When I learned the meal was all-you-can-eat for 1500 yen, I went a little overboard. I never would have thought I could pig-out on raw fish!
From my first day in Japan, I shared an apartment with Craig, a Nova teacher from New Zealand. He left two months later to get a cheaper, one-room place.
My two-bedroom apartment was sub-leased from my employer, Nova, and because there are always new English teachers coming to Japan, they had no trouble finding someone to fill the empty room. A week later, Justin, also a "Kiwi", moved in and shared the place with me until I left seven months later.
At Tarumi, a town not far from Osaka where I taught English, there were up to eight teachers giving lessons at the same time. Here are a few of us, left to right: Rachel and I from America, and Michelle W., Simon, Kirsten, and Michelle C., all from Australia.
And here are a few more, plus staff member Sachiko. Counter-clockwise from the lower right: Sachiko (Japan), Kathryn (Canada), Joe (England), Dale (Canada), me, Sam (Sweden/America), Christine (Canada).
By chance, Christine and I both quit Nova around the same time, so the Tarumi clan all went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant for a sort of good-bye party. Here's Kozue (staff member from Japan), Guy (England), and Sachiko again. I guess Guy didn't like the sauce.
Here's Michelle C. again, and Jun, the Tarumi manager. They were feeling so generous that night that they offered to pick up the check. :)
That was a bittersweet night, but at least I got to experience - for the first time ever - the one true Japanese art form: karaoke! That's Rachel (left) demonstrating her golden vocal chords and Lynne, a Nova teacher from another branch, waiting for her turn to shine.
Lynne and her friend, Yousuke, pose with me for a picture at the karaoke parlor.
