Christmas Season

My holiday season started last week in Japan and will carry me through the next few weeks of my upcoming trip to America.

Last Thursday I kicked things off with a small party with my Hosono Class. I’ve been teaching these students every Thursday for just over two years, so I’ve gotten to know them very well, and they’re capacity to learn and retain English amazes me. Not to mention they’re all really, really sweet kids.


Hosono Class


The original plan was to teach English for an hour and then have a dinner party with games afterwards, but the kids were so excited it was impossible to have a normal class. We ended up just wrestling for about an hour before they wore me out and we all took a rest to eat.

Unfortunately, the youngest student of the group, a cute little girl named Reika, did not feel well and could not join the wrestling match, but she did try to make an appearance when the food was brought out. She ate a little bit, and then started crying and threw up. Not very pleasant.

Friday, my kiddy Christmas parties continued when I agreed to help my good friend Toshiko, a private English teacher in the neighboring town of Tsushima, with her students’ party.

I showed up a few minuets late, played a couple games with her students, taught them how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which all the students thought was a weird combo, and then split for my very own Christmas party at my house.

While I was away, my buddy Will was helping get things started at my house. We had a little scare when he plugged in his fan heater and blew the fuses to half my house and couldn’t find the fuse box to turn things back on.

My landlady was nice enough to call an electrician, who lived close by, and he remedied the black out problem by spying a small fuse box hidden in the rafters near the entrance of my house.

From there on, the party turned out to be a success. It was a potluck style party, which is uncommon in Japan, but the turn out of people and food was great.

The most memorable of all had to be when Yuki, a young girl that works the front desk at my sports club, came by with her best friend, whose name I’ve forgotten but remember her well because she was really cute and tried to speak to me in Italian.


Yuki & her friend


Both girls were dressed as Santa’s Little Helpers and started rolling sushi and making tako-yaki (small battered pieces of octopus topped with mayonnaise and sweet brown sauce). It was a huge hit!


Santa's Little Sushi Helpers


Saturday I went to see the Acid Mothers Temple play they’re annual boninkai (end of the year party) in a bar called Tokuzo.

AMT is a psychedelic rock group from Nagoya, but they spend a majority of the year touring Europe. They’re only consistent Japanese tour date is this Tokuzo show.

No words can describe this show, so I’m not even gonna try. All I will say is that it was loud. It was awesome. Not to mention two punk rock chicks from Osaka called あふりらんぽ　(Afurirampo) joined them onstage. Both girls were topless and painted bright red like some kind of super hero in a body suite.

The show ended when Kawabata-san hung his guitar from the rafters, or possibly the lighting rack, in a fit of distortion. Then they came back out for a raucous encore of Na, Na, Na, Na, Hey, Hey, Hey, Good-bye!

Monday, in stark contrast, I continued my kiddy Christmas parties with my Shimomura Class. I started teaching these kids last September, and I’m just now starting to see them make some significant progress.


Shimomura Class


For this party, all I did was eat a nice meal prepared by the students mothers, and then go outside for a game of freeze tag. It was not your typical Christmas party, but it was good fun.

Hopefully I can keep this holiday spirit up over the next few days when I travel to Aspen, CO to meet my cousins and my ailing uncle for a week in the snow before traveling back to Gainesville, GA to see the rest of my family.

U.S.A here I come.