Oh gosh, I love Japanese people.

Loving family and friends. Fear not, I have not been swallowed into a black hole of dispair and self-hatered and stopped doing these blogs. In fact, I've been having too much fun to do these blogs... And the one I did write, crashed when I tried to post it and got lost into the abyss of crashed blogs.

Ok, so... When was my last blog? Oh god, I don't know... Tuesday? Ok, wow... Lots of time to make up then.

Oh, right, I remembers (that was a typo I decided to keep in)!
Wednesday was my second day of work! I've got to say, it was quite awesome. So, most people who know me know that I actually perform better when I'm under stress. So, on Wednesday I'm in charge of my own buffet table. And this time I don't have any help, because I'd already had a day of training, so therefore knew exactly what I had to do. So, I notice that I'm running low on Fish as well as several other things. Being in Japan, fish is usually the most popular choice of the discerning Japanese school student, so I decide to get that first. So, I ran into the kithchen and started looking through the heating cupboards (there are 3, and I still can't remember where all the different dishes go). So, the chef looks at me and goes "hai?" Now, the chefs in the kitchen speak very little Japanese, so feeling the pressure, I shout back to him "Sakana? Doko desu ka?!" And it just came so naturally... I was shocked. He then pointed to a cupboard. So I grabbed it and refilled my food.
A few moments later Yuta walked past me and said "Faye? You are good Japanese." Seriously, this made me smile... It was so nice of him. Then Ayano came over and spoke to me really quickly in Japanese, all I picked out was "nihongo" (Japanese), so I was like "eh?" (this is an incredibly Japanese thing to do... And I can't stop doing it recently...) then she just said "sugoi" (good!)... I've got to say, this didn't hurt my confidence.
Ayano spent the rest of the day being really nice to me. She would stop and chat to me for ages about stuff. I found out that she plays the clarinet, and I told her that Katherine plays the clarinet. Then we said we should start up a BH band with me on flute and Helen on violin. We spent the rest of the day talking about music tastes, boyfriends, my Japanese learning, families... Practically everything. I really like Ayano, she's so sweet, and she's not afraid to tell me bluntly if I do something wrong, which I really respect.
Anyway, after the repeated positive response from wearing my mitsuami I decided to wear them again to work. One girl came over to me very nervously and was like "can I have a picture? With you?" Then bowed repeatedly before beconing me in a manic way... Then started throwing random English words at me. I told her to calm down. Oh god, she was getting so worked up, it was adorable.
Then, later on, a load of Japanese school girls came over to me when I was cleaning the table and started talking to me, asking me questions and stuff. When I told them I'm 19 they were shocked... And I'm pretty sure it's because I look older to them (apparently Japanese people seem to think Westerners look older than they are, I suppose it's because they all look so young). I had about 10 pictures taken with various groups of girls... And just as I thought one was over, another group would arrive.
Later on, we were told that we needed to wave goodbye to the school busses as they left. Then, all the girls who had talked to me leaned out of the window and started shouting "kawaii" and waving manically at me. Ayano then asked me if I knew what this meant (of course I do. It's one of the first Japanese words any otaku learns). So then she was like "you are, cute I think."
Later on, when we were struggling to find things to do, Misaki-san (our manager) came in and told us that we were needed in the tea room because it was so busy. Oh, I love the tea room. It's so pretty and cute, it looks like a dolls house. The atmosphere is so nice and the staff there are so sweet... Plus, the whole place smells like cakes and apparently you can eat any left overs. Woo!
Anyway, that night I was so exhausted from the night before that I HAD to go to bed early.

Thursday, I woke up feeling very refreshed and cheerful and found out that the interns were leaving that morning. So James, Nora and I went to say goodbye to them. Oh god, they're all so sweet. I'm really going to miss them. Ayumi's got my e-mail address, although she still has yet to e-mail me, which sucks. We all had pictures taken together on the steps and the girls cooed a bit more over my mitsuami.
Work was cool... Pretty quiet, so we just sort of chilled out, folding stuff and polishing stuff, talking about random things.
Then Mel got a phone call and told us that someone named Anna was planning a night out in Shirakawa and asked who wanted to go. I agreed, always happy to join in social events.
That evening, I had my first ever "service". Instead of just standing at the buffet smiling sweetly, I was actually serving people, carrying plates and taking stuff away. Oh god, it was scary (kowakatta). I burned my fingers at one point because I picked up a plate that had only just come out of the plate heating thing. But yeah, I dropped about 8 pieces of cutlery (in front of the guests. I dropped about 30 behind the scenes). I nearly dropped two plates and I took some poor guys bread away before he'd finished it. But all in all, I think did pretty well... Considering I've never done anything like it before. It was exhausting though.
That night I met Anna and Brian for the first time. They're both teachers and, even though I didn't talk to them for long, they were lovely. So, 9 of us piled into a mini-bus and headed down to Shirakawa. We went to this really lovely resteraunt. Seriously traidional too, which was fantastic. I got some sort of platter of things on skewers because Yuta told me there were nice... Although everyone else was grossed out because apparently it consisted of things like chickens liver and quail eggs and stuff... I didn't care... It all tasted nice (apart from the chicken liver, it's so chewy and quite bland!). I also ended up sharing three bottles of Sake with Mansell, James and Yuta. I had all three of them topping up my cup (as is custom in Japan) constantly. Now, the thing I find with sake is that you drink loads... And you only realise you're drunk when you try standing up. Then you find that you've actually left your brain and motor functions on the floor. It's a real struggle. I did get quite drunk. On the way back I shared a taxi with Mansell, James and Yuta (the taxi company screwed up and we ended up going back in two taxi's). Mansell and James are awesome. They spent the whole journey back being really nice to me and generally making me feel happy. We got back, and, after a big mix up between the taxi's and BH, we finally got back into the house and played a game involving a bottle stopper and a lot of imagination. It was quite fun... Although I was far too full of Sake to think of stuff. We then watched Romeo and Julliet...

Yesterday was pretty dull really... Although, in the evening I had my own table. Instead of just taking plates to them when I was tol to, I had my own two customers to look after. I needed to talk to them, take them food and organise with the kitchen when to serve the next course. Although I had a lot of help from Ayano, as we were on the top floor and she had to message down to the kitchen with walkie talkies to get more stuff. Then she'd tell me what to do every step of the way.

Today was awful. I felt really grumpy this morning because I'd had a rubbish nights sleep. I was then told to do "guest control". Which nobody had told me how to do. I was just told to give them a speech. So I went over and told them where to get buffet stuff and to put their dishes in the wash room. I then walked off again. When I got behind the barrier everyone told me that I was supposed to lead them in. So I had to go back... Getting severely laughed at by a bunch of 15 year olds... Not fun!
Although, Ayano did cheer me up when she told me to buy a flute so that we can make a British Hills band with her, me, Helen and Mel. Ayano is so sweet. I think I will actually. I love playing the flute and I do miss it. Plus, it'd be a nice way of spending time with other people.
After lunch I cheered up a lot, and became happy and bouncy again... Until I felt really sick. As in, I thought I was going to throw up, sick. It was so hot and there were so many people everywhere. Plus, we kept running out of stuff and the chefs were taking ages to get more stuff out... There were pepole even asking for specific things that just weren't there.
I was then lucky enough to do service again. Just me, again, looking after two people. It was going pretty well, up until the main course. I burned my hand on one of the plates, then the women took ages to eat their damn food. So I was just stood there, watching, trying to ignore the pain in my head by focusing on the pain in my feet.
Then, I was told that Helen couldn't make it in to take her table and was asked if I would. I had no problem with it and agreed instantly... Only to find that it was the General manager and his friends... Not only that, but the GM had really awkward requests. They all ordered different drinks and kept changing their orders. In the end, the pain in my head was so bad I felt as if I was about to cry. Thankfully everyone elses tables had left and nobody was trying to reach the world record for most dragged out dinner. So loads of people started helping me... While I really appreciated this, I couldn't help but feel a bit lame... But whatever, my head hurts! That's a good enough reason.

Anyway, I'm exhausted and my head still hurts... So no more... And no proofreading... So if half of it is in no language that anybody recognises and the other half is just a string of abuse... I don't care! I'm too tired and I need to get up early tomorrow for my 6:30 shift!