On Monday I went into work and there was a hand-written note on my desk saying "X-mas Party, Wednesday 6:00pm. Can you make it?". I thought it was a bit strange so I asked my co-worker who speaks English what the note was about. She said the town's Rotary Club was holding a Christmas party and that I was invited. I didn't even know our town had a Rotary Club.. and to be honest, I'm not even sure what the Rotary Club does! I know we have them in Canada but I had only heard of the name. I checked my schedule and, since I wasn't busy, told her I would go.

I got to the restaurant tonight about ten minutes before 6 o'clock figuring I was on time. As I was walking across the street towards the restaurant, a man was there who was apparently looking out for me because the moment he saw me, he came over to greet and usher me into the restaurant. When I entered the private dining room on the 2nd floor of the restaurant there were around already 20 other older people sitting around tables full of food, waiting for me. They had invited another ALT I knew, Tania, who lived in the next town over to the party too and she told me afterwards that they had picked her up at 5:30pm! Whoops.. I guess being 10 minutes early still meant I was late!

They started out with the night with the ring of a ceremonial bell and the kaicho (president of the chapter) and others giving formal speeches of welcome. Once the speeches were done, they rang the ceremonial bell again and then brought out a large Christmas cake (with strawberry toppings) and asked me and Tania as the guests to make the first cut. They lit the candles on the cake, turned out all the lights and to much acclaim, we made the first cut. I'm guessing it has some special meaning but I have no idea what it was. After that, everyone took off their suit jackets and buckled down to eat. We were treated to huge plates of sushi, tempura and even actual turkey! After about 30 minutes of eating and chatting with the kaicho who sat next to me, we were all given out Bingo cards to play for prizes. Playing Bingo is really common at enkai's and there are usually enough prizes for everyone, even if they get the last Bingo. After five minutes of calling out numbers, I managed to be the first winner of the evening. They were joking about the first place winner getting hyaku man yen ($10,000) but all I got was to choose from the selection of prizes first. The money would've been nice! I chose a bag that looked like it might have had something good and ended up with a jumbo-sized New Year's mochi.. thing. I guess they're really popular during New Years.

After that we played an awesome horse race game that must exist only in Japan. We each had to pay 400 yen ($4) to get four vouchers (another lady there bought me and Tania our vouchers as 'presents') where we had to choose a number between 1 and 8 and write our names on each of them. Then they have a large board with inward facing cards on rows that are numbered from 1 to 8. There are 80 spots on the "racing board" but 81 cards. They start by putting the number, for example '4', into the left side of the '4' row and by doing so, pushes out a card from the right side. If this card had the number '2' on it, it would get placed into the '2' row and so on. This continues until one of the rows has all of its numbers facing outwards and whoever chose that number on their voucher was a winner. The prize money gets split up evenly among all of the vouchers with that number (ie. a person who chose that number more than once gets more of the prize money) - AND - to add to the excitement, there's a red 落 card which means the horse fell down and is out of the race! Oh noes! So even if that number finishes first, no one can win off of it. Unfortunately I didn't pick the winning "horse" and get any prize money, but it was a fun way to gamble!

After that was an auction on different things like ramen, flowers, and various seafood. The kaicho next to me bid on a box of ramen (a high quality brand, apparently) and gave me a package as a gift. Near the end of the auction they were auctioning off whole frozen salmon but, since there were no takers, the auctioner just decided to give the fish away to the guests, me and Tania. I got a free whole salmon!

Shortly after that we finished eating and then had the closing speech. The kaicho talked for a bit and then, surprisingly, asked me and Tania to make speeches as well! They wanted us to speak in Japanese so not quite knowing what to say, I said "Hello everyone. Thank you for inviting me. The food was delicious. Tonight was fun. Thank you." in my broken Japanese. After that we all stood up, joined hands, and then sang what I'm guessing was the Rotary Club anthem song. We all swung our arms in unison during the song and after it was over, we all did the formal, single clap that marks the end of an enkai.

It was a really nice surprise at being invited to the Christmas dinner (notice in the top picture, the banner says Ⅹ'マス (X-mas) in Katakana?). Apparently they like to have English speakers at their gatherings in order to promote the whole internationalization aspect of the Rotary Club. I think they were inviting us as guests in order to welcome us to Japan and the town. Not that I mind though. If it involves free meals, invite away!