The Mid-Year Seminar

Thursday and Friday I was in Otsu along with one hundred other JETs for the mid-year seminar. Speeches and seminars were afoot. Mainly it was exciting to be able to walk down the street and accidentally overhear English. In the interest of brevity, I will summarize my experience at the seminar in a best / worst list.

Worst point:
When we all rushed over to the mall, Parco, to eat our lunches during lunch break. The lunch counter was overwhelmed and there were long waits. It was a strange lunch purchase system: first you buy a ticket from a machine, indicating which meal you want; then you wait in line at the counter to give them your ticket; when they get your ticket, they start making the lunch, and they give you a remote beeper; you sit at a table until the beep, then get up and receive your steaming plate of... whatever. I got to the waiting in line with my ticket stage, spent about 20 minutes in line, and just as the chef was taking the tickets of everyone and my hopes were up, he says 'no' to me. They ran out of rice. Go over there and refund your ticket. Wait in another line. Buy more tickets... I don't have the time!! So I left Parco, leaving my beeper for a curry bun behind (150 yen) in search of a super-quick lunch at a combini (convenience store). No money. Lent 300 yen to some guy, I think it was a guy named Guy. As I'm searching for a bank machine and a lunch, everyone is streaming back to the seminars, asking me if I forgot something, and I'm surly and hungry. Did I eat lunch? Yes, but it sucked.

Best Point:
Friday at 5:00 pm a large group of us head over to the German pub, Kupper's Kolsch, for happy hour. Ahhhh. Such heavenly good fun! Beer was a flowing, JETs were making asses of themselves, and conversations both serious and lewd went on and on. As Veronica and I were leaving the pub around 10pm, with the party still going strong I might add, the aforementioned Guy accosts me from his perch on a barstool. "Don't go too far south." he drawls in an Aussie accent, indicating my crotch. "What???" I reply, confused as hell. "When you're 80% there, don't give up on the last 20 or 30 percent," he says, as though in explanation. "OHHH. I GET IT," I say. Was he talking about sexual stamina? Not quite sure. I bumped into him this morning (Saturday), as I was getting into the Nagahama train station and he was running for his train. Odd fellow. I like him.