Nomikai

I went to my first Nomikai (drinking party) last Friday with co-workers after the Sports Day at school. It's a Japanese tradition for co-workers including the boss to get together and go to an eating/drinking establishment and basically drink away until they finally open up to each other and start talking about all of work's problems or other things that the Japanese normally don't open up about. At first I was a bit apprehensive about going as I don't really talk to the co-workers at work and I felt it would be like having dinner with a bunch of strangers. I also don't drink which is the key element to a drinking party, but I wanted to be a team player so I decided to join. I've heard the teachers can get a little wild at these things. For me this wasn't the case.

Our Nomikai was held at a traditional hotel in near Nagara river in Gifu which apparently was built back when Samurai's were still roaming around being awesome. There is also a very popular Onsen (hot spring) inside the hotel and if you arrived to the Nomikai a hour before it started all the employers were able to get in the Onsen for free. I didn't have enough time but it's the thought that counts. During the event in which almost every teacher showed up everyone is sitting at their own small table. Throughout the night food and drinks were being served by women in Kimono's.

My table setup. Let's get eating! Itadakimasu!

Honestly no idea what it was but the presentation was nice.

"Shabu Shabu". Meat and vegetables cooked in some kind of oil based liquid? Ours were cooked by candlelight.

There was also a number of drinks to choose from like beer, cola, sprite, tea and non alcoholic beer ( alcoholic beer is both pointless and disgusting.)  One tradition during a Nomikai is for the lower level workers to go to the people in higher positions than them and pour them drinks although even the Principal of my school was serving others drinks. He even tried to serve me. (Nice guy) I also took part slightly in this tradition by serving the Principal and Vice Principal.  While eating and drinking there are a lot of conversations to be had. I talked to a few people myself most of which are the only ones that talk to me while at work but I was able to learn a little more about them which was nice. We also played variety show type games splitting the teachers into two teams. All in all it was an interesting night and while I didn't get to bond with some drunk as I expected, it did give me something to do that evening.