Good Times Last Weekend!

Last weekend was fairly eventful for me! I was kept very busy! After work on Friday, Jenny, Nicola, Claire, Ben and I drove to Nagasaki City for the night. We were staying at The Comfort Inn and had plans to go to a DJ night run by the JETs in a small bar called “Body and Soul”. It was lots of fun – mostly JETs from the Nagasaki region. I met up with Erin and we split a room together. It’s always really nice to catch up with other JETs from Ottawa and compare/relate stories and experiences! My favourite story from Erin is that one of her JTE’s (Japanese Teacher of English) has been asking her out to dinner constantly – and the place he wants to take her is a restaurant called Joyfull (basically the Japanese version of Denny’s….classy). Too funny… It was a pretty late night at the bar, but lots of fun! The chu-hi’s are growing on me (too much!) – they are like Japanese coolers… but I couldn’t tell you what kind of alcohol it is…it’s just good! Take my word for it – or better yet, come and visit me and try them! Oh – and there is no lacking of Malibu in this country either – its quite common and unbelievably cheap! As little as the Japanese can’t handle the alcohol (we lack an enzyme!) – they definitely love drinking…I almost want to say more than Canadians like beer…shocking to believe – but I think it is true!!

Anyways, Friday was a pretty late night, but check-out was at 10am – so we wolfed down our complimentary breakfast and headed out shopping! Nagasaki has a big department store called Youme Saito, where I bought a new bedspread…love it! And a big bookstore with a decent sized English section. And they also have a Gap! A nice change to the very ‘petite’ clothing here, although I think they are still slightly smaller than the Canadian/American sizes. Erin and I then trekked to the arcade near by which was quite big – lots of shops and by far the biggest 100yen store I have seen yet! Surprisingly though, I managed to spend under 10 dollars – which is clearly very shocking for me! After we could no longer stand because of the hours of shopping, it was time for the long trek home. It was nice to be back in my apartment – although it was a beautiful day in Nagasaki.

Sunday was the Shimizu Junior High School “Sports Day”. Sports Day is unlike anything we have in Canada (or at least at any of the schools that I know of). It is a huge event, where the children practice months in advance in preparation, and all the teachers, staff, school board officials, parents, grandparents, siblings, etc – all come to. They have a big opening ceremony where all the students march in and bring in the flags (Japan and school) and divide into their teams (Red, Yellow, Blue and White). From then on – it is just a full day of events where the children compete in relay races, skipping contests, weight lifting contests, etc. The boys all strip down to their shorts and perform an almost yoga/acrobatic-type demonstration where they all climb on each other and lift into different positions, and make big pyramids where they all crumble down afterwards….a little dangerous! But a teacher was telling me that they aren’t as dangerous as they used to be – they used to make bigger pyramids and such, but in recent years, the boys are “weaker” than they used to be…who knew? Then during the “half time” – each team comes out and performs a dance/cheer/acrobatic thing in pride of their team. They asked me to judge them…it was so crazy! There were about one hundred kids to each team, all dancing and cheering as loud as possible…I just kept thinking that never in my life would you ever convince a 14 year old boy to take part in that kind of thing! But the kids were so pumped to do it! It was very entertaining!

After lunch there was a teacher relay, where the teachers all run against a team of parents and students…I was unfortunately second to run…and with my dodgy knee I don’t think I really helped all that much – but at least I participated….There were a few more races and relays afterwards, but the day soon ended with a closing ceremony. It was really fun! Afterwards the teachers all headed to an onsen (I thankfully ducked out of that!) and I met up with them later for another enkai. It was okay – it was at a really pretty hotel at the top of one of the “mountains” over looking Sasebo.

And yes - those are boys in the girls uniforms....

So overall a pretty good weekend. Unfortunately the rest of my week has not been as fulfilling….but getting ready for a fun weekend in Shimabara visiting Erin!