Birthday Dinner and Hockey in Japan

Its been a pretty normal 2 weeks or so since I last posted. After coming back from Nagasaki I’ve just been going to school as usual. The kids have been great but unfortunately I’m still doing my self-introduction for some classes. My enthusiasm has definitely dropped as questions about my favourite food, colour and animal loses its appeal after the 50^th time. But a lot of the kids are still adorable, especially the younger ones, so I still have a good time. The weekend after Nagasaki I went out with teachers from Ato elementary school. We met in the main town of Kure Friday night and went to a izakaya. It was a fun and interesting night as it was just me and 7 female teachers. Dinner ended up being quite pricey as we had lots of skewers and alcohol. My teachers decided that they would do a proper introduction to different varieties of Japanese alcohol and I had a fair bit to drink. Tried lots of local beer, sake and chu-hi and I had a fun time talking and laughing, as teachers outside of work are much more relaxed. I tried to speak Japanese as much as possible since they knew very minimal English, and at times there were uproars of laughter when I said the wrong thing in Japanese.

After dinner we also went to karaoke, and being a terrible singer they forced me to sing the first song and I managed to do a horrible rendition of Here Without You by 3 Doors Down. After that, I politely refused to sing more and sat back and listened to the Japanese belt out English songs in a Japanese Katakana accent. It was a fun night and I managed to hitch a ride home with a teacher who lived in the same town. Picture above: Me at a temple during a small festival in Kawajiri last week.

The next weekend I had a few friends over for a birthday/house welcoming/asuka welcoming dinner at our place. Since Asuka arrived we have managed to furnish the place quite nicely and it isn’t the empty room that it use to be. So it was a good time to call some people over to see the place and have dinner. Pete, Mel, Jason and Masato made there way over last weekend, and we ate a nice dinner that Asuka made. We had tons of curry and even a good old Canadian leaf chocolate cake. We had a good night just chatting and relaxing with friends. Bottom Picture: Yasurra Junior High School. This past weekend I had a Bunkasai (or culture festival) at Yasuura Junior High school. The kids just put on performances and there was a speech contest, singing contest and a really good dance presentation. The kids also had different multimedia presentations and a really funny video. Overall, it was fun to see the skills and talents that the students do have, seeing as how English isn't one of them.... It was nice to see some students who usually look totally disinterested in English class proudly perform with the band, dance energetically, or present themselves with their various clubs. This Bunkasai lasted all day Saturday, and because of that I luckily get this Friday off. Since Thursday just so happens to be a holiday, this week I get a four day weekend. Might head somewhere for a short day trip.

The really neat thing the past few weeks is that I have started playing hockey. Yes in Japan. I lugged most of my hockey equipment from Canada, which I tell you wasn’t easy and was compounded by the fact that I forgot my hockey sticks at Narita Airport and had to get them mailed to me in Kure. So before I came, I managed to find this inline hockey league in Hiroshima city. I had Asuka contact the dude who runs it and they said they wouldn’t mind me playing. It took me a few months to finally contact them and get things running but I finally made my way out a few weeks ago. It is a lot of fun to play as I've really missed hockey. The surface where we play is a bit rough and really eats up your wheels. So I’m getting my sister to bring me a ton of gear when I see her later this month. Everyone that comes is really nice, I’ve started to chat with a few of them and its been fun. Though some of them are shy to talk to me because their English isn’t too good, and I'm still a little shy to approach them in Japanese. But overall, its been a blast and I’ll play at least once a week. Bottom Picture: View of the game while i'm resting.

This also leads to my Japanese factoid #8. Well in Japan, when you make up your mind to do something or join something you go all out. In Canada, you would join the basketball team and practice fairy regularly, but its nothing too strenuous. You can play on the basketball team and hockey team no problem. But in Japan, the people here devote themselves and their energy to a sport. For instance, in my school when you join a sports club, that is the club you will be training with for the rest of your high school years. The students here practice 6 times a week. The have morning practice and after school practice. I have students who wake up at 5am to run and practice, then have classes, then practice right after school again. They practice on the weekends and come to school during summer vacations. The people here are really devoted to what they do and in turn they are very good at their respective sports. So these hockey players you would think shouldn’t be too good, but in fact everyone that plays is pretty decent at the very least. They even have 2 girl teams and there are really good skaters. Some of the guys are really good and its a lot of fun to play with some of them.

The first day I played actually kind of sucked because these American’s came from the marine base nearby to play, and the organizers of the league were trying to be thoughtful and put me on the same team as them since there would be no language barrier. But these guys absolutely licked and so I couldn't really give nor recieve passes. But it was still good to be out there playing, and after that first week, I've been able to play with the Japanese guys who I really enjoy playing with.

The people I play with are really passionate about hockey and even won the west Japan inline championship this year. Most of them are in their late 20’s to mid thirties. But they play 4 to 5 times a week. They play inline hockey in the afternoons on Saturday and Sunday and on Friday night and Saturday night they drive to the three neighbouring provinces of Hiroshima in Okayama, Yamaguchi and Shimane to play ice. I didn’t brink my ice gear, so I don’t think I’ll be playing ice with them. So overall it has been a lot of fun and I look forward to playing with them on the weekends.

I've got a pretty exciting month coming ahead as I have 4 days off this week and on the 19th i'm heading to Hong Kong to meet up with my family. Should be fun and i'm getting pretty pumped. Bottom Picture: My apartment is the chimmney looking building in the middle.