Always weird to be abroad for 9/11. No mention of it anywhere.

So much rain due to all the typhoons. At least it’s cool, but I haven’t seen the sun in forever. Today is the first day with sunshine. It poured really hard yesterday so our river is flowing strongly, but at least no flooding like elsewhere. Today was the choir competition for my school so all classes were canceled. Ichigo-sensei picked me up and we drove up to the music hall that is next to the natural history museum. I got to wander around the park up there while all my students were outside practicing. Such nice weather and a lovely view.

The students then practiced all morning in shifts, first outside, then in the actually hall once it opened. Lots of smiles and waves for me. We stopped at lunchtime and had bento boxes in a back room reserved for teachers. Apparently, it was a famous bento box place. Like usual, lots of rice, some meat and a small amount of pickled veggies. They don’t have a lot of vegetables with them. Afterward, the real concert started and some parents and other relatives showed up. I think because it was in the middle of the day, not a lot of working parents came.

The kids sang really well! We even got to hear an opera singer at the end who sang in German and Italian. Every class had someone playing the piano. I was told that at least 10 kids out of 40 in each class can play piano! K-sensei kindly drove me home. That night, we were going to an izakaya (traditional Japanese restaurant) in Takasaki so Ichigo-sensei was going to pick me up later after work. We drove together to her house and picked up the head of the front office, who was walking, along the way. Then I got to meet Ichigo-sensei’s daughter! We picked her up from cram school. Managed to distract all the kids with my foreignness. She’s seven years old and super cute! Even spoke some English to me. I think her level of English is the same as my level of Japanese, hah. Once we got to her house, the math teacher would was going to drive us three to Takasaki was waiting. Ichigo-sensei seems to have a nice house and a yard!

We drove these crazy, curvy back roads there. Really scenic. Lots of rice and wheat fields. Also saw a giant rock wall made with volcanic rock! We got to the izakaya pretty early (which is proper etiquette). I had switched from my skirt because I knew I’d be sitting on the floor for a long time. It was very casual, some of the younger teachers had switched to shorts. You aren’t supposed to have bare feet since you leave your shoes at the entrance, but some teachers did so I guess it wasn’t too taboo. We slipped off our shoes and were escorted to our private room with tatami mats and seat cushions. After figuring out seating arrangements, we waited for more people to arrive. I had a lot of English speaking people sitting nearby so the language barrier wasn’t too bad, but honestly I got used to going to parties and barely understanding anything in Czech Republic. It’s good practice to listen for context clues and the small amount of words I know.

We ordered drinks in rounds. I started with ginger ale, then jasmine tea, and then tried Calpis which I quite liked! The food was fantastic although it put my chopstick skills to the test. They had the double sided chopsticks: you eat with one end and use the other end to serve yourself from the main dish. Luckily I had learned this earlier in Maebashi when I asked another ALT. The first dishes were sashimi and some appetizers like smoked salmon rolled in swiss cheese and little shrimp crackers. I had octopus sashimi, my first time! I liked it, much less chewy than squid. The fish was amazing, wow. Then we got little oven cooked dishes with cheese covered shrimp, mushrooms, salmon, and potatoes. We also had a plate with roast beef and potato salad. Then later came a Chinese salad, and a vinegar rice with ikura (salmon fish eggs) on it. That was my favorite. First time eating caviar too! Dessert was amazing too. It came wrapped in a banana leaf. It was some type of jelly with a vanilla cream in the inside.

It was pretty sweet seeing the teachers let their hair down and get a bit drunk, but not everyone drank. The party got much noisier haha. I got to listen to my welcome speech at the beginning and then there was one at the end too by the youngest teacher who I found out is younger than me, 23. There was so much laughter. Ichigo-sensei translated some for me. I also got to talk a bit with my Kyoto-sensei in broken English and another teacher who is one year older than me. Some teachers know more English than they let on. So much fun! I think we were a total of 20 people. The bill was about $750! Which actually isn’t a bad price for an izakaya. I was treated though as it was my welcome party, so nice. I had to go to the bathroom at the end and was prepared to use bathroom slippers. I couldn’t tell what was the men’s side and the women’s side though! So I looked at the door colors, blue and red, and the type of slippers and picked the right one, hah. Such a cool experience! I’m very thankful. A bunch of the younger teacher crowd went to get ramen afterward, but I had to catch the train because I was teaching the next day at Shimonita. Two other teachers caught the same train as me. So little sleep (bed at midnight), but worth it!