Christmas Party

Yesterday was our school's annual Christmas Party, which is a get together for the students, their siblings, their parents, us the teachers, and the managers. It was held at the nearby Koganei Park, and it was a really beautiful sunny day.



I know it's December and it should be winter, but it is really a lot more like autumn. The trees started changing colors a few weeks ago so you still see a lot of beautiful red and orange leaves all over the place. Winter seems to be quite mild here, yesterday was 12'C, which is fantastic, considering this was the view from my living room in Turkey one year ago!!!

Anyway, we had lots of games, such as a balloon race, where you had a balloon on a string around your ankle, and you had to run away from people trying to step on your balloon and pop it.



There was also the tug-of-war....



Where the kids took turns going against the teachers, then against the moms, then against the dads....



Below is a picture of one of my little sweethearts, the one of the left is Aika and she is only 3 years old (see, she is holding up three fingers, she likes to tell people she is three!). She's in my kindergarten class and sometimes they are a REAL handful. On the right is her very sweet sister.



After the party, a bunch of us went downtown to Shinjuku, and ended up in a gay bar with the cheapest happy hour in Tokyo - only 1000¥ and 'nomihodai': all you can drink! Considering you can easily pay 700¥ for ONE drink in a lot of bars, trust me when I say this truly is the best deal in the whole city.




Nomihodai, however, is extremely dangerous. I had a great time but I certainly paid for it this morning when I woke up with a hangover from hell. Ah well, you only live once right! Gotta enjoy yourself now and then.