Thursday, December 27, 2007
Enkai: Round Two
I was invited to another enkai by my base school. This time is was the end of the semester, start of winter break enkai otherwise known as the bonenkai. Pretty much the same deal as the first enkai. It was even held at an an onsen in Isawa just like last time. This time I skipped the onsen bit though and just went for the food and drink. Once again, I partook in my fair share of sake and ate what seemed to be a never ending array of various traditional Japanese dishes. Also, as it was so near Christmas, we did a secret Santa exchange. I brought a blue plaid patterned scarf as my gift and received a bottle of wine.
One special note about this enkai. Somehow, I ended up sitting next to my principle! Plus, Ryoko, my JTE, was on the opposite side of the room. Thus, I had quite an interesting evening of gesturing and trying to keep the principle's beer glass full. Also, this time, rather than sports festival games, we did a few eating based games and some, 'guess who' types games based off of personality profiles we filled out prior to attending. I was no good at the guess who games as all the hints were in Japanese, but the food games were pretty fun. The first was one where everyone on a team had to eat a piece of sushi. The catch was that one of them was loaded up with wasabi. The game was for the rest of the group to figure out who had the one with the wasabi. I had a normal piece, thank goodness, as I rather dislike wasabi. The next game though was with tomato sauce and hot sauce. And guess who ended up with the hot sauce? Funny thing was that I almost didn't realize it was even hot sauce. At first I thought it might have just been funny tasting tomato sauce or some crazy Japanese version of tomato sauce. But, nope, it was the hot sauce. No one ended up guessing that I was the one who drank the hot sauce so I got an extra prize! And, in all truth and honesty, the hot sauce didn't taste all that bad. I told everyone this and, after they tried a bit themselves, decided I was crazy for liking it!
One special note about this enkai. Somehow, I ended up sitting next to my principle! Plus, Ryoko, my JTE, was on the opposite side of the room. Thus, I had quite an interesting evening of gesturing and trying to keep the principle's beer glass full. Also, this time, rather than sports festival games, we did a few eating based games and some, 'guess who' types games based off of personality profiles we filled out prior to attending. I was no good at the guess who games as all the hints were in Japanese, but the food games were pretty fun. The first was one where everyone on a team had to eat a piece of sushi. The catch was that one of them was loaded up with wasabi. The game was for the rest of the group to figure out who had the one with the wasabi. I had a normal piece, thank goodness, as I rather dislike wasabi. The next game though was with tomato sauce and hot sauce. And guess who ended up with the hot sauce? Funny thing was that I almost didn't realize it was even hot sauce. At first I thought it might have just been funny tasting tomato sauce or some crazy Japanese version of tomato sauce. But, nope, it was the hot sauce. No one ended up guessing that I was the one who drank the hot sauce so I got an extra prize! And, in all truth and honesty, the hot sauce didn't taste all that bad. I told everyone this and, after they tried a bit themselves, decided I was crazy for liking it!
