Farewell Party

We had our school's farewell party at Hotel Montery tonight. It was a great night to relax, talk to some of the new teachers and say last goodbyes to the teachers who were leaving.

The place was really nice and the food was good too - sushi, beef steak, pasta, salad, bruschetta things, cream cheese mousse dessert cups, chawanmushi...they just kept on bringing out more and more food!

Singing the school's song in a big group hug

Applauding and shaking hands with the teachers who were leaving. The teachers make a archway for the leaving teachers to walk through but Teranishi-sensei is way too tall.

I'm going to miss Crazy-sensei. We usually greet each other with "Op!" He was one of the baseball coaches and it's a thing our baseball boys say to one another instead of "hello". He told me that "Op" is used to greet older students (to show respect to the sempai's) and "Chop" is used to greet the younger students.

Me: Op! Let's take a photo together.

Him: Op! Okay. What kind of sign do they do in American?

Me: But, I'm from Australia!

Him: Oh yeah. Australia, that's right. I know that. So what sign do they use in Australia? How about this? (does a thumbs up)

Me: Yeah...that will do.

*This conversation was in Japanese and he had already downed quite a lot of beer*

Baseball & head-of-the-bakamono-club-sensei. I gave him a blue tie with little, gold kangaroos on it (sounds tacky but believe me, it was very simple and tasteful) and he immediately put it on. I'm going to miss him a lot.

Young-part-time-maths-sensei isn't leaving but she just recently got married and I missed her wedding party when I flew back to Perth.

Me with Science-computer-sensei, he is now teaching in Awaji Island at Dan's school.

With Home-economic-sensei (she's leaving to teach in Osaka), my adopted-Japanese-father-sensei and school-band-sensei.

With Young-part-time-maths-sensei ~ always sleepy and always drinking. I'm going to miss our broken Japanese/English conversations - he is hilarious.

After the enkai finished, a group of us moved onto the 'second' party. Adopted-Japanese-father-sensei took us to this snack place which he apologised for being a 'dirty old man's' kind of place. They had this barbeque bench with tatami tables and stools where they cooked the food.

We sat in the tatami area and continued the eating and drinking. Judo-sensei was dressed up in a 3 piece suit. Hello Judo-sensei! He looked very nice indeed, all suited up. A new part-time sports teacher also joined us and being the new teacher, he was the one ordering the drinks and making sure everyone was okay. He specialises in wrestling and is freakin' huge! Even bigger than Judo-sensei! It was quite funny when all the other teachers were asking him questions like "What's your shoe size?", "How much do you weigh?", "What do you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner?".

With my Adopted-Japanese-father-sensei. He was very well drunk and oh-so-hilarious by the end of the night.

Afterwards I headed to Polo Dog to re-toxify with Sam and Leigh. Leigh, the lady killer, had been 'conned' (so he says) into giving out his number to 2 chicks and they even got a photo with him!

Leigh - Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Also bumped into Josh and meet this crazy drunk woman who is now known as 'Gakuentoshi 701' lady. She invited Leigh, and apparently me, to her place to see the cherry tree in front of her apartment.

Leigh, Sam and me

The guys missed their last subway, so we had some more drinks and caught one of the last JR trains back to Tarumi, then taxied home. Thanks for the fun night, boys!