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Published: January 31st 2006
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Strutting their stuff... Tokyo style!
It is not often that we are blessed with fashion like this in Hiroshima... but when we are I can't help but ask for a picture! I think it is pretty obvious that I am enjoying my stay in Japan, and hopefully my blogs have helped you understand why. Every experience tends to end up as an adventure, and even the bad ones (although few and far between) have their good points! Well, the past four days have been a continuation of that adventure: Thursday and Friday I attended a "Mid-Year Conference" with all of the other JET Programme English teachers in Hiroshima City, and then on Saturday and Sunday a good number of us stuck around in the city and partied it up!
THE CONFERENCE:
I think that all of the other JET English teachers would agree with me when I say that these "conferences" are far better than having to teach in our schools. Personally, I love being 'forced' to take part in fun workshops, and listen to good speakers... may sound like I am being a little too positive since most conferences suck, but ours are organized by the JET participants, for the JET participants, so they are actually enjoyable! I would have to say that the highlight of my mid-year conference was the "Hiroshima-Ben" (Hiroshima Dialect) workshop... I learnt how to
Some pepper lovin'!
This poor mascot! I am pretty sure that the Japanese person inside here cringed a little when he saw a group of foreigners running towards him at full speed! speak more like a local (as opposed to a textbook student), and was able to ask what on earth the people of my mountain village have been teaching me. As it turns out, I have been speaking like an 80-90 year old man.. not even a woman! LOL, the teacher had a good laugh when I started speaking with the same words that her grandfather uses! Ah-well, live and learn! Oh, I also enjoyed the workshop when my friend Jane put up her hand thinking she was about to use a Tokyo Dialect word, and asked for the translation of a word that describes a sexual position! Haha! Loved it!
The grande finale of our conference consisted of us watching a Taiko drumming performance which I absolutely loved! If there was Taiko available in my area, I would definitely want to learn!
THE NIGHTLIFE:
Although we did go out on Thursday night, it didn't compare to Friday, so I am not going to bother writing about it. Friday night, on the other hand, was out of control! Literally, out of control (AND CASEY.. you dancing in the window of the police station is the perfect example here!). Our
night began at Cusco Cafe, a Spanish restaurant which is known for their 'nomihoudai'. For only $15 we had unlimited drinks for 1.5 hours.. and boy did we get our money's worth!! (I always feel a little bad for the restaurants when we go in for nomihoudai because it is quite clear that the concept was adopted with the vision of Japanese drinkers in mind.. and certainly not for foreigners who drink like fish!... I'm pretty sure that they don't make much of a profit once we walk in!) Good times!
From there we wandered the streets for probably a good hour and met many new people.... which brings me to another point I like about the Japanese society: in a country where it is customary to go out drinking with colleagues after work, there always tend to be crowds of drunk businessmen wandering the streets, and it just creates a really fun atmosphere!
The remainder of the night (well, actually until 6am the next morning) was spent in our favorite bar dancing to great hip hop and latin beats.
Couldn't have asked for a better night!
Enjoy the pics!
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Casey Lary
Casey Lary
Ohhhh Lord
So being lazy and looking at this blog...man we need to stop having so much fun. These definitely are some of the best photos we have taken in Japan....sad we don't remember half of them!