Date: 17th December 2007AD
Time: n/a
Location: OMF Guest House, Sapporo
Current Mood: Am exhausted and starting to feel sick
What happened:
Whilst the rest of the team had a day off, Steph and I headed to Hokudai University for our weekly cultural exchange lunch.
The morning started off with breakfast and a devotion led by Brad. It was an encouraging message.
The Hokudai Cultural exchange began slowly. We spoke to a ‘Kate’ from Boston and I had a brief chat to some other US students, one of which – ‘Mitch’ – seemed a little brash. They left soon enough and I joined Alex and Tatsuya, who I met last week. I had a chance to meet ‘Habby’ also and invited him along to the Wed night farewell party. We had an interesting discussion about the truth vs harmony and was surprised to learn that the Japanese are more interested in keeping harmony than sharing the truth.
Steph and I then went off to Sapporo and Odori to finish some shopping for gifts. This time we split off for a little while in order to purchase things for friend and relatives. It was a relatively better shopping experience than the week before.
We met again with Alex around 5:30pm at the central Starbucks to pray about the dinner ahead. We were going to join with a ‘drinking party’ and were praying for good conversations and wisdom/discernment when it came to drinking.
Onto the train and we hopped off thinking we were a stone’s throw from the Uni – but we were wrong. After getting slightly lost we found our way to the Uni after a 15min walk. The ‘bar’ we were going to was back along the way we walked (doh!) and ended up being a sit-down restaurant.
The meal started off slowly. Food was served, which was great (!), and the drinks flowed. Then, one by one, many people came up to us to chat. I had originally found myself in a table full of girls, with one spare slot next to me. Thankfully as the guys drank a little more they became more open and friendly and I had quite a few good chats. Japanese drunks are much more friendlier than Australian drunks.
We hiked home afterwards and as soon as I walked into the house I felt sick. Took a long shower and headed to bed.
Looking forward to:
- to the day off tomorrow.
- When Japanese drink it doesn’t take much for them to go bright pink!
- When they do drink it breaks down some walls for good conversation, they are no where near as boisterous as Australians when they drink
- Despite there being 20 people there I never got the feeling that I felt out of place because I was *not* drinking
- Because subways have a million exits, it’s very easy to lose your bearings
- for lunch I had my obento lunch box again – yum!
- Dinner was a mixture of things including a glass of some sweet alcoholic mixer drink, it was very delicious all the way through
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