Luke and Angie's Eikaiwa Birthday Celebrations

Joint Eikaiwa Birthday-Fun!

There were even more birthday celebrations being held before the end of September. Following Angie's birthday party and another drinking event for the ALTs for Luke Beatson, the eikaiwa group held a birthday dinner for both Luke and Angie in celebration of their birthdays. We went to a local restaurant in Kozai named Ofuku (which I'd never been to before), for a lovely buffet meal of traditional Japanese food.

At Ofuku; a small restaurant operated by two elderly women.

Dinner time!

Angie and I cycled in, and arrived just a little late - as everyone was already seated and waiting for us before they began eating (whoops!). In Japan, parties often don't start until formal speeches are made welcoming everyone (and, again, parties don't normally end until someone makes a formal speech either). We arrived and jumped straight into the speech - which was fine, because we were all feeling pretty damn hungry!

The spread laid on was absolutely fantastic. I spent more time eating it than photographing it, which you can see.

Angie and Luke both received a series of gifts from members of the eikaiwa, too. In addition to home-baked goods and traditional Japanese calligraphy writings, Angie and Luke received stamps of Pokemon characters - hand-made by a small boy from erasers! I also received one as a bonus present for myself (along with some baking) - a nice little surprise, considering my birthday was all the way back in May! The stamps had been chosen to try and correspond with our favourite Pokemon; Mew for Luke, Eevee for Angie, and Charmander for myself.

Angie's home-made Eevee stamp.

Rival Pokemon champions.

The evening was also particularly memorable for me as I finally undertook my first-ever Pokemon battle with Japanese kids. I happened to have my Nintendo DS in my back-pack, and the kids weren't shy about challenging me to a game. The Zushi sisters had no hesitation, and had a team composed of several legendary Pokemon which I couldn't stand a change against. Meanwhile, myself and the Masami boys teamed up to battle them in a team battle of 2 vs 2.

Sadly, we lost with a final score of 3-1 to the girls. Disaster! Still, we put up a good fight. The lesson here is to never underestimate Japanese kids when it comes to video-games.

I'm getting my bum kicked, here.

The boys team takes on the girls.

The following night, we held a special "party" class at our eikaiwa. Along with Luke and Angie, Stephen Branston made a return appearance (following his visit last year where he performed this fun wee sketch with me). Luke did a presentation on party games, before hosting a game of "pass the parcel", and we were treated to a birthday feast - including two amazing chocolate brownie cakes (one for Luke, one for Angie) by Hanyama-san. We lit the cakes up with candles and sang group renditions of "Happy Birthday" for them both.

Guess who's back!

Chocolate brownie cakes!

Party time.

After our feast, we shared out party poppers amongst all of the class members and showered Angie and Luke in confetti and streamers. It was a great little way to end the evening, and cap what seemed to be a month of continued birthday celebrations.

Angie's 24th Birthday Party

Happy Birthday, Angie!

Angie's 24th birthday was on September 24th, 2013. I organised a small birthday party on the Friday before to celebrate the occasion. Our group made our way to Spaccanapoli - Angie's favourite Italian restaurant - for an evening of celebrations.

From left to right: Angie, Tamara, Luke, Laquichia and Rainer.

Clockwise from lower left: Sayuri, Stepehn, Shiori, Yaseen,

Julia, Lily, Saad, Julia 2 and Niall.

We had a great help from Sayuri Uematsu, who booked the table for us in advance. On the eve of the party, I was in somewhat of a rush. The time period fell right into the week where I was practising for the annual Takamatsu speech contest every night after school. The party was set to start at 7pm, but I didn't get home until around 5.30pm. A very fast turnaround needed indeed - and I wasn't the only one in a rush, as several other ALTs found themselves in the same position.

Lily and Saad arrived a little before I did, and ran into Angie at the train station. As the party was intended to be a surprise, they pretended to be doing their own thing, while contacting me via text as I headed across town to ask me what they should say to her. They made their way to the restaurant ahead of us. I met Angie and Rainer at Kawaramachi station, before leading them to the restaurant. If there had been any element of surprise left, it would definitely have gone now, as I turned up with bags of presents which Rainer had to help me carry!

With Angie.

We had a great turnout for the meal, and it was wonderful to see so many people come to greet Angie. The food was wonderful, as always, and the company was grand. I waited until everyone was engaged in conversation to try and give Angie her presents without gathering too much attention, but I was caught and photographed by Laquichia, sitting across from me.

Present time!

Cute animal cups!

Sweater.

I bought Angie a few things (including jelly beans, animal cups for her kitchen, and a sweater she had wanted to buy), but the main present was a photo album I'd prepared which contained photos of her time in Japan over the last year, with her friends and I. I also included a personal handwritten note which said a lot of nice things, which seemed to go down well.

A personal note.

Angie and I look over her photo album.

We asked the restaurant to bring out the cake which Yas, Julia and I had prepared the previous evening. Unfortunately, they slightly messed it up a little! The cake arrived with little fanfare; no candles attached, no rendition of "Happy Birthday" and not even a dimming of the lights. Luckily, I had brought a supply of candles with me, and with the help of Rainer Wessels (who lit all the candles) we managed to get the cake ready for action. It must be said that Angie was very pleased with Yas's design choice of a Jammie Dodger.

The finished cake! Now with candles.

Rainer cuts the cake.

After Angie blew out the candles, Rainer cut us all a serving and I managed to finally taste our home-made cake. Sadly, a lot of the filling had disappeared during the leakage the evening prior, but the sponge turned out great, and what remained of the filling was delicious.

Home-made cake!

Angie takes a bite.

After dinner, we made our way along to the pier at Sunport, where many more JETs and other friends were waiting to meet us that couldn't make it along to the dinner. I brought along the bottle of whisky I'd cracked open the previous evening, and we spent the night enjoying quiet drinks by the sea. Angie often likes to spend time in that area, and it turned out to be a great way to spend the evening intimately with friends, rather than losing contact with everyone in a loud bar.

Overall, I was really happy with how the party turned out, and really pleased that so many people turned up to show their love of Angie. Here's hoping she enjoyed her birthday celebrations.

So... Happy Birthday, Angie!

Birthday Cake Bake Night

Yas and Julia in the kitchen.

For Angie's 24th birthday, I invited two of Angie's closest friends (Yaseen Akhtar and Julia Collie) over to my place to help me bake a special birthday cake from scratch.

Julia prepares the filling.

Julia and Yas made their way over to my place the day before I'd scheduled a secret birthday party for Angie the following evening. Yas had come up with the idea of creating a Jammie Dodger cake, in celebration of Angie's love for the famous biscuit. A quick search on Google revealed a recipe which suggested using two Victoria Sponges on top of one another, and we decided to give it a try.

Cutting out the heart shape.

We picked up the ingredients at our local Aeon store fairly painlessly. A bigger problem was actually baking the cake. Ovens in Japan are notoriously rare in small flats; most homes only have a single hob and a microwave. Luckily, I'd bought a small toaster oven a while ago (with which I'd previously baked scones), and we decided to push it to it's limits in order to bake the cake.

The cake would be filled with three layers of fillings; butter-cream, strawberry jam, and clotted cream. The heart we had cut out in the middle with a cutter would be filled with strawberry jam, to try and recreate the look of an authentic jammy dodger.

Yas spreads the cake.

As we were waiting for each of the sponges to cook separately, we cracked out a bottle of Glenlivet whisky and some salsa and tortilla chips. Yas and I spent a fair bit of time playing each other at a Dragonball Z fighting game on my PS2, while Julia enjoyed playing with my iPad. A fun way to pass the time, and the evening ended up being a lot of fun as an event in it's own right!

Disaster! The filling runs out the sides.

We made a small boo-boo by not letting the fillings set in the fringe long enough before putting them back together again, resulting in all of the filling running out of the sides. Whoops! Nevermind, we were novices after all.

Fixed, and now with a jam love-heart centre.

Julia and Yas left just around midnight after a solid evening's work. It was a great team effort, and we were greatly anticipating Angie's reaction at her birthday party the following evening.

Team photo!

The finished article; dusted with icing sugar.

25th Birthday Fish Fry!

First published: 24 Jun 2013

Tamara and a ridiculous quantity of fish.

Following the very successful dinner I had for my birthday with a small party, my shakuhachi buddy Tamara and her husband Nick were kind enough to host a fish fry party on their rooftop the next day. Tamara had somehow acquired an abundance of fresh fish at a ridiculously cheap rate, and had volunteered to host the event as a continuation of my birthday celebrations with a wide group of ALTs. I was more than happy to oblige!

Takashi, Akane and crew.

Drinking and merriment.

Sayuri, Olya, Matt and I compete to make the strangest face.

With no less than fourteen (!) big fish and a buffet of additional food people had brought along, everyone was very well-fed. Most people shared fish in pairs, with myself naturally doubling up with Angie. They were pretty damn tasty, though I'm not sure what the exact name of the fish was! The night was initially fairly rainy, but luckily Tamara and Nick had assembled a parasol, and the rain disappeared fairly rapidly. iPhones were hooked up to the speaker system for music, and I was greeted with more gifts from more friends. There was drinking aplenty until the early hours (upon which we moved onto the Amazon bar in town).

 Angie and Lily.

Duck-face blues.

I'm not a fan.

Shit gets real. Too much duck-face.

One thing worth noting is that everyone in our foreign community is now desensitized to eating fish with the heads attached. Back home, this would be a big source of contention for a lot of people in a lot of Western countries. Here, however, the habit has become so habitual that it doesn't garner a moment's thought. It's interesting to note the horrified reaction many folk (mostly girls, I have to admit) have when I show them photographs of the fish we eat here.

Matt enjoys his fish.

25th Birthday in Japan

First published: 23 June 2013

For my 25th birthday this year, I decided to have an intimate birthday celebration with my English club, only a few of my close friends and special people I'd met during my two years in Japan.

25th birthday celebrations!

My birthday luckily landed on a Friday this year (May 31st), we opted to have dinner at 'Sanuki Shoukudou', enjoying an all-you-can-eat feast of various dishes. The restaurant was staffed by many former students who had now graduated; a bit of a surreal experience as they all came over to say hello!

I was joined with my girlfriend Angie, and my good ALT friends Arran, Stephen, and Luke, as well as members of my English club and some teachers, students and their families from my various schools. It was a lovely way to spend an evening, and I was treated to a series of birthday gifts - including a home-baked cake by Hanyama-san!

Birthday bantz!

Making a birthday wish.

The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly when the restaurant staff dimmed the lights and read out a speech my English club had prepared for me... in Japanese! Luckily, there was an English translation provided and was handed to me for me to understand. A lovely gesture. Arran also kept the evening entertainments alive by challenging various competitors to arm wrestles... which he consistently won! 

Major kudos to Stephen Branston (from this video), who cycled all the way from Ayagawa-cho to Kozai over the course of the evening, arriving mid-meal to join the festivities. He had been held up leaving work, and it took him well over an hour to get to us. I really appreciated the effort he made, and he even arrived bearing gifts. What a guy. As a Canadian, I reckon there be something in that maple syrup!

A slice of birthday cake all for me.

After the meal finished, we all stood outside for about an other hour of conversation. For Hiroko and Luke, the next day would be the Shimokasai Junior High School sports day, meaning an early rise despite the copious amount of alcohol. Luckily for me, the next day was a lie-in. Despite intending to get up early (and possibly make it along to the sports day!), I didn't wake until around noon. There was just a bit too much alcohol in my system for that! I also felt fairly sorry for Stephen, who would have another long cycle back home...

A very big thank-you to everyone who came along and gave me such a wonderful birthday evening this year!