I Have Friends and Food and Occasionally a Hangover

This week was filled mostly with the Ishikawa Prefectural Orientation, where the 44 new JETs came down to Kanazawa to get information about the prefecture, tips from veteran JETs, etc. Frankly I was not a big fan of most of it, because there were often hour-long presentations about things that could have been solved by one list of web links. Also, every presentation seemed to involve about 16 different handouts and packets, to the point that I have a stack of paper an inch and a half high that will take forever to sort out and read and understand.

Ready for the first day

60 gaijin in the street, a terrifying sight for any Japanese.

There's a bit of information overload going on right now, although much of it boils down to "you'll have to figure things out as you go anyway", which I'm fine with. In fact, that's why I'm here in the first place.

I've been hosting a couple friends this weekend, and it's felt a little bit like spring break, with people coming by all the time and going out every night because people from the more rural areas are all in the city at the same time. This led to a pretty miserable second day of seminars after late-night karaoke. The misery was offset by the fact that it was my first Japanese karaoke, something I've been waiting for for a long time; it did not disappoint.

Karaoke = JOY

The Price

Gary takes a break from it all.

It's been fantastic the last 5 days really bonding with my new group of friends and realizing that I'm far from alone here. There are plans for ski trips, dinner nights, excursions to other parts of Japan...I'm pretty excited.

Ridiculous construction barriers. Everything here is so kawaii! (cute)

On Saturday, I took a 5 hour food tour called the "Gluttonous Bastard Tour" led by a veteran JET. I took a few pictures, but I didn't get as many pictures of the food as I could have because I got too distracted by the eating of it.

At Saipe, a Tonga-style hole in the wall.

Fried ice cream...

Toshi and Yoko, the owners, got married on Friday and made us incredible food on Saturday.

Making okonomiyaki, a Japanese omelet/pancake sort of thing that you make yourself.

At a yakitori place, meat on a stick made right in front of you.

House party with a ludicrously large 4 liter bottle of whiskey. Can't even believe that's available here.

These restaurants are incredible. 100 Yen ($1) for two pieces of sushi on a conveyer belt.

Now it's off to watch "Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea", the newest Miyazaki movie. It's out in theaters in America now, I'll let you know if it's good or not.