ぼねんかい - Bonenkai

It was Bonenkai (the hospital end of year party) last Friday night. There is no denying that May and I looked great. She wore a green dress that she had bought on Wednesday and I wore a red top that I'd bought the week before; Our hair was pretty; We had make-up on. All of these things were massive improvements on how we normally look at work – tired, uniform-clad and a little sweaty from all the bed-making. I think we surprised people a little actually. "Wow, they scrubbed up well, didn't they?" It turned out to be as formal an occasion as people wanted it to be - some of the staff wore suits, some wore jeans - so May and I felt nice and comfortable somewhere in the middle.

The party was at the hotel that is right next to the hospital. We pass it every day on the walk to work and it turned out to be very nice indeed on the inside. One thing I didn't like about the evening was that you had to pick your seat number out of a box at random, meaning you could wind up sitting next to complete strangers. That was half the reason for doing it, also there was a raffle at the end of the party based on seat numbers. It didn't really matter though because Kumiko-san arranged for May and me to sit with her at table 7 by talking a few members of staff into switching with us.

Once seated, the food promptly started to arrive, all of which was delicious. There were a lot of dishes that I didn't recognize, but that has never stopped me before from digging in and it didn't then. There was quite a lot of debate between a few of the doctors at our table over what the English name was for the meat in the soup. We had everything from 'seagull' to 'whale' put forward as suggestions. I think it might have been goose, but who knows?!


Part way through the meal, the performances started. Half a dozen or so of the departments gave a 5-10 minute performance and the senior members of staff had to judge the best for a prize of ¥50,000 (£214 – the same amount May and I get per month from the hospital). After the Kumamoto trip, I knew what to expect: Semi-nudity, group-participation and on-stage consumption of alcohol. Oh, and also wigs and cross-dressing. Needless to say, it was very entertaining. Mariko-san dressed up as a reindeer and threw a mango at a doctor in drag, with the aim of him catching it on a fork. He managed it two out of four times, in case you were wondering. Oka-san was up there, Nakashima-sensei and Imamura-sensei too. You would never think that such respected doctors are so willing to make complete fools of themselves in front of a room full of their work colleagues and friends, but apparently it is the complete opposite. Anyway, 4F won. I can't even bring myself to tell you what Imamura-sensei had to do to get the victory for his floor. *Shakes head in disbelief*. All I will say is that it involved a dominatrix. Enough said.

A sample of 7W's performance:


Yamaguchi-san (assistant nurse, 6E) came over to our table part way through the proceedings and gave May and me each a present: two pairs of tabi (Japanese split toe sock). I had yelped with delight at the inter-departmental volleyball tournament a few weeks ago when I had seen her wearing the most beautiful tabi I had ever come across. She obviously took note. You gotta love Yamaguchi-san :-)

Kumiko-san was very drunk by the time the party ended at 10:30. It was quite funny to watch her giggling to herself and tripping over her own feet. She asked us to forget this occasion in the future and although we won't be so cruel as to bring up her embarrassment again, there's no way I could forget her singing "All I Want For Christmas Is You" over a sobering cup of coffee in Mos Burger after the party.

ふくふぐ – Happy Fugu

Well, I am alive. The fugu dinner was excellent and, given that none of the attendees died, could be considered an all-round success. It was actually a retirement party for Hamano-san, the lady who works in the Medical Office where May and I spend Friday afternoons 3-5pm. It is so sad that she is retiring; she is like a mother to everyone in the hospital, including all the surgeons who use the office as a break-room. It was an honour to be invited to her retirement dinner, it really was. I am going to miss her when she leaves at the end of December.

The meal consisted of fugu sashimi, then fried fugu, battered fugu, fugu soup and finally, fugu risotto. The window to the tiny little restaurant we were dining at doubled as an aquarium for the (live but soon-to-be-dead) fugu; by the time our party of six was done with all that food, I kid you not, the tank was half-empty. Given that each one of those fish contained enough poison to kill 15 fully grown men, I must commend our highly skilled chief separating the 'safe' parts from the 'deadly' ones. The battered fugu tasted remarkably like battered cod from the chippies back in England, so that obviously had to be my favourite. We fried the pre-sliced chunks of fish on little grills in the centre of the table, which wasn't anything special in itself but what was endlessly entertaining, the pieces of fish were doing that post-mortem death-twitching thing. They kept twitching for about five minutes too. I thought it would last only a few seconds after death but apparently not. They were really strong muscle contractions too.... amazing.

Here's my plate of sashimi. The sashimi is the pale pieces of meat laid out to cover the plate; the white and grey pieces in the middle are some of the fish's skin. Yum. And yes, my lips did go quite numb after just a few pieces. Way to go, chef!


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I got my new work schedule last week. Monday and Tuesday are the same as before, but here are the changes:

Wednesday
am. Day Nursery
pm. Free time

Thursday
am. Pharmacy
pm. Nurses Station

Friday
am. Nurses Station
pm. 13:00-15:00 Operation Room
15:00-17:00 Medical Office

Also, starting in January after my Japanese classes finish at the Brick Hall, we won't get free time on Wednesday afternoons but we will spend 13:00-15:00 in the Nutrition Section and 15:00-17:00 back in Radiology. Overall, these changes are pretty pleasing, although I don't know yet what May and I will be doing in the new departments. I'll let you know.

グラバー - Glover Garden

A few weeks ago May and I ventured down to the southern end of Nagasaki to visit the Glover Garden, named after Thomas Glover (1838-1911), who is famed for building the first train line in Japan and establishing the first modern shipyard. The former homes of some of the other pioneering European residents of Nagasaki have also been reassembled in this hillside garden. Well, that's enough of re-wording my travel guide. It was essentially a pretty garden, interspersed with a collection of European-style houses – not very interesting to a European – some ponds filled with carp, and a great view of the harbour. It was nice and all – pleasant, perhaps is a better word – but not all that interesting to me from a historical perspective, which I think was it's aim.

Oh yeah, Madame Butterfly was there too, see:

There was also a room dedicated to her in one of the houses, which had on display her kimono, elaborate hair pieces, fan and bamboo umbrella. Very pretty. I thought it was a nice touch that they had a recording of Madame Butterfly playing in the background.

Check out these guys:

Now what I want to know is did the sculptor see the turtles sitting like this before he made his turtle statue, or did the turtles see the statue in their pond and say to each other, “hey, you know what would be funny...”

You exit the garden via a museum displaying floats from the Kunchi Matsuri, which are even more magnificent close up. After that you have to go down a little sloped street lined with omiyage (souvenir) shops to get to the main road again. Among the castella's (I'll talk more about those later) and your average Japanese souvenirs (fans, chopsticks, pottery) there was also... Scottish shortbread. And to think, I was going to bring that from England as a gift for my Japanese friends here.

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May spotted some kind of fair from the viewing platform at the top of the garden and it still being early in the day, we decided to go down and take a look after we had finished with Glover. (We were hoping there might be some interesting food opportunities). You'll never guess what it turned out to be... a motorbike rally.

There's a lesson to be learned here: You never know what you might stumble upon while you are out and about in Japan.

へび - Snake

Last week I was walking up to the front door of my apartment building after a long day at work when I encountered this little guy. My first instinct when I saw him was not – like normal people – to run away and get a big strong man to get rid of it before I could climb the steps. Oh no, my first thought was, 'I want to pick him up'. I then thought that he might be poisonous so decided against it. I was really tempted for a minute though. He looked so silky. I don't know what species he is, if he's commonly found in Asia, or if he's only found in Japan, or what. He sure is cute though, and shy too; He slithered off up the steps and into the nearest bush as soon as I moved closer to him with my camera. Aw, bless.