However, one of the GSE committee was telling us this morning that we should change some of the speeches and that we were getting too personal - most of us were thanking some specific people. I didn't change mine, because at that point it was way too late. If we were speaking in our native language we would be fine, but heck, I could barely read what I had written as it was!
About 30 minutes into the day (9:30 by now) we had to leave our study room and go into the opening ceremonies of the District Conference. There were so many people there - about 1,000 - it was pretty amazing. Governor Kondo gave a speech, they introduced all the clubs from the district and introduced both GSE teams - ours and the Japanese team.
During the opening speeches, Rotary had hired a A/V team to take pictures and put video up on large screens. However, they were so bad, it was driving me crazy. Amy said the look on my face was priceless - I kept muttering "Slow down" and "Get out of the shot" because the camera crew would get their heads in the shot from the main camera and their panning shots were horrible. Ugh!
We finally were able to head back out to finish up our speeches - we only had about an hour before we had to present. It was crazy, since I was done, it just gave me time to practice and have some of the Japanese GSE committee listen to my speech to try to perfect some of the pronunciation!
At 11:30 we marched back into the main ballroom and were almost immediately announced. All 6 of us went up onto the main stage and Roger began with a very brief speech. Unfortunately since this was our first time presenting this speech, we were all pretty rough, but we got some laughs at the right moments, so I think it went well overall. I'm sure they were thrilled when we wrapped up though - the entire presentation went 30 minutes. Amy and I were the longest - hers was about 7 minutes and mine was 5. Apparently we needed some serious editing!
At lunchtime we had what had to be the strangest meal yet. It was a box lunch, but included some bizarre foods that simply didn't taste very good. Guess bad box lunches at events like this isn't just an American trait!
We had about 2 hours to visit and wander around the Grand Hotel grounds before heading to our hotel (The Itaya Hotel) to check in. Geraldine, Sheila, Terry and I went outside, it was a beautiful, sunny day and it was nice to be outside. We ran into several Rotarians we had met over the month and one, a nice man from Nikko, gave Geraldine and I a box of what he said were the best cookies in Japan. I still haven't broken into them yet - but I'll be sure to let you know!
We also ran into our friend Kiyoshi, who told me he didn't think he looked anything like Jon Favreau. Well, Kiyoshi, is a thin, better looking, Japanese version - but the girls all agree there is still a resemblance there! But now that I'm thinking about it - maybe he does look a bit more like George Clooney (he reads this blog - so hopefully he'll find that comparison more flattering!!!)
We checked into the Itaya Hotel - this was the hotel where we met every day before heading out. Our rooms were quite nice and it was a bit of a relief to have our speeches over and be on the final stretch of our trip. It's been a lot of fun - but I think we're all about ready to go home now.
After dinner we decided we wanted to go out on the town in Utsunomiya. It was really the first chance we had to hang out alone, with just the GSE team, and without our "minders" as one of the team members lovingly calls the GSE committee. We were waiting for one of the translators we had befriended on the trip to join us, so we visited the hotel bar. There we ran into three Rotarians, one was the GM of the hotel and the other two were men we had previously met. They ended up buying us drinks - I had a midori sour (not so great here) and the bartender made us up some other drinks to try - most were pretty good. The men then suggested we head out for some Karaoke - so we jumped into some cabs and headed out.
The Japanese are pretty serious about DUI, so the man who drove me hired a driver and had a cab follow us to the Karaoke bar. It's a good idea when you want to keep your car but don't want to get arrested.
We had fun - Sheila and Amy showing off their lovely voices - until we had a bizarre incident. A man at the bar grabbed the mike and started rambling about something. He thought his song was up, but it was actually Sheila's, and she thought he was refusing to give her the mike. Apparently he then muttered something else - I didn't hear what was said - but everyone thought he was ticked off. Geraldine and one of the Rotarians went over to talk to him and it seemed cool. About 30 minutes later the man got up to sing and Sheila was going to take his picture - he shouted "NO!" and began muttering about foreigners not understanding Japanese traditions. Not sure why - because I hadn't heard nor seen anything to reflect any beliefs that the Japanese don't like having their photos taken. (My opinion was that a drunk is a drunk in any country - and some drunk man in a bar in the US probably would have reacted the same way - it had nothing to do with foreigners and/or beliefs!) It ticked Sheila off something fierce, and a few minutes after she put her camera away she took it out again and clicked off a photo. The man freaked out again - Sheila went outside to cool off - and when she came back in again he left. No major international incident - but it was weird.
We left shortly thereafter ourselves and went out for ramen and gyoza. It was fabulous - I had a bit more beer with our midnight snack (probably the most I'd had to drink since coming to Japan). I tried to chat with the men who took us out, but unfortunately none of them spoke great English so it was a good thing we had our translator friend with us! He kept trying to talk to me about television and then later said to me "Come back to me" in english - when we were talking about visiting again. He was so sweet. We had a great time and I just wish I could have communicated that a bit better to the men. (The next day I did give them some gifts - a KRON 4 t-shirt and some chocolates!)
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