Christmas party rehearsal

Tuesday this week (21st), was my Friday (basically I have Wed Thur off most weeks so in effect Tuesday is my last day of the working week). Only had 3 hours or so of teaching too! nice easy day. Went out with the other teachers and school staff after work to check out the local bar where we're having a Xmas party. In fact I'm trying to get to 3 different parties as students pay to go to them and teachers get to drink for free!!! so if all goes to plan I'll be celebrating on the 2nd, 9th, and 16th of December in Kichijoji, Shibuya, and Tanashi. I do work every Sunday after each party, normally for between 5 and 6 hours, which might be a problem but we'll see.

Stayed there for a few hours downing beers and eating Pizza, salad, and other nibbles. Despite the normality of this food to Westerners there's still a surprise element to seemingly simple things like salad....Japanese people seem to have a love affair with raw egg. They mix it up vigorously and put it into bowls of rice and meat regularly and now I've discovered they put eggs which have been cooked for about 5 seconds into salads. If you're lucky you can eat around it but normally some teacher who has grown accustomed to this foodstuff will pop the egg and mix it all in.....silly scenes.

Got a train halfway home, then had to walk the rest as the buses had stopped for the night. Not as bad as it sounds, took me 35 minutes using an indirect route so i didn't get lost. Probably about 25 minutes if you know where you're going. My major gripe with Japan so far is that if you go drinking you have to stop in time to get a train at about midnight, or stay out until around 5am to get the first train home. Getting a taxi isn't really an option as they cost silly money and would double the cost of your night out.