Another exciting weekend in Ota...really!

Haha. Was that convincing, or what? Anyway, lemme catch up. Oh yeah, I left off w/ dropping the girls off at Ueno eki, then coming back home to Ota on Thursday night.

Well, on Friday, I went to shougakkou. (Again, if you haven't read my blog EVER, shougakkou is "elementary school" in Japanese. Aren't you glad I am so well-versed and blessin' you with my amazing Japanese ability?? Ok, ok, I'll stop there. ;-))

Anyway, thank goodness I only had 3 classes for some reason that day, as I literally wanted to roll over and die. The non-stop running around and eating for the past two weeks really caught up to me, and trying to be genki for shou just didn't sound very appealing. I did my best tho. Luckily, my 6nensei class rocked! I played Charades with them (the version where they line up in teams and turn around one by one to relay the gesture till it gets to the person at the end of the line...whoever finishes first runs up to me and wins, blah, blah). Anyway, it was freakin' HILARIOUS! The homeroom teacher and I were soo amused with the gestures the kids came up with for each profession! Like, for "nurse," this one team pretended to put a thermometer underneath their armpits! Yeah, b/c that's how they take temperatures here in Japan! Haha. At first, I was like...HUH?? Then, I was like....DUDE, they're smarter than I am!

That night, I met up with Jeff, Jenny, Sean and other Ota JETs for a Welcome/Farewell enkai (teachers' party) that our new supervisor, Mr. Goino, half organized. We paid 4000 yen for nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) and tabehodai(all-you-can-eat...not really, but they like to pretend!) at the Yorascu Brewery which is supposed to be German, but I couldn't figure out which part was German, other than the fact that we got served sausages that resembled ones served at Saizeriya (cheaper-than-Denny's-type establishment). ANYWAY, apparently, Yorascu is owned by the city?? Wtf? Why would the city own a brewery?? Anyway, when it was NEAR time (but not quite) for the departing ALTs to make their farewell speeches, this one DRUNK-AS JTE came over to our table, LITERALLY LIFTED Jenny's chair off the ground, then DRAGGED her (not w/ chair) to the front and told her to begin her speech, then started clapping like a madman. Mind you, our SUPERVISOR didn't even get a chance to call anyone up yet! Dude, that guy was soo drunk....he was soo NOT Japanese...in his ways, that is! (I'm sure he got reprimanded after that...if not in a passive-agressive manner...as how ALL things are handled here.)

So after everyone made their speeches and the enkai ended, Jeff, Jenny and I (the Country Ma'ams!) needed out sweets fix, of course, so we went to 3 conbinis in order to find our Haagen Dazs Green Tea and Kuromitsu (Brown sugar syrup? Always just thought of it as honey!) ice cream sandwiches! Tho, I had the Coconut one this time. It was well worth it! Mm mm! After we got our crack, we met up with the other JETs, our supervisors, and other Brazilian/Portugese-speaking teachers for the nijikai (post-enkai party...I know!) at this one Brazilian bar near the eki (train station). Whew! Anyway, this place ROCKED!! First of all, it was a tiny place, but it had karaoke! It was western-style karaoke, so you sing in front of everyone. Luckily for us, we took up almost the entire bar! Haha. The selection was limited, but still good fun. They served Caipirinha, this popular, yet STRONG Brazilian drink. I couldn't handle it. =P They also had Coxinha (a chicken croquette shaped like a chicken thigh) which is featured in Sunshine, our English textbook at school! Being the serious and dedicated teachers we are, we HAD to try coxinha in order to give a full report to our students! Yes, that's the ONLY reason we ordered coxinha, then ordered it AGAIN just to make sure we could get the description right. =) It was yummy! Oh yeah, and we ordered a steak and cheese sandwich which was to die for! It was soo good...OMG...I want it RIGHT NOW! And I know this may be a surprise, but the best part of the night was not even the food, but the fact that we sat across from the HOTTEST Brazilian guy EVER!!! OMG...we were drooling the entire time! You'd think that with ALL the Brazilians in industrial Ota, there'd be some hot ones right? Wrong. This was the first HOT...I mean HOT Brazilian guy I've seen. And not in the "I'm in Japan so I'm desperate" sense, either! Mm...eye candy. We even snuck a picture of him as his friend was up singing a Portugese song. Dude, his friend is an AWESOME singer. I want to hire him for my birthday! Forget the mariachi band in Harajuku and their 1000 yen per song tip! Haha. We must visit the nameless Brazilian bar again! Yaay, Brazilians and their tasty food and hot men...I mean, man!

On Saturday, I slept in. Soo nice! In the afternoon, I met up with Jeff and we trained, then walked to Korona World. We had okonomiyaki (a pan-fried battered cake with various ingredients. Apparently, "okonomiyaki" means "cook what you like, the way you like." Weird!) Anyway, we saw Cars at the Korona theater, which turned out to be ghetto-ville! Their popcorn and churros were like made last year or something! Yeah, no more Korona for movies, back to AEON it is! Oh yeah, I also fell asleep during Cars. I didn't mean to, but I think I'm just not used to this heat yet? Anyway, the parts I did see were okay. Doesn't quite add up to the other Pixar movies, yet it was still better than some of the "Look, we have animals in our animation! Come watch and be disappointed!" movies out there these days.

Bah, I didn't do anything on Sunday b/c of the rain. Not that I had big plans on my holy day, anyway.