Office Enkai

On Thursday night the members of my office cluster had a small "welcome party" for my brothers. Unfortunately one member could not join us. They chose a very Japanese-looking izakaiya on the far outskirts of town. We were so far in the inaka that my supervisor and I couldn't even get reception on our cell phones.

The before. Such nice squid, unassumingly swimming in a tank at the restaurant.

The after. Squid on a plate. The creature was not even completely dead yet, as one of its tenticles waved hello to us as we were eating it's raw flesh. Oh so tasty, though.

Here I am with my wonderful office folks. As usual, I stick out like a sore thumb, me with my bright shirt and them with their dark clothes. From left to right: Yayoi, Mr. Fujinaga, me, and my kind supervisor. Bless him.

You can see all the wonderful food that was purchased for us. Brock and Chad had their first nomihodai experience.


After dinner we were driven to PC, the Kikugawa local karaoke bar. Surprisingly this karaoke place has the best selection of English songs that I have seen yet.

Brock and Chad were a bit apprehensive to start belting out songs right away, but a few more drinks in them and they loosened up quite a bit.


I wish I had recordings of some of the songs we sang. My favorites were Chad and my harmony on Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" and the hymn "I'll Fly Away." My office friends were amazed at us. One of them kept saying, "This is great! There are three of them!"

Chad and Brock both said that this was their favorite night of their entire trip to Japan. My office spent a fortune on us; nothing was too much. Brock and Chad were able to experience the wonders of Japanese karaoke as well as feel the kindness and generosity of the people I am surrounded by.