Busy buzzy bumble beeuurrrgh... (Part two)

Hmm orientation...

I arrived at Butsy's on Wednesday evening in time for a meal cooked by Alex, boyfriend of Why-Von who was also in attendance. These two are great. Alex is leaving in a week which is a shame, but WhyVon is hilarious, and has a sharp sense of humour which has you rolling on the floor. We ate and chatted, and then watched "my Big Fat Greek Wedding", having to explain to Alex that the bloke in it was Aidan in Sex and the City, although Alex remembered him from a previous role in "Northern Exposure" and commented that we were all too young to remember it. I should have kept quiet, but being me I had to point out that although I am ridiculously immature I was in fact the oldest present. D'oh. Well, the night finished with me and Busty realising that we still had lots of prep to do and no time to do it. So we left it and went to bed (separately, in case anyone's wondering if I've turned).

On Thursday we were in pairs with another experienced JET and took out groups to compete in a scavenger hunt around Okayama city. Another day of 34 degree heat caused us to leave sweat trails wherever we went, possibly leading other teams to the answers (although this is clearly not true as we came second last. This is despite the fact that the woman who devised the hunt was with me "assisting" out team. Or not assisting, as the case may be).

Every year during the orientation, the AJET group books space at a beer garden for the new people to basically drink and get drunk together. A good, old-fashioned bonding session. And boy did people, er, bond. We had two hours in the beer garden and with Busty and Neil demonstrating how to do it properly, everyone was well and truly trolleyed by the time we left. And do drunk people want to go home when they're having fun? No! So we carried on, heading to the Red Moon and mixing socially and alcoholically. It was a night of dancing and wobbling and toppling over. I have vague recollections of Busty toppling to the floor and of supervisor-types almost passing out and I have a very strong recollection of twisting my foot on the way home (this recollection is so strong that it still hurts now. Double d'oh!).

Unfortunately the alcohol had severed the links between my thought processes and my mouth, so on Friday morning all sorts of unfiltered gobbledegook was spouting out of my mouth. The unfortunate thing was that it continued while I was presenting to the new ALTs. First during our AJET introduction, then during my presentation on food (where I found myself unable to say "world foods" and kept referring to English food as if it was the only other alternative) and then during a talk on healthcare in Japan (where I was reading out info passed to me by another JET and adding my own unfortunate sarcastic comments such as, "Clear Blue pregnancy test kit comes with English instructions, but a blue line's a blue line, so what is there to translate?" and "early term abortions are available in a one-off visit to a clinic. No counselling required... Nice.") I am doomed to never appear professional despite my best attempts.

The evening was a low-key one as everyone was shattered and energy was low. 3 more ALTs arrived in the city in the afternoon, so we went for dinner to welcome them and most of us headed back home for an early night. I moved my stuff from Busty's to Fiona's where I would stay the rest of the weekend, and in fact for half of Saturday (I didn't get up till 11:30- oops!). Saturday was a good day though. I met up with Rachel, a 2nd year ALT from New Zealand and her boyfriend Dave, and we went to see the new Star Wars film (much, MUCH better than the other two) and then I spent the evening walking around the city at night. It was lovely just wandering around the shops until they shut and then having coffee at Starbucks and then...





Finding a GAY BAR! At last! It's been a year, and I've finally found a gay bar in Okayama. It turns out there are 11! Worse than the buses in London! I waited all year and 11 came along at once. Well, it was very nice, the people were friendly and I shall be going again. And they were playing Christina Slagulera when I went in. Yay!

On Sunday I came home having managed to talk to a Japanese woman and a French man in English and Japanese and a Brazilian woman in English (which she didn't understand) and Japanese (which she knew very, very well). Je suis une famille polyglotte. Or something. I felt very cosmopolitan for the rest of the day...