welcome party

a few nights ago we had our welcoming party at a restaurant (name in kanji read 'flavor of the thousand year crane'). offices here have welcoming parties for new employees and esther and tracy were supposed to have had their welcoming party long ago but then they found out i was coming so they had to wait for me :P all of the office people were very nice and made little speeches as best they could in english. shochu (liqour made from rice but in izumi, they make it from sweet potatoes because sweet potatoes is one of the things izumi is known for) was passed around and loosened everyone up. (i had an ume chu-hi, plum flavored shochu cocktail, basically a girly drink because shochu is too bitter...not as bitter as a four horseman but bitter nonetheless)

i guess a lot of the office people know that i'm a bit homesick so they were telling me to treat them like my own family out here and if i have any worries or problems to go to them...the older ones told me to treat them as my parents and the younger ones said to treat them as my brother/sister.

my photostitching can't stitch these photos together...









mah food...in the little cup on the right is an egg pudding thing. it had fish cake, soybean and a piece of pork in it. the little black bowl on the top had soba. the plate of squid was extremely salty. the slab of meat to the left is unagi (eel). sushi and sashimi we all know, edamame at the bottom and three little bowls of fatty pork, konbu with taro and some spicy thing.



afterwards we went karaoke-ing. the karaoke things here tell you how many calories you burned after your song. the more you have to use your diaphragm the more calories you burn :P

kinoshita-sensee sang some 'gatcha-man' song...



'gatcha-man'...



ono-san is a wild and crazy guy...especially after two 60oz bottles of shochu...



myeah, he didn't come into work the next day :P

i think tracy scared them with her linkin park songs though..