I ended up having a merry little Christmas as well, which I will go into later. I had an eventful weekend.
Friday night was my school's bonenkai, or end of the year party. One of my teachers told me it was a "forget the year" party, hehe. It was set in a very nice Japanese hotel/onsen in Izu Nagaoka. It was my first time at such a nice place, where they serve traditional onsen foods and set out your futon for you. It was your standard enkai, where everyone was seated in rows (on the floor) in a big private room. There was entertainment, like a "magic" show, an end of the year slideshow, bingo, and prizes. And I'm talking about nice prizes... There was a foot massager, DS Lite, and I was one "janken" away from winning a sweet bicycle! Oh, and there was dancing. By the teachers. And I was in one too....
For those of you imagining the Mean Girls Jingle Bell Rock scene, you can put those thoughts away. Replace Jingle Bell Rock with an old Japanese pop song (that still gets stuck in my head), Regina George with the PE teacher, and slutty Santa outfits with a monkey suit. Well, actually I was the only one in a monkey suit. My friend Wako-chan was a rabbit, but everyone else wore matching 100yen Santa outfits. It was probably one of the most embarrassing things I've had to do, but it marked my initiation as a teacher at Numasho. Everyone was drunk anyway, so I don't regret it.
After dinner we enjoyed the hotel onsen, which meant being naked with all the other women teachers, but I tried not to think about it. My teacher helped me put on a yukata properly. In fact, when we arrived at the hotel, one of the attendants laid out an assortment of colorful yukata for us to choose from. I initially pointed to the green one, but she was like "Eh... chotto..." and gave me the red one instead. She knew her kimono!
Even at midnight, after karaoke and more drinking, many of the teachers went out to get ramen and drink some more. I guess for a year of hard work, they really milk a party for all it's worth. I was too tired to go out, and went to bed. I didn't feel too bad though, as Hiro-chan, school nurse, had stumbled into our room and passed out shortly after dinner. Hahaha.
On Saturday, after a sumptuous Japanese breakfast, I got a ride home and headed out again. I had to take the shinkansen to Nagoya, to visit Jimi and Melissa for Christmas. I think with what we had, we made it the best damn Christmas we could. On the 24th, we headed into the city to see Nagoya Castle, which was the resident of Tokugawa Ieyasu and his family.
We then explored a little bit of downtown in a commercial area called Sakae, before checking out Osu, a covered street mall. As much as we had to remind ourselves it was Christmas Eve, it didn't feel like it at all. It looked like any bustling weekend night, except for the more-than-normal amount of young couples out on their Christmas dates.
On the way back to Melissa's house, we picked up a Christmas cake and 400yen wine from the conbini. After ordering pizza, we watched a burned DVD of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "A Christmas Story." Afterward we ate the cake and exchanged presents. A warm, cozy Christmas, almost as if we had made the whole holiday up.
The next day I made a brief visit to Nagoya Zokie University, the school Mel and Jimi are studying at, and then had to catch the train home. I felt a little bit strange and detached when I got back, though.
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