Training Complete

~Training here in Okayama is complete and I'll be leaving for Nagaoka in a few hours. I'm sad to be leaving the friends that I've made while I'm here, but I'm looking forward to meeting new people at the school. On our last day, the trainers took us all out for dinner at a little restaurant called 'Boon', for a multicourse Japanese meal. Here are some pictures:
Yes, one of those giant mugs of beer is mine. And no, Reed, I didn't drink it all.


Today's Japanglish lesson is on slippers. The Japanese love slippers, and you can't wear shoes inside of many buildings; instead, you wear slippers, which are usually provided for you. For example, in the training center where I've been going to for the past week, we take our shoes off at the door, put them in cubbyholes, and put on these bright turquoise slippers. To an American, the image that this presents is ridiculous: a man in a suit and tie wearing floppy slippers in an office. But to the Japanese, this is the norm. It's actually quite relaxing on your feet, and it sure beats wearing hard dress shoes for eight or more hours a day. BRILLIANT!

However, one additional quirk on this subject is that you wear different slippers in the bathroom, which are always kept in the bathroom. So if you have to take a leak, you have to take off your indoor slippers, put on the bathroom slippers, take care of business, take off the bathroom slippers, and put on your indoor slippers. As an example, here are the bathroom slippers from the Boon restauraunt. Note the labels:


Well, that's all for tonight. The next post to this blog will be made from Nagaoka, Japan. The catch is that I'm not sure when I'll have an internet connection again ("again" being a relative term, as right now I'm using the extremely unreliable wireless network from the convention center across the street. Thank you, Mr. Wireless). So my next post may not be for some time. So until them, oyasumi (good night).