Japanese Air Shows, Culture Festivals, and Enkais

I had the day off on Friday because it was 'Culture Day' in Japan.  So, Elena, Tomoko, and I went to Uruma Air Base (about an hour away from the 'Bu) to see and Air Show. YES!  There were MASS amounts of people there. It was pretty good. It wasn't Miramar, but it gave me my fix of jets for a minute.  There were demonstrations all day, but we got there to see the 'Blue Impluse.' Sound familiar...?  They are a lot like the Blue Angels, just Japanese.

Here are some still shots of the show. I also have a lot of video that I am trying to post in my video section, but it was too big and took forever to upload, so I will try and edit it down some for your viewing pleasure.

One of the Blue Impulse

Stretching before the big show...who says Japanese guys don't have butts. :)

They made a star in the sky. Kinda hard to see it, but it is there. I was standing really close to the runway, so I couldn't get the whole shot in.

Saturday was the Culture Festival at my JHS.  The students sang A LOT and each grade did a play. I don't know what two of the plays were, but my third years (9th graders) did 'Romio and Juriet' (also know as 'Romeo and Juliet')  Romeo was played by a girl because the boys were too chicken to do it. It was cute.

Here are some pictures of my students. I didn't get any of the actual plays because it was too dark and I was standing/sitting in the back of the room.

The gym

Some of my students' handicrafts...

Three of my favorite boys: Yasushi, Shun, and Mori (aka Mr. Forest)

The girl on the left, Chiaki, played Juliet in the play.

And the girl on the left in this pic, Reina, played Romeo.

Another one of my favorite boys, Nauto, who can't wait to go to high school in Tokyo where he can dye his hair purple and get piercings all over his body. He is also in love with Cameron Diaz (who does some really cheesy commercials out here for SoftBank...a cellphone company.)

Echan, Yammychan, and Arisa

After the Culture Festival, we all went (15 teachers and staff and myself) to Angelina's (a French restaurant) for an enkai, which is basically a work party that involves a lot of food and alcohol.  It was a good time. It was the first time that I was able to hang out with my co-workers. They are generally pretty laid back people, but were much more laid back at the enkai. Some of my teachers drank enough to speak English to me. One finds out lots of things at enkai, but no one talks about it the next day. Never.  I took some pictures in case they don't approve my vacation request. Blackmail, baby.

Three of my Arakawa teachers. (It is taking too long to upload the big pictures, so I am making them smaller.)

Ashihara-sensei and Arai-sensei

Eda-sensei and Morita-sensei (neither of them speak English, but were trying darn hard to.)

My Kocho-sensei (Principal). No one knows his name, since he is just called 'Kocho-sensei.' Goofy little man. But very sweet.

So, they also played games at my enkai.  There was one drinking game that did NOT involve alcohol.  The 16 of us were split into 4 teams of 4 people. There were 4 cups. Three were filled with apple juice and one was filled with vinegar. Each person took a cup and on the count of three had to drink it.  Then the people not drinking had to guess who was the lucky one to drink the vinegar. Points were awarded to the correct guesser. They also did the same thing with lemonade and pure lemon juice. The best one was the cream puff game: three were filled with cream and one was filled with wasabi. Yum.

Arai-sensei and Morita-sensei drinking during the apple juice/vinegar round.

Nakata-sensei, kyoto-sensei (vice principal), and Arai-sensei.

Another game they played was a game where they had to write a Japanese hiragana letter (there are 48...I think. It is their syllabic alphabet) in the air with their rumps and we had to guess what it was. It was pretty darn hilarious watching them shake their booties.

Onoue-sensei shakin' it like a salt shaker.

Morita-sensei bumpin' and grindin' with the air.

And my vice principal shakin' what her momma gave her.

Overall, it was a good time, but tomorrow is Monday and back to the ol' work attitudes. But, that's okay...I know what they are really like.

After my enkai, I headed out to 301, a bar/club where a friend Teru was deejaying again.  There was a 'dance-off', and here are a couple of pictures of that evening.

A.J., the most precious door guy in all of Chichibu. Even with his glowing red eyes.

Some of the dancers