Izakayas and Explosions

This weekend was once again full of adventure.

Upon arriving to work last Friday Kellyn received an invitation to go out with her co-workers after work that night. Since Kellyn had no plans, since it is culturally important to accept and be a part of gatherings outside of work, and since she has no friends in Japan and is looking for friends under rocks and behind bushes she was in. Later that day during a break between classes her co-workers extended an invitation to Joe and the plans were made. This sort of a gathering meets at an Izakaya. Basically, a bar of sorts where friends or co-workers get together to eat and drink... a lot. They decided the best plan of action was to find a place that had a decently priced "all you can eat and drink." Apparently, many of these bars have a chunk of time in the evening where either food or drink or both are "all you can consume." They found a place in Susukino for 2,500 yen (about 25 dollars) per person and we decided to meet at 9:00 later that night. Joe had already been to a place like this during his training in Tokyo. He was not all that impressed. But, nonetheless we were excited about the chance to hang out with people who spoke English and were closer to our age. Once the whole group arrived they turned the night into a "welcome Kellyn and Adam to Give Us English Academy" shindig (Adam started working at Give Us about a month ago). The whole night was a lot of fun. There was lots of food, some new things, some interesting things, and some delicious things. Everyone was forced to give a speech, joke were told, and Kellyn really felt like she got to know her co-workers better. What a great way to start a job!

Now for the explosion: Sometime late Sunday morning Joe went to start up the shower. Now, starting up the shower is no easy process. It involves multiple steps, many tries, and some tears from time to time. Kellyn was in a different room but could hear Joe give the shower a second or third try. Then all of a sudden KABOOM!!! Kellyn rushed to the shower to find everything intact but a very worried look on Joe's face. We are not quite sure what happened but something inside the shower heater blew up. Since it was Sunday there was nothing we could do. On Monday Joe told the proper authorities from work and they came over to the house to take a look. Within seconds they told Joe to not touch it and they would call a professional to fix the shower. Please God, let them fix the shower today! Tomorrow is a Holiday so if they can't fix it today, we're looking at either going four days without a shower or shampooing our heads in the sink. Neither are positive options.