Day 1

Day 1

On the training package, they told us in order to help us with jet lag, training would be starting at ten that day. Exactly how flippant does that sound, to tell some poor soul who has been put through the ringer, that they would be foisted onto training a few short hours upon arrival? I understood this when I woke up at five in the morning.

Training was not so bad but not so wonderful so not worthy of me expatiating over.

Lunch was experience number one. There will be photos to demonstrate. I bought a bento of soba with some sauce… and a quail egg. It was the reason why I bought it, and for 230 JPY, who can complain. Under the supervision of Alex, Sylvia, Nikky, and Elton, I prepared gently cracked open the egg, mixed the contents thereof in the sauce and started pouring it over the soba…

NO!

Screamed Sylvia, Nikky, and Elton.

AAAAH!

Screamed I, like a girl.

Apparently, you are not supposed to pour the sauce over the soba. Rather, you are supposed to dip the soba in the sauce, as I was told quite violently, all three of the aforementioned, in stereotypical slow motion, rose and held up their hands.

You live, you learn.

Training continued. I am already jaded to it.

After that, we wasted no time in getting ready to check out what Omiya has to offer. After much deliberation and indecisiveness we decided to go to karaoke and then to an izakaya (pub).

All-you-cab-drink, 1200 JPY.

Do the math to figure out how much I drank.

すみません! Sumimasen! That’s how we heckled the poor waitress as we kept on ordering booze without cease. There was beer chugging contests. We had sake. We had much. Slightly inebriated, yakitori had an almost sexual quality to it as a hewed many a stick into my mouth. I don’t think it’s possible to get drunk so cheap even if one pre-drank at home first. It was a glorious evening.