Archive for category Drinking
December 30, 2005 – A night out in Noborito
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Hello House on December 29, 2015
I hadn’t been back to Noborito for a while, and was looking forward to catching up with Okonomi and the rest of the Hello House people who were still around. Okonomi had recently moved to an apartment near Shin-Yurigaoka station, and had promised me a place to crash for the night. I packed up my Canada flag backpack and was on my way.
Okonomi and I met at Shin-Yuri station, where I stashed my bag in a coin locker. I have become a huge fan of station lockers in my time in Japan. It was great not to have to carry my stuff around for the evening. After that, we took the Odakyu line to Noborito, paid a quick visit to Hello House, and then went for dinner. Naturally we had Okonomiyaki and a few beers.
(Author’s note: If you are going to Japan, eat Okonomiyaki – it’s amazing)
While living in the area Okonomi had made some Japanese friends in the neighbourhood, including the owners of an “antique shop and bar”. I had walked by this interesting combination of businesses regularly, but had never thought to go in. The two of us hung out for a bit and had a few drinks with the owner and his wife. Our next stop was a small bar with karaoke. After a few drinks we were surprised to see the owners of the antique shop come in after closing for the evening. We took this as a sign that we were going to be best friends, and proceeded to karaoke our lungs out.
I had been out for beer and karaoke many, MANY times during the year I lived in Kawasaki. Like most English teachers, I had stayed to the safe, welcoming environments of the big chain izakayas and karaoke rooms. The Noborito area is full of small character bars which I had walked by many times, but I had never thought to try any of them. Okonomi was one of those intrepid explorers who decided to jump into life in Japan with both feet, and had done her best to improve her language and hang out with locals instead of exclusively with teachers.
We left karaoke sometime around 3:00am and started looking for our next venue. I followed along to about 3 different bars that I had never heard of before, but due to the busy pre-new year season, everything was still full. At this point, Okonomi asked me if I had ever been to a hostess bar before. That’s when the evening took an interesting turn.
(continued)
December 25, 2005 part 2 – Drunk Christmas Skype
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Life in Japan on December 26, 2015
Earlier in the evening I spent a few hours at my coworkers Christmas party, enjoying a few festive beverages. I excused myself early to walk home in order to have a video chat with my family. I may have consumed slightly more festive beverages than I imagined, because the walk home was longer and more challenging than usual. As I weaved my way through the streets of Numazu with a big smile on my face, I sent an email to my family to let them know I was going to be a few minutes late.
At the start of December I mailed Christmas presents back to Canada, and had just received some presents from Canada. Since I couldn’t be home for Christmas, my family and I decided that we would use the magic of technology to open presents together on a video call. Japan is in a very different time zone than Winnipeg, so I was enjoying the last few hours of Christmas Day while my family had just finished their breakfast on Christmas morning.
I warned my family that I had just returned from a Christmas party, and did my best to appear sober on the camera. If you have ever seen a drunk person intentionally trying to appear sober you will have some idea of how well that worked (not very). I don’t think I did anything too embarrassing, and I was wearing pants the entire time.
Being home for Christmas to open presents with my family would have been great, but being able to spend some time with them and open presents together on camera was a reasonable substitute. Merry Christmas to all!
December 24, 2005 – Christmas songs at the izakaya
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Life in Japan, Uncategorized on December 24, 2015
Everyone finished work early because it was Christmas Eve, so we all went out to the izakaya across the street from NOVA to celebrate. Despite being located directly across from the NOVA branch, teachers rarely went to this particular izakaya, opting instead for the cheaper options. English teachers are notoriously frugal with their beer money.
We all had lots of food and possibly a few too many drinks, prompting a very boisterous round of Christmas songs as we approached midnight. We got so loud that the staff asked us nicely to keep the volume down. We took this as a cue to move to karaoke.
Being away from home for Christmas is hard. Being around a bunch of other people who are trying to forget they are also away from home for Christmas does make things easier.
Merry Christmas from Japan!
December 9, 2005 – Christmas party aftermath
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Life in Japan on December 9, 2015
Everyone was hungover.
October 30, 2005 – Missed a good party
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Teaching English on October 30, 2015
After a very busy month of parties and after work beverages, I am taking a break and let my liver and bank account recover. With that in mind, I decided not to attend last night’s Halloween party.
I usually don’t work Sunday, but thanks to a shift swap I was at work with a bunch of very sore looking English teachers. It sounds like a missed a really good party, but I am still glad I took the night off.
October 22, 2005 – Never drinking again
Posted by Barniferous in Azeroth, Drinking, Friends and coworkers on October 22, 2015
Hurting…. badly…. hangover… drinking = bad. There have been way too many parties lately, and I have been enjoying them far too much. I am officially taking a break from parties for a few weeks to recover.
One of my roommates also enjoyed himself a little too much last night, causing him to sleep through his alarm and several phone calls attempting to wake him up. After several attempts to contact Azeroth directly, the NOVA staff called me to ask if he was still at home. It took me a few minutes of loud knocking on his door to get him to wake up. I told him that it was 10:20 and he was late for work. He literally jumped out of his bed.
If you have never seen someone jump out of bed from a deep sleep before, it is actually pretty entertaining. It’s more impressive considering he was sleeping on a futon on the floor. I did feel badly for him (and the student whose lesson was cancelled), but at the same time I could appreciate the humour in his reaction.
I spent the rest of the day recovering and looking forward to a few weeks with no beer.
October 18, 2005 – Bad influence
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers on October 18, 2015
At work I was coerced into going out for a few drinks when my shift was over. British people who have the day off the next day are bad influences.
October 15, 2005 – Only NOVA teachers can badmouth NOVA
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Teaching English on October 16, 2015
In what seems to be a very regular occurrence, I went out after work AGAIN. As per usual, beer, sushi, and karaoke were on the agenda for the evening.
At karaoke we ran into a group of other foreigners, most of which were English teachers for other schools. When they heard we were working for NOVA, they started talking trash about how terrible NOVA was. For the record, only NOVA teachers are allowed to talk crap about NOVA. We alone have earned that right thank you very much.
October 13, 2005 – Emergency beer
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Teaching English on October 13, 2015
One of the teachers at Numazu NOVA cancelled on their shift at the last minute. During the rush to rearrange the schedule, Super Dave got stuck with 4 voice classes out of his 5 lessons.
Voice is the open conversation room where students of all levels can attend. Depending on the group of students, sometimes the classes just run smoothly by themselves. Other times the teacher is required to keep things moving and entertain the students. 4 voice classes with largely the same group of students would be exhausting!
Palmer and I decided that Super Dave needed some beer for surviving his crazy day, so we went out for a few after work. Beer doesn’t always solve problems, but it can help occasionally!
Drinking in Japan 
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