HAPPY HOLIDAYS

so the month of december has been spent attending parties of various shapes and sizes. first up was a sayonara party for my now ex coworker hannah. she got tired of nova and has headed back home to london. she gave all of 0 days notice and left saying, "F*CK YOU, F*CK YOU, F*CK YOU, YOU'RE COOL, I'M OUT." GANGSTA!***the preceding was not a true story.

sayonara hannah. i spy a ponytail...

donna, hannah's flatmate who also wen't home to jolly old england. sayonara donna.

then there was a bonenkai (sp?) party [end of the year party] for nova branches along the nankai train line. a group of about 30 or so nova instructors and japanese staff descended upon an ususpecting yakitori establishment. we proceeded to eat and drink. a lot. here in japan it is customary to split the bill equally regardless of how much you ate/drank or didn't.

chris and i set trippin.

why is it fun to throw signs and be ghetto when you're drunk? the world may never know. chris is from philly and he's works as a graphic designer for nova.

at some point paige, desiree, alex and i also went to kobe to see a temporary exhibit of works from the musee d'orsay in paris. i'd seen many of the paintings before when i went to paris but some were new. looking at art is fun and educational. hooray art!
also in kobe was the 'illumination' a fancy word the japanese like to use for christmas lights.

ahh look at the pretty lights.

this was fun for about 10 minutes. they did however have a row of food vendors giving out free samples. we then ate jamaican food and it became quite the ordeal. our food came one by one over the course of two hours. i wish i had more hands so i could give the service four thumbs down.

along with the bonenkai (sp?) my branch along with another branch also had a christmas party. we did a white elephant gift exchange.

my man shu in the middle.

thats Risa spelled Lisa on the right. she's japanese staff where i used to teach.

so i've found something that is not better in japan: christmas. christmas is definitely not better in japan. not even close. not the same without family and friends. i still had a pretty good time though. on christmas eve i went to an izakaya with some coworkers for dinner and drinks, the large sake was probably a bad idea. i had karage (dank ass fried chicken). the japanese have perfected the art of deep fried foods. true story.

christmas eve dinner with an american, a filipino american, a scotsman, an australian, another american, and a half-japanese french canadian (not pictured).

on christmas day i worked. then i went to an irish pub (tangent- they have an irish pub in every single city in the world, i swear) with my roommates for a couple drinks. i ran into maribel mayo and also nick alvin's ex-roommate. after the pub i went to desiree's for a small christmas gathering. a good time was had by all. we even somehow managed to start doing the electric slide. no seriously.

fix ya face!

me reppin the crew. that's nicole with the other funny face, she's also from san diego. she's friends with desiree and teaches for nova a little outside of tokyo, she had a class with toeknee at state. small world.

in japan it is tradition to have a christmas cake on christmas. what is christmas cake exactly you ask? it is cake that you eat on christmas. obviously.

cake eaters.

i leave you with random pictures of art. pop art on a building and art on the bathroom door of a club that i went to for 'indie rock night'. i'm going snowboarding for two days in nagano and then tokyo for new year's. expect a big update.

you stay classy san diego.