Sunny Rock's Rocknoblog.com - A Japan Working Holiday Diary ロックのブログ

BULLETIN BOARD

Sunny Rock — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:02:07 +0000

Thank you for visiting Rock no blog – a Japan Working Holiday Diary. I created this blog to share my working-holiday experience in Japan. Unfortunately I was not able to blog while I was in Japan because I focused all my energy on traveling, meeting people, working, and simply trying to absorb the culture. In other words, I was enjoying my working holiday adventure!!! But after coming back to Canada I realized that I need to write down my past experience because I am starting to forget about them! I also want other people to learn about my experience, especially Canadians. The number of Canadians doing working holiday to other countries (whether it is Japan, UK, Australia, France etc) is very low compare to other eligible countries. I hope my readers can come to light that taking time off from work and if possible, family commitments, will be a wonderful life experience and Canadians should take advantage of all these Working-Holiday partnership agreements with other countries.

For the time being, all the posts on this blog will be BACKDATED (From October 04, 2009, posts will be under current dates but historical dates will be shown on the title). I am expecting I will reach the Current date in the Spring of 2010. Thus, The first post will serve as a Bulletin Board.

RECENT UPDATES:

10/22/2009 Added post for Nov 2, 2008

10/18/2009 Added post for Nov 1, 2008

10/14/2009 Added post for Oct 31, 2008

10/13/2009 Added another post for Oct 30, 2008

10/12/2009 Added post for Oct 30, 2008

10/11/2009 Added post for Oct 29, 2008

10/10/2009 Added post for Oct 27, 2008

10/8/2009 Added post for Oct 26, 2008

10/3/2009 Added post for Oct 25, 2008

Look Back on Nov 2, 2008: Showcasing Osaka to Tokyo people, Part 2

Sunny Rock — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:15:22 +0000

I was scheduled to teach English at C-Flat in the afternoon so yet again I was not able to hang out with Ken and Cam. Fortunately, there was Dave and 3 other lovely ladies to be their tour guide today! And after my lesson I got to hang out with Naoko, an old friend I made in Vancouver when she was still studying in Vancouver.

Before meeting the girls, the three good-looking sweaty guys headed out for a Kansai style lunch to get energized. What else is better than Okonomiyaki for that gigantic amount of energy???

After lunch, the guys met up with the lovely ladies at the Osaka castle! Yes I am talking about the castle build by Toyotomi Hideyoshi 500 years ago (the one standing right now is largely a replica….the oringial one was burnt down a hundred years ago). Ken and Cam have never been to the Osaka landmark before so they spent time touring the museum, taking pictures at the top of the castle, and being poked by young Shogun soldiers. I love the friendly way the Osaka locals are showing towards tourists especially those from Tokyo : )

Shitennoji was the next destination on their itinerary. The oldest temple in Japan is just minutes away from the Tennoji station which is also pretty close to the station near Osaka castle, so it saved the Tokyo folks a ton of travel time. The gang enjoyed a relaxing walk and took some more pictures….before they got tired and had to sit down for a parfait! Looks good from the picture.

Soon after Ken departed for Itami airport for his flight back to Tokyo. I only saw Ken once this weekend but I will see him again very soon as I will go to Tokyo again in a couple of months!

Next up was dinner which I joined up! I finally met the group at the American Mura at around 7….. we had an awesome awesome dinner. I did one thing that I wanted to do before I die!

And what is that you wonder? I will tell you more tomorrow.

Look Back on Nov 1, 2008: Showcasing Osaka to Tokyo people, Part 1

Sunny Rock — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:24:03 +0000

This weekend I am meeting two visitors from Tokyo – my always clumpsy Japanese Boke friend Ken and the biggest slut on this planet Cam. They both have never visited Osaka for leisure so Dave and I (and along with a few others) will be their guide for the weekend!

Ken arrived Osaka (on business) last night and Cam got here earlier in the afternoon and he hanged out at Dave’s room at Minoh Campus for a bit. I was not feeling well in the afternoon so I stayed home and rested until dinner time. Dave picked the Oosho izakaya 王道 in Shinsaibashi for dinner. If you recalled (or see here), that is the first Izakaya that Dave and I went to when we first arrived in Osaka 6 weeks ago. With a reasonably price tag and endless choices in both food and drinks, the place has became one of our favorite hang out place in the city.

We had Cam and Ken picked some items that Dave and I have not tried before. Cam picked 里芋のホクホク揚げ (Fried taro balls) which amazingly melted in my mouth, while Bukka Ken (yes, we called Ken our servants) ordered the oh-so-special yakisoba. We also recommended the Daikon steak that still tasted awesome, and Dave had Cam drank Awamori, which was not really appreciated by Cam because of that uneasy taste. As for myself, I was not feeling well so no Umeshuu tonight, and I had to stick to 燗 warm sake and eating 雑炊 Congee. I also ordered 山芋とベーコンの醤油炒め (Sauteed Japanese Yam and Bacon in soy sauce) which matches really well with the Congee.

Great Food. Fantastic drinks. But more importantly, with the reunion of us four, the stupidity from Vancouver was reborn in Osaka. We started taking stupid pictures soon after we had a few drinks.

Cam “Hey Dave Look at my chest It got bigger after I came to Japan”

Dave “Hah?? What?? I can’t see the difference?”

Cam “Come one try touch it you will feel the difference”

Dave (tocuh touch touch) “What? They aren’t different and soft like woman’s breast? You slut you just wanted me to touch you!!” (awww keep touching)

After dinner we went to take pictures at Doutonburi, and then we went to Jankara and sang Karaoke for an hour. I did not sing at all at the Halloween party last week so tonight I finally can try out some new songs! I did L’arc en ciel’s “Shine” which is not too hard but I probably can do better with some more practise. Dave also did a L’arc en ciel song “Daybreak’s bell”, which is becoming one of his favorite. Cam the biggest slut in the world sang “Toxic” from Briney Spears. The song helped everyone’s tension to go up up up up up, which gave up super powers to perform the Best Ever song there exist – Nine Inch Nails’ “Animal”. Boy, were we intensed!

The karaoke session was too short to our liking but we had to leave because Cam and Dave had to catch the Monorail to go back to Minon Campus (Cam is sleeping over in Dave’s room). Subway stopped running at late 11 O’clock and Monorail to Saitou Nishi stopped running at around 12. It takes about 30 minutes from Shinsaibashi to Senri Chuo, the only transfer point between subway and monorail, so we had to leave Shinsaibashi before 11 in order for them to transfer before Monorail stops running. Considering tomorrow will be a long day of sightseeing though, I think they would be better off to head home and rest well ( for me as well… I felt weak). Explosion awaits tomorrow.

Look back on Oct 31, 2008: Big oops. Wrong train again

Sunny Rock — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:34:51 +0000

Today my lesson was in Izumi Fuu-nishi, in which the closest station was JR Izumi Fuuchuu. I had to take JR train from JR Tennoji station, but for the second time this week I got on the wrong train. And this time I was not so lucky. When I was at the train platform at Tennoji, I saw a train saying “to Wakayama” and “Kansai Kukou” at the same time so I was not sure if it is the correct train. I waited for the next train which was a Special Express to Kansai Kukou…… I took that train and it did not freaking stop at any other stations! Worse, I had to pay extra 700 yen plus I was late to work for over 20 minutes. After the express trained arrived at the airport station, I ran to the platform across and hopped onto the right train, and then slowly rode my way back to Izumi Fuu-nishi station. Apparently the regular trains heading to the airport direction actually breaks off into two shorter trains, with the fronted 4 cars going to the airport and the backend 3 cars going to Wakayama. But I found that out too late!

I ran from the station as soon as I got off the train, and for god sake the classroom was pretty easy to locate (very close to the station). And I had an easy time teaching today with the help of a knowledgeable teacher. I missed most of the class for the 5,6 years old so I could only do a short introduction, then played a quick card-matching (picture and words) games with those kids. And I barely had time to catch my breathe from running from the station. Then I had some junior high school students, and we played Guessing the word game and Flip the card game that I designed after the terrible class on Wednesday (I will write about that after the weekend….a long story). I want to elaborate on the Flip the card game a little bit. It is an easy game but I found it very effective way for practicing English as well as being a fun activity that would keep everyone interested. Also, the best thing about the game is that every teacher can make the game in an instant and customize accordingly. How? Well, I will show you what I did….. I basically wrote out easy instructions such as “sing a song”, “spell the word potato” and “name 5 countries in Eur0pe” on a sheet of paper, paste the paper onto a cardboard paper and then cut them out into small cards. As for the rules of the game, students sit around a table and the teacher line up the cards. Each student would then pick a card and do the instructions as written on it. To determine the order for the game, the teacher can ask each student to throw a dice and say out the number loud (or in a phrase such as I threw a Five).

I threw in something unusual for my cards such as “Make a scary face” and “Do 10 sit ups”. Those terms are a bit difficult but the Japanese teacher would help the students out, so in a way the students are learning new vocab. Plus everyone can have a good laugh after playing the game (it happened today in my class) so it is a perfect method to have fun while learning English.

I actually had two high school class today, with one class being more advanced. In that class, besides doing the games, I also did a questions-and-answers section, and I learned quite a few things from the interaction. First of all, I met a student who had cramp school right after the English class on a Friday night! It was already pass 8:30pm when the lessons ended and the his next class finished at 10:30. Japan do have quite a few hardcore students. Secondly, after today’s class and my experience from my past few days, I can generalize that the students in Japan typically are either very shy or talk way too much (I cannot find anyone in between so far). The boys are big sports followers with baseball and soccer being the two most popular ones, and the girls they all like Smap, Arashi, and the Johnny Boys. The girls are big on cute characters too…Anpan man, Doraemon, Rilakkuma, and Disney characters, and they carru whole bunch of accessories with those character printed on. Does anybody agree with my observation?

So after the first week of work, I have learned a lot and I truly believe I can become a really good teacher. I am going to prepare more materials next week so that I have more tools I can rely on in class.

Now, enough about work. My baka friend Ken has arrived in Osaka and he will be meeting me and Dave tomorrow night. Cam will arrive tomorrow morning (he is taking the overnight bus). Osaka is going to explode with stupidity!

Look back on Oct 30, 2008: OEH residents’ Michael Jackson Performance Video

Sunny Rock — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:52:05 +0000

I finally got a hold of the Michael Jackson dance performance by the OEH folks….check it out. Also as you can see I have posted a few more pictures from the Halloween party.

Boy, Jon was pretty drunk. He hugged everyone within his sight….. maybe that is his wild feminine side?

Happy news: Ken and Cam are coming to Osaka from Tokyo on the weekend…. Can’t wait to see those crazy people.

Look back on Oct 30, 2008: Second day at work

Sunny Rock — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:47:35 +0000

Today I travelled very very far to my work location. The classroom was located in Otsu 大津. which takes about 75 mins from Hirakata. I had to transfer at JR Kyoto station and it was a pain in the ass since Keihan does not connect to it. I had to transfer one station before JR Kyoto station and then run to another platform at JR Kyoto station. I was totally lost for 30 minutes as I could on not figure out the correct platform, and then worse I got on the wrong train….. there are two lines that stop on the same platform and I was supposed to board on the express train running on the Biwako 琵琶湖　branch of Tokaido Hosen route 東海道本線 , instead I got on the express train running on the Keishin route 京津線. But I stayed alert and checked the train route information, and realized I can change trains at Yamashina station 山科. So I got off and (luckily) soon after I boarded the right train. Yes, I was very lucky indeed.

I also had trouble finding the classroom. I did not find the sign until after 20 mins of walking in a circle, so I called the Zenken office to get help. They were absolutely not helpful at all, but lucky again, I spotted the place. The sign was so small (and I don not understand why the school contact information was not given to me!)!

After greeting the teacher, I discussed with the teacher what she wanted to do today. There were four classes, but the first one only had one student – a 4 year oldboy. Basically I had to be a caretaker and play with him, and that was what I did. We sang, play some word cards, drew some pictures, and did Trick or Treat. That was easy. The next class was a bit more challenging. It was a 5 – 8 years old class and many parents were watching, so the teacher and I came up with a main activity that would involve the parents. After self-introduction and the warm up activities, we had the students and the parents sat in a circle. There were many pictures posted on the wall so I wanted each student to tell me the word when I point to one thing. These students have already learned many words so actually they were better than I thought. Whoever could tell me the word would get a candy. We had really good English practise and I could see the children had fun! The parents participated in the game too (telling the kids the word) so it was all smile all around. And I also learned something new – there is actually a Goodbye song!

Next up was the 9 – 12 years old class. We did a bit more serious activties – a Halloween related tell me the word game, a spelling test, and word guessing game. Unfortunately, some students were not paying much attention but overall they did well. And for the high school class, I had to do the assessment test on the students again before giving out Halloween Candies. For warm up, we did a 20 minutes get-to-know-me conversation. At the end of the class a student gave me an Apple pie as my Halloween gift! She made it herself, and even though the pie was mushy, I was happy to get something from a student on my second day of work!

On my way home, I passed by a waffle speciality store called Manekken. They only sell Belgian Waffles and those waffles looked good, so I bought two for dessert (Chocolate and Maple) along with the apple pie. After toasting it for a few seconds, the warm waffle tasted awesome! Darn, it was good! It was a long day but I was happy. Now time to go to bed!

Look back on Oct 29, 2008: Variety show shooting at OEH

Sunny Rock — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:01:37 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, some comedian duo (yasei bakudan 野性爆弾) came to OEH and shot a short segment (bakudan shakai kouken 爆弾社会貢献, a segment from the Saturday midnight program マヨブラ流). I was working at C-Flat that night so I missed it (DARN DARN DARN I would totally brag about it…. it could have been be a highlight of my Working Holiday adventure). Almost all of the residents were presented, and they did stupid things like eating Natto and Maple Syrup Spaghetti. Matt, who is looking to build his music career in Japan, was interviewed, and he got a short, but free chance to showcase his guitar playing. Good for him. Check out the video (sorry no subtitles but I don’t think you would need it).

Thank you Pete for the video I got it from you all right.

Look back on Oct 27, 2008: So this is how Japanese children learn English

Sunny Rock — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:56:21 +0000

My first day as an English teach went smoothly. Hurray!

I did not have too much trouble finding the classroom. It was about 15 minutes walk from the Katsura station. I marked all the spots I would be passing by (elementary schools, Koban, and convienience stores) on my map and did find most of them. Soon I found the classroom, and I went in and greeted the teacher there. She was surprised that a Japanese looking guy would come in to teach (afterall I do look like the typical Japanese salaryman). I explained to her that I was born in Hong Kong and moved to Canada at a young age where I learned English, and I came to Japan on a Working-Holiday Visa two months ago. She then gave me the details of today’s teaching plan:

1. 50 minutes class for Children of 3 – 5 years old. Playing games, singing, Doing Trick-or-Treat.
2. 50 minutes of doing nothing. The teacher handles the 6 – 8 years old herself… good chance for me to be familiarize with the materials i am working on later today.
3. 15 minutes break
4. 1 hour class for 9 – 12 years old. Doing various activities, read story, Trick-or-Treat.
5. 75 minutes class for high school students. I am told to do an English assessment for each student.

After 10 minutes, the parents started dropping off their kids. A few of the moms stayed around, which is something that I have been expecting.

The 3 -5 years old class started off with singing, including the Hello song and a few others from the standard music CD provided by Zenken. I then did a quick introduction…i tried to be really simply as I knew beforehand I was teaching kids. Following that, I had each of them do a very easy self-intro (who are you and tell me your name thing). That killed some time before we started doing the games, which we played a treasure hunting game. The kids was so happy and they ran around the classroom with great joy. At the end of the class, the kids lined up and I gave candies to them (prepared by the teacher). Before they could take their candies, each of them had to say “Trick or Treat”.

Some of the kids were shy but I think they had fun in general. First class was considered a success.

During my break time, I was looking over the story book, and the assessment test for the last lesson of the day. I decided I would ask the students to read out the story book in the next class.

After the teacher finished her 6 – 8 years old class, we went for coffee across the street. There is a nice gift shop there (in the middle of residential area….how can it survive?). I asked her how long has she been teaching and she replied me “many years”. Seems that she has lost a bit of her passion in her job… I guess she has been doing the same thing over and over, and must be not getting much job varieties over the years.

Next up was the 9-12 years old class. I also started off with a self-introduction section which I got each of them to tell me something about themselves, followed by a question period about my background. Then we did a Halloween related word card game, which the cards were lined up face down, and the students have to flip over and pronounced the word correctly. They knew most of the words but a couple of them they have troubled with, e.g. Jack-O-Lantern. The next activity was story reading. Each read a line in the Halloween story book. I did not really like this part because it was a bit boring but that was the most conservative thing to do for my first day. Between doing Trick-or-Treat, I checked their homework. Somehow I got kicked my a student…????????? Not sure where that came from.

For the last high school class, I did individual English assessment on each student (6 of them there). They were test at the “Advaced level”. Some of the sections included:

1. Questions about the student. E.g. which school do you go to, what do you want to do in the future
2. Find answer from the picture. E.g. Where is the picture (on the wall), where is the tree (outside the house), what is the girl on the bed doing (reading a book)
3. Read a passage and answer question. The teacher has to assess if the student is reading correctly as well as pronounciation

I think overall this group of student did pretty well. All of them understood my instructions and what I was asking, and I was quite impressed with their reading abilities. A couple of them were carrying the Japanese pronounciation (e.g. Andor instead of And, Longu instead of Long), so I highlighted that on their comment sheet.

My day ended at around 8:20. I only taught for about 5 hours and spent another hour doing prep work, but I felt longer than that. But wow, what an expereince that was. I am confident that after a few more classes, I should become a pretty good teacher. Ganbare!

Lookback on Oct 26, 2008: recovering from night-long partying

Sunny Rock — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:38:35 +0000

After a crazy night with non-stop partying yesterday, I decided I would just take it easy today. I will start working tomorrow so today I spent some time searching for directions on how to get to the school using the Yahoo route searching tool. I have tons of experience being lost since coming to Japan, so it would be in my best interest to find out the exact route to the schools that am assigned to. Tomorrow class will be in Katusra, which is in Kyoto and I will have to connect on to Hankyu. I have never taken the Hankyu before so I guess I will have to leave OEH 90 minutes earlier in case I make an error in transferring trains. It only takes half an hour to Kyoto from Hirakata and 10 minutes to Katsura from the transfer point, but since I do not want to screw up on the first day, I am going to do things the safe way.

As I was researching for my work stuff, Dave was just being lazy and stayed at the room the whole day reading manga. He was dead exhausted from handling the Japanese girls, and still traumatized by what went on last night LOL. Now I remembered that the China Doll lustfully asking Dave to pick her up and carry her in which Dave did. That was an awesome moment.

Before Dave headed back to the Minoh Dorm in the evening, we went out for dinner. We had absolutely no energy to cook, and we did not have much of an appetite, so we just went to the Yoshinoya at the Hirakata station. Believe it or not, this was my first time eating at Yoshinoya! They are famous for the gyu don, so I really wanted to something with gyu (beef) in it. I decided to have the Gyu Sake Teishoku, or Beef and Samlon Set. It tasted ok – I expect nothing more from fast food chain, but the price is unbeatable and more importantly, it is a proper meal. I prefer this over McDonalad or KFC any day of the week (Sorry, I do not consider the food served by McDonald would belong to the “proper meal” category, and their products are overpriced in Japan anyway).

After Dave left and doing some groceries at Saty, I just relaxed at OEH and looked up some videos on Youtube. I found this good song from Kobukuro, called Eien ni Tomo ni…. very moving song and very popular at weddings apparenly.

That was my day. I had some good rest and ready for work tomorrow. Looking forward to it!

Look back on Oct 25, 2008: All night Halloween Party

Sunny Rock — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:45:23 +0000

Halloween will be in a few days, so the folks at OEH held a wild Halloween party last night. I asked Dave to come join the party……there has been no celebration planned at his dorm in Minoh so he has a chance to enjoy Halloween here in Hirakata. We had little budget to buy costumes though, so after my English teacher training, I went met up Dave at the Hirakata station and headed to the nearby 100yen store to buy 2 Power Ranger masks.

When I returned to OEH, everybody has already dressed in their costume. There were Spiderman, Michael Jackson, Harry Potter’s schoolmates wannabe, Gundam Lieutenant, Jack Sparrow, Scooby Doo, AFRO guy, Winnie the Pooh, Dark Angel, Drag Queen etc etc. Everyone lined up for a happy group picture before strolling off to the restaurants nearby, where our OEH manager Arata has already reserved the whole place for the night. And more importantly, she has ordered two hours of Nomi houdai (all you can drink) for everyone and…. with that, some people are bounded not to behave after the end of that 2 hours.

There were about 50 – 60 people at the party, many of them are Japanese people that I have never met before. Apparently, they are friends of the owner Hide. Me and Dave sat at a table where some of his ladies friends are. Anna, who used to live at OEH, was sitting across me too. At around 8:30, the party started! Here is what happened:

	Event	Description
1	Dinner	The party started with a big Kanpai with everyone and a small “dinner” (so little food for everyone to share). I have already had ramen for supper so I was not hungry. Food was so-so anyway.
2	Game	After dinner we played a group game. In this game, the participants were given tomato juices, with chili sauce added to one of the cups. The audiences had to guess who drank the spicy juice, so the participants cannot make any facial expressions. I was picked to the first game along with four others. Each of us drank the juice, and lucky me, I got that spicy juice. Arghhhhh… I drank it and my tongue was burning, but I was able to hold it off and not letting anybody noticed (Thank you for my Sze Chuan food training when I was in Vancouver). No one was able to guess correctly so after a couple round of guesses, Peter had us revealed the answer. I disguised well enough to make through the round, but I don’t get a prize damn it. Another five came up for the second round and this time a young audience guessed right.
3	Mingling	Then we had socializing and drinking time. I went around and drank at different tables…. some folks were already drunk. Sophie and the drag queen (see picture you will know who I am talking about) were having a huge drinking dual and they were drinking and mixing all kind of sake and hard liqueur….. and drag queen started to act a bit crazy and jumped all around, and I could see some girls were getting scared a little bit. Ummm and then I went back to my table and socialized with the girls there.
4	Main Event	Peter, Michi, Yurika, Tomoe, and Tatsuya performed a full Michael Jackson dance. They practiced for weeks and the result was totally awesome! I will post up the video once I get a hold of it.
5	Prize for best costume	Everyone submitted a vote to pick the person who wore the best Halloween costume. Many voted for Peter (Jack Sparrow) but he was not allowed to win as he was considered as an organizer of the event, so then Michi (Michael Jackson) ended up winning! He glued and sewed his whole set of costume together, so his effort alone deserved first place! Second place went to Jon (drag queen…?), and third place went to the Gundam girl.

The Halloween party ended at around 11 and we took group picture after. But the end did not ended there – overnight karaoke was already pre-arranged at Jankara located near the train station. I planned to tag along with the OEH group, but Mr. Dave had other ideas.

During dinner, Dave demonstrated his friendly Gaijin side towards the girls at the table. We took tons of pictures, and after the party, the girls invited us to go to their next event. I did not really want to join them as I wanted to go to karaoke and then head home at around 2:30Am. But Dave pulled me along and I hesitantly went along. He was totally in Gokon mode.

The girls joined another group at a nearby Korean restaurant. Hide was there too! They all appears to be in there early thirties. We had more drinks and food, and one of the girls dressed as a China doll started hitting on Dave. The girls found their way to examine Dave’s body (being touchy touchy not anything exotic), and we then exchanged phone numbers using infrared red function (apparently this is how Japanese people exchange contact information).

The night was of course not finished. We hit the bar across the Korean restaurants and had more drinks! The China doll was still genki (and drunk) at the time and kept on molesting Dave, asking him to feed her. “FEED ME, DAVE! FEED ME, DAVE!” the girl requested in English ……..and the girl dunked the tomatoes into the salt and Dave fed her (LOL). I think Dave had fun and I was happy to see him being so friendly with Japanese people. I was friendly towards Mika too, another girl who was at the party, and we chatted in random Japanese and I taught her random English.

The night ended with the last event – Karaoke at Jankara. We tried to get a room and after a short wait (at 4am) we finally got the room. I did not follow them though – I bumped into Jon and Hiroshi, and he dragged me to the room where the Japanese residents were singing. Thus, I left Dave to be alone with those girls (ummmm….hahaha) while I rested in the karaoke rooms.

I stayed around for a bit and did not even sing a song…..I was so tired and I decided to go home at 5:00am. I put down the money and I walked home like a zombie. When I got to the door Kenji (Winnie the Pooh) was still up and smoking. I chatted with him for a bit and he told me Peter and Arata were hungry and went to have ramen (my gosh still have appetite?). I dragged myself into my room, set up the bed for Dave (in case he needed it), and finally enjoyed my beauty sleep.

Amazing things would follow. I was awoken by Dave at around 6-ish and surprised to saw him came back…. but immediately I went back to sleep. At 8am, I woke up again to urinate, and heard Sophie rushed out her room and threw up in the toilet next to mine. When I came out of the toilet, she was rinsing herself at the sink with only her underwear. Ok, she was wearing a sleeveless piece, and yes, her panties was red. Ooops am I saying too much here? I ensured she was ok and then I headed back to sleeping La La land.

It was a wild night and an interesting experience drinking and hanging out with the Japanese people. Good training on how to mingle with them!