New Shiso ALT Welcome Dinner and Kobe Beer Garden

Wednesday night we had our official welcome party for the new Shiso ALTs. It was at a really nice traditional Japanese style hotel, with the people from the Board of Education, and some of the English teachers and principals from the different schools. It was up in Ichinomiya, one of the smaller of the four towns that make up Shiso. It was really pretty up in the hills. But as it was a traditional Japanese dining experience, that meant sitting on the floor, which can be very uncomfortable to Westerners who aren't used to it (like me). 

This Saturday night there was a JET party in Kobe, at the beer garden on the roof of the Sogo department store in Sannomiya. I had never heard of beer gardens before I came to Japan, basically you pay a flat rate and it's all you can eat and drink all night (although they closed at about 10). A lot of JETs from all over Hyogo came, and its nice because we've been to enough of these functions already that we recognize people from elsewhere in the prefecture and are friendly with them. At the beer garden I was accosted by the editor of the Hyogo Times, which is like the Hyogo JET monthly publication, and she asked me to write for them, so I agreed, I'm not really sure what it entails but I'm looking forward to it. 

After the beer garden ended we went out with a bunch of JETs from elsewhere in Hyogo for Karaoke, my first experience, which I had kind of been dreading but which actually turned out to be really fun. You get your own room with a whole set up, like a big enclosed booth, and you just hang out and have drinks and sing songs. It was a lot of fun. We left there around 1:30 and stopped at a restaurant for some food (fatty beef and onions over rice, really yummy) and then we had to try to decide whether to find a place to sleep, or just stay out all night. The first bus back to Shiso was at 9:30 am. We had several options: go to a club that was open until 5 and then go get some breakfast and wait for the bus; try to get a room in a love hotel (the cheapest alternative) or go to a manga cafe to sleep for a few hours. We ended up going to a manga cafe, which is not really a cafe, it's a place where people go I guess to read manga (Japanese comics). But people use it as a cheap place to spend the night too. For a set period of time (one hour, five hours, eight hours) you rent what is basically a little cubicle, with a computer, a TV and DVD player, and a comfortable leather chair. Each cubicle has a door so you kind of have your own little room. While it wasn't the most comfortable night's sleep I've ever had, it only cost about 10 dollars. We stayed there until 7:30, then went to grab some breakfast and catch the bus back to Shiso. It was quite an experience, not the least because being in a big city after living in the countryside was a bit overwhelming. 

Kobe Beer Garden and Shiso ALT Welcome Dinner

Also, here are some videos from the night in Kobe. I hope my friends won't kill me for posting them :) 

Spencer sings "Bernadette"

Arashi "Wish" (Arashi is  very popular boy band in Japan right now, for those who were curious. For reference, see here and here).

Arashi "Wish" Part 2