Last weekend, I joined the other teachers
on an overnight enkai at a hotel in
Yugawara, Shizuoka. It was my first time being invited on an overnight enaki event in Japan. It was really fun,
and was such a great opportunity to get to know and spend time with the
teachers outside of school, in a social setting. It was at a really nice hotel
with onsen. The hotel provided yukatas to wear, so I decided to try
one. It was my first time wearing a yukata,
and I really liked it! It was very comfortable and I felt very elegant.
Dinner was excellent. It was traditional
Japanese food. There were so many different kinds of food, all served on
different dishes. Usually American food is just one main dish served on one
plate. During dinner, we played bingo, a quiz game, and a charades game. It was
so much fun, and I was the first winner at bingo! After dinner, I enjoyed the onsen with some of the female teachers, and
then headed to bed. In the morning, there was a big breakfast buffet with many
different western and Japanese options. I mainly stuck to the foods I knew. For
me, it is a strange idea to have fish for breakfast, but this is very normal in
Japan.
Overall, the enkai was a really great event, and I’m so glad that I was invited
to attend. In the United States, it is very common to spend time with your
coworkers outside of work. But it is usually much more casual – just people
meeting up unplanned after work, not going to a pre-planned event like an enaki. Also, it’s not very common to go
to an overnight social event at a hotel. I think that maybe enkais are popular in Japan because most
people are very busy and work a lot, so it is more difficult for them to
casually hang out with coworkers. Either way – casually like in the United States,
or at an organized enkai like in
Japan, spending time with your colleagues is great!
- Emma Sletteland
