Where Was I?

I have been snooping around on other people's blogs and finding out that many of them are a lot more diligent than me at keeping their readership posted, so I have resolved to be more active in this space from now on. If I used the excuse that there wasn't much to write about, that would be a lie, so here's a short story of a day in the life of he who has just returned from an amazing journey who thought he'd have nothing left to write about:

Halfway through the financial year, all JETs and some of their unlucky team teachers are required to attend a prefectural conference, known as the mid-year conference. Boooriiing, one might say, but its not so bad if you pay attention. The keynote speaker was a geneticist on some 'who's who in the world' list and was pretty fascinating. I think he chose to speak in English because if the Japanese people present could understand everything he had to say about how Japanese culture impacts on the education system there might have been a bit of an uproar (if such a thing were possible in this country).

Ja-Chan had arranged to give me a ride in his RX7 pocket-rocket that evening, which he eventually did after I had been loitering at various intersections in Okayama waiting for him to show up. I folded myself into the front seat and we set off for the motorway for a bit of illegal speeding, but unfortunately the road was too busy to open up the throttle to any fun degree. We left the underutilized little sportscar at his house and took the bus to where we thought the evening's nomikai (drinking party) would be. After more loitering and a few phonecalls we eventually found the place and set about getting to know some of the new JETs and one or two of the braver Japanese team teachers. The beer flowed freely but we soon had to cut short our inetersting rants about commercialism (I had a Nietsche reading marxist to my left and a shareholder of McDonalds and Starbucks to my right) as the bar was closing up. I set off for the station, but was caught up in a mob heading to Karaoke. After yelling a few punk numbers with my drunken colleagues, I tried to leave again, but ran into Amy of the famous Moscoso couple who offered me their living room floor for the night if I came back to Karaoke. I did, yelled another song or two and then caught wind of a situation developing. Apparently one of the first years had got himself paralytically drunk and had to be transported to the Moscoso's because he was in no state to look after himself. I set off with Herb (the other Moscoso), Bob and Eric, stumbling back to the flat. We lost Eric somewhere along the way, which though unlucky for him, was good for us as we had a bit more breathing space in the Moscoso's tiny apartment (there were seven of us squeezed into a space that was small even by Japanese standards). The drunkard was sprawled across the only bed, swearing intermittently, so all the other visitors had to make do with the floor. Somehow, we all (including the drunk guy) managed to make it to the seminar the next morning less than half an hour late, maintaining some sense of dignity.
There were a few unanswered questions that came to light later on in the day: Namely, Where was Eric? He found himself a hotel (we had pictured him on a park bench under newspapers). Would the loudmouth from last year ruin the Q&A session? No, they cancelled the Q&A session to avoid similar disturbances. And who paid for the karaoke? Apparently, no-one.