Monday, 22 January 2007, 03.00 pm JST
sotd: Mr.Children, しるし
cotd: JZX110 Toyota Verossa VR25
Oh no! I’m behind again! Good thing it’s the end of the semester. (Edit: beginning of a new semester.) Time for me to recap everything post-Wii.
１２月８日：忘年会
So on Friday, December 8, despite being in the middle of the final test period (Thursday the 7th, Friday the 8th, Monday the 11th, and Tuesday the 12th), my school had its long-awaited and much-heralded End of the Year Party (忘年会, forget-year-party). And it wasn’t even in Tamba. No, we left the inaka City of Tamba to make our way to the Royal Hotel Hill Fukchiyama (sic) in Fukuchiyama City, Kyoto Prefecture. Since it happened roughly a month ago, here’s a summary replay of the whole shindig:
1. A huge buffet dinner.
2. A lottery with a prize for each teacher and office staff member. (I hate to imagine the budget for this event.) The teacher sitting next to me won the 160GB DVD Recorder. I got leg warmers. >.<
3. Afterparty at a スナック with the enka-singing-age male teachers plus the vice-principal plus the principal.
4. Free (er, included) one-night hotel stay, with each person getting their own room.
5. Free (er, included) access to the hotel’s on-site onsen.
And all within a half-hour drive from my apartment! Good times were had by all and I am already looking forward to next year’s party. ^_^
１２月９日：Bombay Christmas Party
On the afternoon of the ninth, after returning from Fukuchiyama and making a pit stop in Tamba, it was off to Miki by car and then Akashi by train/bus for the annual Hyogo AJET (website not updated) Christmas Dinner Party Spectacular (ok, I embellished that a little) at the best Indian restaurant in Japan, Bombay. For . . . okay, well I don’t remember how much it was, but that’s not so important . . . we were treated to all-you-can-eat Indian food and a bunch of JETs we didn’t know. (Our compatriots Heather and Dylan couldn’t make it on account of Heather’s not feeling well at the time.) Either way, it was fun, delicious, and complete with Bollywood movie clips and music videos! Afterwards the crowd headed to a gaijintastic bar but Kristine and I, being Kristine and I, dug out and headed back to Miki.
１２月１０日：枚方！
The next day got off to an early start as Kristine and I made the long trek from Miki through Kobe and Osaka to Hirakata, finally coming to the end of our journey at my favorite train station in Japan, Keihan Hirakatashi Station. After heading downstairs from the platform, we met Chelsey Yap and promptly headed to find lunch. We headed behind KFC to dine at a yakiniku restaurant, of which the name escapes me. No matter though. Either way, it was good. After some walking around the station, we got on a bus to 山田池公園 (Yamadaike Park), where Kristine and I got off and Chelsey continued on in order to return to her host family’s house. Kristine and I walked almost through the entire park, which is funny since I had never even so much as been to the place when I was at Kansai Gaidai. (Oops.) After hopping on the bus back to the front entrance of Kansai Gaidai University, I treated (if you can call it that) Kristine to her first-ever meal at Bikkuri Ramen. 180 yen (189 yen tax in) for a bowl of ramen. Not gourmet dining by any means, but that’s probably why it’s across the street from the main gate of a major four-year university. Afterwards we headed back to the station, stopping in at Vivre and the bookstore I used to go to several times a week.
Soon after that, we headed back, making a stop at Kinokuniya Umeda Station along the way.
１２月１６日：神戸ルミナリエ
For the next weekend, we decided to do something we would later vow never to do again: view the Kobe Luminarie on a Saturday evening. For a rather visual explanation of why this is probably a bad idea for an outing, just see the first couple of pictures here. Nevertheless, we managed to get a number of excellent things done in Kobe that day:
1. Viewing the Luminarie. (Okay, okay, maybe a little too self-explanatory?)
2. Me getting my first haircut in Japan. (Thank you QB House for finally offering a service that is cheaper in Japan than in the States.)
3. Experiencing the holy goodness that is Star Child’s. (Claiming to have the best burgers in Kobe, this is actually not true. In reality, they have the best burgers in all of Japan.)
１２月１７日：Shopping in Miki
So the next day, Sunday the 17th, was spent staying in Miki to get some things done that we needed to do before we would, in succession, go to Tokyo and then come back to host Jamie for a few days. This mostly involved setting up one of Kristine’s rooms in her apartment as a guest room. This took us to the friendly neighborhood O-Joyful and included buying, among other things, buying a twin size pipe bed, having to cart it back to Kristine’s place by kei truck (one of many first experiences I’ve had by living in Japan, and certainly not the last), and then spending some time to fully assemble it. There were other places we went and other things we did that day, but none of them quite top driving the kei truck.
For next time: an 8000 yen bus ride to Tokyo. (Yikes! Did they even survive? Stay tuned!)
Posted by cjileong 
Posted by cjileong 
