had only half a glass theyll fill it up for u so its impossible for u to keep track of how much uve had to drink. anyways, after many beers and after we finished most of the food, people started going home at about 830pm. i wondered what the hell is going on, i mean u guys are getting me well pissed and now everyone is going home. but im starting to realise that this is very common here in the inaka. somehow i managed to go for more drinks with the head of the BOE and one of his staff members. all i can say is that the head of the BOE (kyouikuchou) is a legend. get him pissed and hes a funny bastard. so we were at one of the local bar/restaurants and quite literally in about half an hour my kyoikucho had made me drink about 2 bloody huge mugs of beer so it was pretty safe to say then that i was pretty gone, having been drinking non-stop since about 5pm that evening. had to leave due to the fact i was tambourined and did the stagger home, once again making a drunken fone call to the gf which i have no idea what i said, then passed out, only to have to go into kochi city to pick up the gf the very next day.

i woke up feeling like crap but managed to put on a smile and go see the gf who had travelled in from kobe. went to aeon and saw "The Fantastic Four" which was pretty cool before grabbing some food and going home.

The next morning got up bright and early to go up into the mountains even more than where i live and cut grass! The cutting grass part was fairly easy but the volunteers from the yakuba didnt tell me that we also had to clear out the debris from the gutters on the side of the road. Its safe to say that we all got very dirty and muddy (no sexual reference here) were very sore by the end. During this all i could think about was how nice a beer would taste after we finished because afterwards the yakuba put on another yakiniku party, where again much meat and booze was consumed. it is interesting how different some Japanese are after they have had a few drinks....even the quietest of guys turns into a legend. even the gf, who i have rarely seen drunk was hilarious. And as most japanese parties go, everyone left to go home at about 9pm so me and the gf continued on to enjoy a little bit of karaoke before going home and passing out.

I felt like crap the next morning due to the excess consumption of meat and beer from the weekend, but managed to wake up at a reasonable hour in order to take the gf and show her around kochi city. it was quite an exhausting day. we went to katsurahama (a famous beach here in kochi), then went and had lunch in hirome plaza before heading into Obiyamachi Shotengai (a long street of shops, shops, and more shops), then went to check out Harimaya-bashi (which is a sorry excuse of a bridge yet it is so popular here), and then went to Kochi Castle. This was enough for me and my hangover so did the hour drive back to the sticks in Monobe-son and then kicked back and watched a couple of videos from the closest video store to me (which is a half hour drive away).

Other than that, this week has been not very eventful at all. At school, everyone is practicing for their schools sports day so there havent been many classes so most of my time has been spent surfing the net and getting to know all my students. theyre pretty cool and i think im lucky i dont have to teach at a big school in the city. My Junior high and primary school is having a joint sports day this friday due to the fact that there arent many students. anyways catchas later!

Beer, cutting grass and more beer

gday folks! this weekend is a long weekend here coz for some reason monday is a public holiday so its time to go wild i think. tonight (friday 16th) my Board of Education (BOE) is finally having a welcome party for me so i think many drinks are to be consumed and then whoever is left after the party will head for the local karaoke bar to butcher some popular tunes. im looking forward to seeing my bosses getting blotto (or tambourined, some of us JETS call it here) and going crazy! on saturday the gf is heading into kochi from kobe so will pick her up in the city and go out to dinner somewhere then all of sunday im going to be cutting grass with the locals! yes dad, i will be cutting grass, not with a lawn mower mind u, no thats too modern, it looks like we'll have to do it the old fashioned way and use a big ass blade coz they havent cut the grass in about a year. after that there are many beers to be consumed, and boy will they taste nice, and then there is a yakiniku party and there will also be a chance to do some moon viewing! apparently watching the moon around this time of the year is popular for some reason. anyways, not sure what will be happening monday besides recovering. hope u all have a good weekend and stay in touch.

catch u on the flipside

steve

Around where I live!

This is my favourite shot so far of Monobe-son. It is a picture of the Nagase Dam looking from the Junior High School I teach at! There is also a running course that goes around the dam so when I can be bothered I go for a run.

This is a scary bridge to cross by car because its like a suspension bridge and theres always a huge noise when someone crosses it. it goes to the dam. Notice how the common theme here is GREEN, TREES and MOUNTAINS!

This is a foto of where I live. I live in the teacher's housing apartment block. My apartment is on the top floor on the left. Its right behind the primary school and not that far away from everything else (except for the city...hehe). It is quite a nice apartment, it has all the necessities but once i save some more money it will be much better.

This is the view from the front door of my apartment looking out towards the dam. The little building to the left of the road is the bus station.

getting to know the locals

Todoro no Taki! took awhile to get there but worth the wait
on the piss with the locals. (its only the second time i met this guy)
me looking like Rambo for the Junior High Schools Undoukai....... GO RED TEAM

G'day everyone! I had a pretty quiet weekend except for friday night because my shakken for my car is due soon and its gonna be quite expensive the way things are going. During the day on Friday, went to Kochi city for some newbie teaching conference in which i barely learnt a thing except for its best to be on time for things in japan. Then got a lift back to the inaka from my supervisor where i did the final email check before the weekend then went ho me. Decided to come out of my shell and went to one of the local bar/restaurants by myself to have a few beers and chat to the locals. and a few beers i had......yeah, and the rest. there was some kind of get toogether for the people in the yakuba (village/town office) and they invited me over to have more beers and chat about various topics. I was very drunk by this stage so those who hadnt gone home coz they were soft decided of course to go do some karaoke!! I ended up drinking till about 2:00am and then staggered home, had a drunken chat to the girlfriend before passing out on my futon! it was an awesome night and hopefully there will be more nights to come. On saturday and sunday i had to get out and about so went for a drive to check out the local area to see what it had to offer and id have to say that this place has some of the best scenery around....if u like lots of moutains and trees.I drove on numerous narrow roads to a couple of cool waterfalls and checked out this cool cave called Ryugado cave! I definitely recommend you check it out if you can. then on the way home sunday afternoon, met up with some of the locals who gather round near my apartment to have a few drinks, eat deer and have a chat. they are quite funny people, although they didnt mind showing what guns and knives they have for hunting. anyways i better get going, until next time i post.........

G'day ALL!!

well heres the first time ive ever made my own blog so hopefully all will go ok. will post more soon once i get the hang of this..

cheers

golly

heh?

sorry, had to post this to get a display pic for my profile