28th Birthday, Betches!!!

After recovering from a week or so of festivities, I have found time to sit down and share my birthday events with all of my loved ones. Thank you all for your wishes and lovely notes :)

On October 15, I met with another ALT who's birthday was October 14 to celebrate our birthdays at a local restaurant. It was a very tiny place (only 3 tables) and we rented it out. It was an all you can eat and drink (for 3 hours). The food was DELICIOUS, and the wine, nostalgic (cheap stuff that my friends I would often drink in Oregon). It was all for 3,000Yen per person. Sounds like a lot, but it's not for Japan. I think in this area it's pretty typical for formal gatherings. In order to plan ahead of time, we have to give them an exact number of who is planning on coming. And no one can start drinking until the first toast (called a kanpai... KANPAI!!!)
From the restaurant, we proceeded to a few bars, and I ended up at Blue Santa. There I ran into the head interpreter, Hideyaki-san, of the Mie Police. He has really good English skills... although I'm not so sure what we talked about... Dang it!!! From there,  I slowly walked home at around 3 AM.

The next day I woke up at 7:30 AM to meet Kelsey and Adam for our trek into Beppu for our ALT Sports Day at this awesome park. There we met 16 other JETS to participate together in various games such as Capture the Flag, Red Rover, Kick Ball, having a Vegetable-Off, and making human pyramids. Me and a guy named Tomek had a Crump-Off... I guess we're now dubbed the Crump Meister and Mistress... I was trying to think of whether gender-specific titles needed to be used or not, especially since I am the Crump CHAMPION!!! For those of you that don't know what Crumping is, Google it!!!  Overall Sports Day was so fun!!! We all kinda realized our mortality that day, as we raced to try and capture the other team's flag.... man, getting winded sucks, especially when we all remember just being kids, and oh, how racing was SO easy!! Kelsey made me a delicious cake, and everyone ate to celebrate... or just ate cause the cake was yummy :P Sports Day lasted from 10:30 AM until 3PM. From there, we all met up at a co-ed onsen (rare, but this one required swimsuits). That was followed by dinner, and then just chillin' out at a JET's house that lives in Beppu.

The following day, October 17, four other girls and myself headed to an old historic Samurai town near Beppu to dress up in traditional silk kimonos and walk around cobbled streets. This was RAD!!! Wearing summer Yukata (cotton kimonos, shown in previous posts) is really fun, but wearing the REAL deal, the silk kimonos is super fun!!! I felt like we all looked like dolls. Boy does the kimono help one's posture. Please enjoy the pictures of our lovely walk. We were encouraged by our dresser to go eat a snack in our Kimonos, and so we did.

Kelsey, Nicole, Stevie, May, Cheryl

The back of my obi

We thought the kimonos would make us more dainty...

Me and Kelsey (from Reno, NV)

The rest of the week, I enjoyed birthday wishes and congratulations being bestowed upon me from the various Japanese folk in my life. I found it very interesting how Japanese people approach birthdays. Birthdays in Japan are NO where near the big deal they are in the States. The teachers at my main school did not wish me a happy birthday. This is not rude. It's just not something that Japanese people celebrate publicly. It usually involves a quiet family evening, from what I've heard. At Kiyokawa, the other junior high I teach at, one of the teachers made me Matcha cake (she rocks!! she knew I liked Matcha cake ... matcha is finely ground green tea).

On Monday, Oct 18 (Happy Birthday, Eric!!), my dancing teacher, Noriko (the Number 1 Rumba dancer in Kyushu), made me chestnut cake (she's also a baker). It was filled with cream. We all at the cake during our half-time break (me, Noriko, Katchan, Akamine sensei (85 years), Stacy (that's her English name), and another woman, whose name I forgot. That day, also, my amazing beautiful dancing shoes arrived. yay!! They are super sexy... I'll take pictures later for the next blog. Promise.

On Tuesday, October 19, one of my dancing teachers, Katchan, took me and our friend, Akemi out for dinner at Joyful (equivalent to Denny's Japanese style) and Karaoke. It was great. The three of us usually meet up for English conversation. Katchan is so generous. She often gives me things like homemade Manjuu, (uhh, this is hard to describe, but it's the Japanese version of beer bread) and vegetables from her garden. She knows how to make any Japanese food. Katchan is also good at anything involving music... even singing American songs at Karaoke.
I sang... Deliver Me, by Sarah Brightman; Building a Mystery, by Sarah McLachlan, hmmm. What else... I forgot, but I attempted some that were SO bad!!!  hahaahah I still like Karaoke :) I should take singing lessons! Maybe next year...

The following day, my new friend, Oobayashi (that's his last name, his first name is Tomonori, or Tomo-kun [pronounced coon]. He's a math teacher) and I went to Beppu (and got lost driving) to see a photo-art exhibit of pictures from around the world taken by Photo Journalists. It was heart wrenching. But thankfully, it ended with pictures of sports events.

The next few weeks are going to be busy. On Friday Oct. 29, I have my first doctor's check up, here in Japan. It was scheduled for me by the Education Office. I get to find out my blood-type then, which will help the Japanese determine just what kind of person I really am (depending on your blood type, there are certain personality traits and match-making possibilities one may have). Also, there is a Work Drinking Party that same day, and on Saturday, I'm going to a drumming Concert by a Taiko group called Tao. On Sunday, there are numerous Halloween events, but I think I am going to go enjoy fireworks in a neighboring town.

That concludes the segment on my birthday. Let me give a shout out to the Duquette Family. All  3 members get to enjoy birthday festivities within 12 days of each other (on which one day is my birthday [Dynamo!!!])

ALT Owen Rojek took this picture with his new wide lens camera. We ate at a sushi restaurant before playing 4 hours of darts!!!