Retirement party at traditional restaurant

There was a retirement party for three university professor from my department last Monday. We went to a traditional Japanese restaurant for the event. You can see the three professors below:
It was a formal meal with many small servings. It was the first time I had been to a restaurant like this with each person sitting against the wall with their own tray in front of them.
It was a delicious meal, and since the department paid for it all, it was even more enjoyable.

End-of-year parties

The end-of-year parties are in full swing now. I went to a couple over the weekend, although only took photos at one of them. Like last year, we visited a party thrown by a fellow Aichi University professor, Angus, seen here:
The party was thrown at an old house with many rooms and even a sunken hearth in one room, which we cooked sweet potatoes on.
There were a number of professors as well as students there. It was nice seeing some 4th-year students in a relaxed atmosphere since they have now finished writing their graduation papers.

Poster at JALT event

There was a joint JALT (Japan Association for Language Teaching) seminar between the Hamamatsu and Toyohashi chapters. There were seven presentations throughout the day and a number of poster presentations, including mine:
My poster was on electronic dictionary use by university students. It was a busy day but I got to see some good presentations.

The last of the year-end parties

The last four year-end parties have come and gone. All were good, but probably the best was one put on by a professor in my department, Angus, who is in the picture below:
It was held at an old, traditional Japanese house in Toyohashi and lots of teachers, students and friends were invited. There was a bonfire outside and lots of good food including banana flambe which was made at one of the centre tables. Here are some other shots I had taken with some students and friends:

Only one more class to teach and then it is off to Canada for the holidays. It's been a busy December and so I'm looking forward to relaxing with family this Christmas. See you next year (of course with photos from our trip to Canada).

Year-end parties

As we are half way through December already, a few bonenkai (forget the year gatherings) have already happened. I enjoyed going out with Sian, Carrie, John and Angus (working in my office) on Friday night. We enjoyed some nice food and many bottles of wine.

On Saturday, Ayako and I went to get haircuts and then passed by Sumiko's (Ayako's sister) place to see how Sana-chan was doing:
She is 2 months old now and was peacefully sleeping until we came by. Still, she didn't mind us passing her back and forth and dozed on and off during our stay. Of course we were also happy to see how Neo and Rio were doing:
After our short visit, we headed downtown to visit Eric and Tomoe, who had invited us for dinner. We enjoyed playing some Wii sports for a bit:

And then were served a great meal of nabe, gyoza and sashimi by Tomoe:
It was very delicious:
Later that night, we headed to our common izakaya (Japanese pub) for Four Seasons' bonenkai:
It was nice to see how catch up with people from Four Seasons.
This coming week, there are four more bonenkais I'll be going to so there will be more photos of them to come.

JALT conference 2009

Last weekend, I went to the city of Shiuoka with some co-workers to a conference for language teachers in Japan. It was the annual conference for all of Japan. Luckily, Shizuoka only takes about an hour to get to so it was much closer for me to get to than others in Japan.
It was my first time to attend the conference and with about 500 presentations going on, it was difficult to choose good ones to go to. You can see Tony, Tara and Sian trying to decide for themselves below:
After the talks on Saturday, we went out for a night on the town in downtown Shizuoka. We finally found a good restaurant that wasn't already packed and enjoyed some good Thai food. Afterwards, we continued at a small bar and them some of us (but not I) continued on for some karaoke until 4 am. Here is me with Carrie, Sian, Tara and Tony at the Thai restaurant:
I did terrible at choosing good talks to go to on the Saturday, but I did much better on Sunday and could see some good ones. Hopefully I can remember how to choose good talks when I go to the conference next year.

Trip to Irago

On Wednesday and Thursday, I got to start my new job by going on a trip with the first year students in my department (International Communication). We had an hour bus ride down to the tip of the Irago peninsula, where we stayed at a hotel that had a great view of the surrounding area. Here is a shot at sunset from inside the hotel:
I got to listen to many speeches and presentations. Luckily, I didn't have to give any. It was a good opportunity to meet the other staff in my department as well as some of the students. On the next day, I went up to the roof of the hotel to see the wonderful view:


Here's a photo of my two co-workers, Carrie and Siân:
It was nice having a relaxed atmosphere for my first few days of work. On Tuesday, I'll have to actually do some work when I start teaching classes.