Birthday Fun!

What a weekend!

To be fair, it started fairly quietly as I am including my birthday (which was on Thursday) in this weekend. So Thursday I was at my elementary school, and although I didn’t get any birthday cards from the kids (this will be rectified next year) I did at least have one class sing happy birthday to me – rather well I might add, and another class applaud me because of my birthday. Can’t go wrong really can you?! No chocolate cake from anyone which I was quite disappointed about seeing as for the last two weeks I have been telling all of my classes how my favourite thing is chocolate cake! Ah well. I had a nice surprise later on as I had to go to my JHS after elementary school and when I got there I found I had a present and a card from my JTE on my desk =) That was nice. Anyway, I had a surprisingly nice night in on my own, chilling out, eating chocolate cake (own bought) and drinking umeshu, with a quick chat to the parentals and a few birthday presents in the mix it turned out to be a really successful birthday. 

Birthday cake and drink!

Also, Thursday I became an official alien as I collected my alien card (foreign residents card) from the town hall. Brilliant.

So a good Thursday.

Friday then just got better. Had a fairly boring day in the morning at my JHS but it was ok as it didn’t drag too much as I knew that in the afternoon I would be able to leave the school to attend the local JHS English speech contest. It was quite a weird experience. There were four JHS competing in this particular contest – each with two or three students. The weird part of it was that the other ALTs which I had now met a few times were there but we were all very much segregated – it was as if we were competing against each other – loyal to our schools already. I did feel sorry for the students though. Throughout the whole contest it was absolutely chucking it down with rain outside which, when you’re in a room that doesn’t seem to be insulated in the slightest, makes quite a racket and it was pretty hard to hear any of the students at all, whether you spoke English or not. My students did me proud – only forgetting the words once or twice – however sadly they did not win as were beaten by one boy who was told that he won because his speech ‘went on a journey. At the start he felt one way and the end he felt another.’ BLAH! Who wants to have a speaker who is not consistent in how he feels?! Anyway, the speech contest over, I raced home, packed, showered, and got ready to drive to Tokushima City for my joint birthday party!! =)

The amazing guests!

 

We went to an Izakaya where we had the nomihodai (the all you can drink option – dangerous!) I am so glad that people over here like to organise things as I could have never had organised such a nice event on my own. Mari organised the whole thing, and when I got there, we made a grand total of 20 people all in our own section. It was perfect and loads of fun and I didn’t have to pay in the end as everyone chipped in a bit so that me and other birthday girl Katie had a free evening! The food just kept coming and each dish was different but incredibly tasty – my favourite probably being the asparagus wrapped in bacon! What was not so good however was my adventurousness when choosing my drinks. Firstly I managed to get someone to help me with the menu and so was able to snag myself a nice lime cocktail. After that (when others were well into their third beer) I decided that I might as well just work down the list of cocktails – so the waiter came along and I just pointed to the next two on the list!.... hmmmmm bad idea... What arrived to me next was what I would describe as... well... hmm... actually it was so disgusting I can’t even put it into words! It was a mixture of cold tea and water?! Maybe.. add in a little bit of ‘ew’ and you will be very close to what I tasted! Needless to say the other drink was slightly better. I was a bit dubious at first as it was white but all in all definitely drinkable. Then came the gin and tonic (woops – I can’t stand gin!) and then after all my failings at randomly pointing to a nice drink. I decided to go back to my trusted lime cocktail again...... oh go on then, add an umeshu to the mix and I was definitely ready for last orders! But the night was still young so we headed to Ingrid’s International (the local ALT haunt) for yet more drinks (a screwdriver courtesy of Ingrid as a birthday present) and a bit of karaoke and failings at pole dancing! Then when we were all sung out we headed back to Bella’s to prepare for the next day’s adventures.