enkai

one of the truly amazing things about working in japan is that i get to attend enkais. Enkais are drinking parties held usually every few months the night after a big event at our school. All businesses and organizations in japan hold enkais, and whole resturants exist only to serve enkais. They are all Nomi-hodai style, meaning that for a flat fee per person, usually between $35 and $50 each person gets a set menu of dishes, they are all served family style and with the meal comes unlimited drinks of your choice for the whole night. This leads to lots of trouble, the meal begins with a beer toast with a speech by the principal and then all hell breaks loose. pitcher after pitcher of close to freezing beer make their way into the bloodstreams of the people who monday thru friday you work with. drinking contests, cheers, and lots of hot deep fried shrimps, small grilled fish slices, sashimi platers, tempura plates, octopus ceasar salad(it was actually amazingly good) sizzling noodle and beef plates, etc etc etc, it just keeps coming out and you keep drinking and then people start passing out on the floor of the restaurant! you start talking to random people you see everyday at work and have never talked to. I get asked the most random questions at these things, a teacher at my school actually asked me dead seriously if we have carrots in america. everyone is cheery, and has a good time, and they egg each other on to keep drinking, after usually 2 hours the party is over and people try to remember where they are. the really strange thing to me is, on the monday following an enkai everyone acts like nothing at all happened, no jokes, or mention of it. Everyone is back to their work mode and the people you could swear were your best friends in the world at the enkai dont even look at you when they walk by you.


a JET actually lives here in a 14 room building that used to be a super market