Kuniko and I slept in fairly late and then hit the showers. We went for a small breakfast in anticipation of a big sushi lunch. We’ve both been craving sushi lately, even though I just had it for dinner on Friday night.

Today we went into Himeji to do a couple of things. The first was for me to get new glasses. My old glasses had some kind of anti-scratch coating put on way back when, and now the coating is slowly disappearing, leaving the surface of the glass very cloudy. Also, I get a headache whenever I wear the glasses, so they must be tweaked out of adjustment. Definitely time for some new ones.

We went to a glasses shop, and they did a really interesting eye exam. I had to read Japanese characters, which isn’t always easy even when I am wearing my contacts. We went through the whole thing, and the result of the exam was that my vision is much more screwed up than anything they normally deal with. The end result was that they would have to take more than a week to make the lenses. Another down point was that because my vision is so bad, the lenses would be really thick. I was hoping that in the many years that have passed they would have invented something that was really, really thin. Nope.

Actually, they had several options, and one option would have reduced the size by 1 millimeter, but it would have cost me an extra 12,000 yen ($120). I’ll live with the extra millimeter.

I got some frames that are not my usual style. Here’s a picture:

I can’t wait for them to be ready – it should be next weekend. After getting the glasses we headed across the street to look for a sushi place. We found a strange looking place that was place that seemed to cater more to older people. Not really our scene, and the sushi was merely so-so. Still, it was warm and they served big ceramic cups of hot tea.

Our next stop was a place called the Royal Classic. We were there to look into a place to get married. We’re planning on getting hitched this year, and so we’re trying to get serious about nailing some stuff down.

In Japan, there aren’t a lot of churches around, because Christianity isn’t a very popular religion – Buddhism and Shinto are far more popular. Despite the lack of Christian churches, Western style weddings are really popular, and that’s the kind that Kuniko wants. Since there aren’t churches around, big places like the Royal Classic are built to serve that need. The place is like a giant wedding complex. It’s like a one-stop-shopping spot for getting married.

Unlike last time we didn’t sit down and eat food, but we did get to check the place out. They had several rooms for the actual ceremony, both Western and Japanese style. They also had different themed rooms for the reception afterwards. We got a kick out of walking through all the rooms.

They had a bridal salon where you could try on all kinds of dresses. Kuniko was really into trying something on, and I got roped into trying on a tuxedo. They snapped a few pictures, and here’s the result.

The experience was really interesting, and it drove home the idea that we’re really getting married. It wasn’t like a shocked feeling or a scared feeling – it just felt right.

We skipped the mock ceremony in favor of a walk back to the main part of Himeji. We wanted to meet up with Tamura sensei and Yuri, but we had some time to kill so we went to check out a hotel across from the station. It was having a bridal fair that day, and so we went inside. An old high school friend of Kuniko’s works there, and offered to walk us around even though we didn’t have an appointment or anything. She showed us around, and they had a pretty nice setup as well.

They tried to get us to eat there, but we wanted to catch dinner with Tamura sensei and Yuri, so we declined the 5000 yen lobster tail. Kuniko’s friend gave us all sorts of information about her hotel, and offered us a 10% discount on the bill. That was nice of her, so we’ve got another place to consider.

We met up with Tamura sensei and Yuri, who were in the area after attending some kind of ceremony.

We all went out to dinner at a Korean restaurant, and chatted. We’re hoping to get together and hit an ice skating rink at the end of next month. It’s been a long time since I’ve been skating, but I’m looking forward to it. I hope I don’t hurt myself too badly.

Finally they dropped us off back at the station and we went our separate ways from there. It’s getting more and more difficult to say goodbye to Kuniko at the end of the weekend.

Kuniko came into town on Saturday night, and we went over to the yakitori for dinner. This weekend is the yakitori’s fifth anniversary, so the master had a special going on – the first beer is 5 yen, and every one after that is only 100 yen. He had advertised it in several newspapers, and as we expected, he was super busy when we got there. We sat with a bunch of other regulars and watched all the new people stream in. The master is hoping that the money he loses on the beer over the weekend will be gained in new customers down the road. I hope it works out for him.

It was the first time in a long time that people got to chat with Kuniko, and we had a great time. They had all kinds of questions for Kuniko, and I did my best to follow along. We moved our large party into the private party room, and the master’s wife joined us now and then. She had brought their new baby, and we had lots of fun playing with the kids.

We came back from drinking all we could, and our bill was only around 2300 yen – $25 or so. That night we ate some chocolate cake that Kuniko had brought from Osaka – it was incredible. The cake was filled with a chocolate sauce. We heated up the cake, toasted the top for about 30 seconds, and then all the chocolate inside was melted and it gooped out when you cut in. Awesome!

Last night I met up with Struan in Akashi. I haven’t seen him in a long time, so it was good to catch up. We talked about what we had been doing over the holidays – and compared wild stories. Struan usually has some good stories.

I took him to the underground sushi restaurant that Komori sensei introduced me to, and it was pretty full – there was only one seat available. In accordance with standard dining practice, the guy that was closest to finishing wrapped up his bill and took off. We had to give him lots of “I’m so sorry” and “Thank you so much!” on his way out, and the master and his wife gave us lots of “We’re so sorry” because we had to wait just a little while. It’s an interesting ritual.

We sat down and were a little surprised to see that there was another foreigner in the place. He had a Japanese associate on either side, and I think he was probably here on business. He was having trouble with his chopsticks, but was trying all the food. I loved his expression when they told him what he was eating was eel. We smiled at them politely, but we stuck to talking with the master and the another guy on my right. He turned out to be the person who invited Mr. Komuri (and unknowingly, me) to a sake tasting in Akashi at the end of the month.

After a while the foreign guy asked us without preamble or introduction, “I suppose you guys are teachers, right?”

I don’t know what it was about the question – maybe the tone, maybe the “I know it all” expression on his face, or maybe just the situation, but it rubbed me slightly the wrong way. We were just trying to keep to ourselves, and let him enjoy this experience – he’s getting a real taste of Japan in this place.

Anyway, I looked over at him and his group and said “No, actually we’re strippers.”

Maybe it was the tone of my voice, or the expression on my face, but he didn’t ask us anymore questions.

Meanwhile the place was lively as usual, and we had some great sushi. The master was really nice and gave us some free samples of other sushi, and we had a good time. When it was time to go, he scribbled a number on a piece of paper and flashed it at us, and we settled up and left. There’s no price list in this place – it’s just what he decides to charge you. It’s always reasonable, though, and with a couple of beers we got out of there for 3000 yen, just about $30.

The next stop was Donkey for some darts. It was nice to see the gang there again. The master knew Struan as an occasional visitor, but he’d never seen him together with me, so it was funny to see that two of his foreign customers actually knew each other.

He played some darts, and I taught some simple games to Struan and we had a couple of Guinness – it was a nice time. Later in the evening a friend of the master’s wife came in, and the master’s wife (hereafter referred to by her Japanese title “Mommy”) tried to do some matchmaking. I talked a little bit with her friend, named Yoko, and she spoke a fair amount of English. Mommy looked very happy, but I was more interested in playing darts than chatting with Yoko.

Yoko eventually hit the road, and Mommy made sure that I knew she was leaving so I waved goodbye. Later, Mommy asked me if I had a girlfriend, and so the only polite thing to do was tell the truth. I told her that I did have a girlfriend, but I didn’t name names, and she said that I should bring her by sometime. I’m sure this information will eventually get back to Komori sensei, and subsequently back to Mr. Hayashi. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings though, and it was nice to tell the truth for once about that particular issue.

Meanwhile, Struan was chatting with a couple who spoke a surprising amount of English. They were buying bottle after bottle of wine, and Struan was speaking to them in both English and Japanese. Struan has studied a fair amount of Japanese, but lately he has stopped, and so it comes and it goes.

I had been speaking English to the couple, mainly because most people in Japan seem to want to speak English with me. The guy started giving me a hard time, saying that since I live in Japan I should learn Japanese. I just smiled and said I would do my best. Struan tried to tell him that my Japanese was quite good, but he wasn’t paying attention. He kept coming back to it, and I found it amusing, so I just kept responding in English.

Struan and I got a bottle of Chilean Pinot Noir that was really good. The price was great, too – only $18. The French wine has a big reputation around Japan, so it’s priced high regardless of quality. Wine from other countries aren’t as well known, so I can sometimes find great deals.

We played lots of darts – they made teams of people that came in, and Mommy and I were one team. We played against some other regulars, and we did pretty well. Mommy and I were both pretty toasted, though, and our high fives were getting more and more difficult to do.

It was finally time to get out of there and catch the last train. As we left we said goodbye to everyone, and one of the darts players was going to the same station, so she and I caught the same train. Struan lives close by, so he just walked back to his place.

It was a fun night, and now I’m typing this on Saturday morning with a bit of a hangover.

Thursday is an easy day for me – I really look forward to Thursdays. All of my classes are over by 11:30 a.m., and then I’m free to do whatever I want. In my first year class today I was having a conversation with a couple of the students before the class started. One student was trying to explain to me that another teacher had false teeth. I couldn’t understand her explanation in Japanese, so she went to get a dictionary, looked up the word, and then showed me the entry that read “false teeth”.

I pretended to look confused, and then look closely at her mouth and told her in Japanese, “They look real!”. Finally, a joke that worked! She and her friend literally fell on the floor laughing so hard. Mr. Oshita came in to help me teach the class and was wondering what the heck was going on with these two girls rolling around on the cold floor laughing hysterically.

Teachers have started to figure out that I have a cellphone now, and so I’ve been passing around my e-mail address as people ask for it. Mr. Hayashi has it now, so once he figures out how to save it, I should be getting messages from him now and then. That should be interesting.

After school Mr. Komuri gave me a ride home in his car, and we chatted in English on the way back. Next week he and the rest of the second year teachers will be going on a school trip to Hokkaido with all the second year students. He’s getting all packed and prepared. It sounds like they’ll have lots of fun.

Once I got home I assessed my refrigerator and decided to make some homemade ramen. The trick to good ramen is the broth. I’m still not sure how they do it, but this time I came pretty close. I didn’t have any meat to put in, so I dug around and found a couple of pieces of SPAM that I had leftover from the SPAM and eggs I made when Kuniko was here.

SPAM ramen. I’m sure somebody has done it before, but I felt truly transcontinental as I used chopsticks to slurp up the steaming noodles along with bite-sized chunks of SPAM. It was really good.

This post probably isn’t for the faint of heart.

In a strange concurrence of many different events, I’ve been hearing a lot of about sex lately, mainly related to high school students. The other day I received my monthly ALT newsletter (which is unauthorized by the government, by the way) and there was an anonymous article in there about a female ALT and her reactions to being a sex object to some of her students.

It was a fascinating read, especially since it was from the female perspective. Since it was anonymous she could go into a fair amount of detail. The point of the article was this:

It’s very natural when you teach so many students that some of them may develop a crush on you. She pointed out that it was quite normal to have a crush on a teacher when she was in high school. She discussed how she deals with it, how she felt about it, and how other ALT’s that she knew have dealt with it.

She mentioned some interesting things. Apparently the ultimate Japanese high school boy fantasy is to sleep with a female teacher. It is not rare for a teacher to marry a student after they graduate – usually it’s a male teacher-female student relationship.

I’ve met some students and some teachers that are involved in this kind of situation. It’s a dangerous game to play, and maybe that’s why they are doing it. Why does this go on? Kuniko and I had an interesting conversation about this, and I was a little surprised by this particular cultural difference.

For one thing, the ideas about acceptable age difference between two people in a relationship are very different here in Japan. It isn’t such a big deal for there to be a big gap in ages. Is it because one person is seen as the provider? I’m not sure. Ideas on this are generally pretty conservative, moving slowly in typical Japanese fashion over hundreds of years.

Most of the ALTs in Japan are younger than I. Most are only a few years older than their third year high school students. Also, some ALTs might not have a lot of real-world experience outside of college – and you just have to trust that they are making the right decisions.

I’ve had my share of students that have a crush on me – some I know about, and some I’m sure I don’t. Kuniko has also gotten lots of attention from students that she has taught. The interesting thing about the article was that it explored just a little into how that makes you feel. The author said that of course she would never date or return the affections of any of her students, she did tend to look forward to teaching his class, or felt a little thrill seeing them in the hallway. Another special factor in all of this is that foreign women here often aren’t seen as desirable by Japanese men, mainly because they are considered a little too “aggressive”. The author admitted that maybe the idea that there was somebody out there that DID find you attractive made you enjoy the attention that much more.

There’s lots of exceptions, and I’m just briefly addressing this, but it’s an interesting topic. If you asked me two weeks ago if this kind of thing happened in Japan, I’d say never. It’s a good illustration of much of this society is flying under my radar, and I’m sure there’s lots going on that I know nothing about.

I got up early this morning and jogged around the block a couple of times. The area around Ito Yokado is illuminated and flat, so I’m going to run around there for a while and see how it goes. It was just after five in the morning and I ran past a guy standing in the middle of the street practicing golf swings with his driver. The things that go on when everyone else is asleep.

Today was nice because the Board of Education was sending someone to pick me up at 8:30 in the morning. Usually I’m already at work and sitting through a teacher’s meeting at 8:30 a.m. I used the extra time in the morning to practice kanji and stay warm inside my kotatsu.

At 8:25 a.m. my doorbell rang, and a very nice man walked me down to his car. I got in, and we started driving to Yashiro. We talked along the way entirely in Japanese, and it was a great chance for me to practice without any safety nets. He told a funny story about how at breakfast that morning his kids had asked him what he would do if I didn’t speak any Japanese. They taught him a few English expressions to use, like “How do you do?” and “This way, please.” He was very relieved to be able to speak in his native tongue during the one hour trip.

At Yashiro they gave me hot coffee, plenty of Japanese tea, and kept me busy throughout the morning. Things went really well, and we wrapped things up at 11:15. There was a bus leaving there at 11:30, so Mr. Hasegawa drove like a madman to the bus station to send me off.

On the ride back, I was wondering what my work situation the rest of the day would be. Mr. Hasegawa didn’t mention anything about whether I should go back to work, and I had told them that I would be gone the whole day. I sat there and did the logistics in my head, and it turned out that if I went straight to work and skipped lunch I’d arrive about halfway through the last class of the day. I made a judgment call and decided to not go to work in the afternoon.

It worked out just as well, since although the car ride to Yashiro is about an hour, the bus ride was almost an hour and forty five minutes. By the time I had lunch, it was too late to head to work anyway. Tomorrow I’ll go in and see if anyone missed me.

I used the extra time this afternoon clean up the house and do a little bit of studying. Dinner was a simple vegetarian rice dish with a Korean sauce, and I had some yogurt for dessert. Tomorrow’s day is a normal one for me, with an evening lesson for Azusa. The week is just flying by.

One of the funny things I’ve noticed while riding the trains in Japan is something I call “rushing the train”. Sometimes a train is just getting ready to depart the platform. Usually, the guy in the back of the train checks that the doors are clear, he blows a whistle, then he closes the doors. Then he rings a little bell twice, which tells the driver up front that they are cleared for takeoff. The driver has no control over the doors, so it’s a pretty safe way to prevent injuries to passengers.

When I first arrived in Japan, I figured that once the doors are closed, you’re out of luck. But there is an option. You run right at the closed doors, and if you manage to catch the guy in the back of the train before he rings the bell, he might just open the doors up again. Then you can jump on and you’ve saved 5-7 minutes of waiting for the next train.

A failed rush is pretty embarrassing, though. The person runs up to the door, while all the people that are safely inside watch with mild curiosity. The train starts moving, and the poor person is left standing on the platform.

I’ve rushed a train only one time, and I got on. The key is to look like you are serious about getting in and clearing the doorway fast. Old ladies and people with big bags are usually out of luck.

Work today was fairly busy – four classes, and all of them were fun. I had some great conversations with my first year students. I swear some of these kids are fearless. I really enjoy speaking with them, and I hope I get a shot at teaching them next year.

I worked with Mr. Hayashi on reading and translation this afternoon, and then after school I met up with Tsuji-san to do conversation practice. I studied a bit of Japanese after dinner, and I’m all ready for my third secret mission tomorrow. It’ll be a nice way to break up the week.

This weekend was a lot of fun. On Saturday I hit the books pretty hard, but I squeezed in time to watch two of my favorite TV shows on my computer, Lost and Battlestar Galactica. I did a little jogging in the afternoon, and then killed off the last of the Mexican food leftovers for dinner.

Kuniko came in around 10:30 Saturday evening, and we worked together on some exams that her students had to take.

The next day we slept in late, had some spam and eggs for breakfast, and then went into Kobe to meet Tamura sensei and her new boyfriend. We met them at the station, and he was really nice. He even said “Nice to meet you” in English, and shook my hand.

We went out to the theater inside the Oriental City hotel, near Kobe’s bullet train station. We were here to see the Acapella group Takarabune (Treasure Boat). It’s the same group that we saw during the New Year’s Eve party at the theme park. Kuniko has two friends that are members of the group, and they had arranged some great seats for us.

I’ve never really been into acapella, mainly because the only time I saw it live was with a bunch of barbershop-quartet-looking gay guys. This group was all women, and they put on a great show. Also, when you have a connection with the members you also have a little more interest in how the show goes.

The lead vocalist was raised in the United States, so a lot of their songs have pieces of English inside of them. They did covers of some old American tunes, and really did a great job. Even though most of the audience couldn’t really understand the lyrics to those songs, they got really excited. They also had lots of songs with Japanese lyrics, and even a traditional type song called Kono Michi (This Road) that was really great.

Afterwards we went out for cake and coffee, and then Tamura sensei and her boyfriend went back home. Kuniko and I walked through the shopping centers and looked at clothes. Kobe is a great place to people watch, and conversely, to be watched.

We decided to have dinner at a ramen restaurant that Kuniko was familiar with. It was really good. I knew it was a good sign when they have bowls filled with garlic cloves and a garlic crusher at each table. I ordered up a ramen filled with chunks of slightly sweet roasted pork, onions, a boiled egg that was somehow infused with garlic, and of course lots of noodles. The restaurant was a hole in the wall kind of place, so we were sitting with lots of other people, everyone slurping their noodles like crazy. I’m starting to slurp my noodles, too – it’s a lot of fun to make loud noises like that in public.

We headed back from there, and we’re both getting ready for a busy week.

It was a busy day today at school, and not only did I have four classes, but I also got another call into the principal’s office. I guess the Board Of Education wanted me to come in and help them out again on short notice. They requested next Tuesday, which is one of my busiest days. I had been planning a Martin Luther King lesson that day, so it’ll have to go into the shoebox for next year.

Hasegawa sensei called me from the Board of Education office, and he was really happy that I could make it out to help them. He was actually giggling about it. I think sometimes he enjoys throwing his weight around. They’re even sending a car to pick me up in the morning, so I don’t have to take the long bus ride into Yashiro. Unfortunately, I’ll have to take the bus back.

After school I took the train into Suma, the beach time a little east of Akashi. I met Antoine, and we visited an izakaya to have lots of little dishes of food and lots to drink. We talked and talked about the first week of real classes, and we were both tired out, despite it being only a short week.

I was really tired heading home, and I went right to sleep when I got back. Saturday is supposed to be rainy, and Kuniko is planning to come into town late at night, so I have something to look forward to. We’re going to try to book our plane tickets this weekend for our trip to California in March. Woo-hoo!

Today the temperature in the morning finally hit the big zero, sitting there at the freezing point right when I had to leave the house to go to work. Actually, it wasn’t so bad once you got out and got moving. I took advantage of a couple of hand warmers that I had sitting around the house – they kept my extremities nice and warm for the walk to work.

Definitely the highlight today was the ESS club activity. We had a big turnout today – I was drumming up support by telling students in the hallways how exciting our club meeting was going to be. Everyone showed up, and I told them about a treasure hunt.

Earlier in the day I spent time hiding little clues all over the school, always making sure that one clue led to the next. It was fun to hide things around the school – there’s lots of great places to stash stuff.

At first my students were complaining. We have to run all over the school looking for this stuff? What’s the point? It’s cold! I managed to get them motivated though, and they ran off in search of the first clue. I followed them around to make sure they didn’t get into any trouble. Remarkably, they finished the whole thing in about twenty minutes. The prize was a small box full of candy, and it was great to see them take it carefully back to my classroom to divide it up between them. There was a definite pecking order, too. I’m not sure how it all worked out but everyone felt it was fair.

Some of the students went home to study, and a couple stuck around to hang out and chat. I spent almost an hour chatting with Iku-chan. She told me about some of the history behind the kanji I’ve been learning, and I gave her some advice on her homework. With the help of the chalkboard, some illustrations, and some Japanese, we were able to communicate just fine.

I came home tonight and Yasu came over to help me out with my leftover situation. We ate tacos and talked about everything from music to girlfriends. I ended up burning him a CD of The Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots”. He gave me some good information on Japanese bands to watch out for. It was really fun.

Yasu had a new phone that he showed me – a tiny little Sony Ericsson that was cool. I don’t think I’d like to send text messages with it – it seemed a little too small for comfort. But it was nice to just clip on your keys and go.

He brought lots of beer, and his mom sent over some snacks. I retaliated by sending some of the lemons and apples that were given to me yesterday, and also some taco leftovers. Sometimes it seems like the huge pile of food at my house isn’t getting smaller at all.

My schedule today was really light, because the students have to take tests today to check to see if they have been studying during winter vacation. The first day back for them is full of exams – four periods worth of written tests. Ick!

For my part I had only two classes today in the afternoon, so my morning was pretty easy. I prepared for my new lesson for the first years, and did a little bit of studying at my desk.

At the morning we had two extremes of life and death. One of the teachers got up and received an envelope full of cash from the principal of the school. His wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago, and so it was the official present from all the teachers – cash! He made a short speech, cracked a few jokes, and then sat down. A weird thing happened when another teacher got up and as his voice cracked and tears formed in his eyes, he said that his younger brother had died unexpectedly the day before, and that is why the teacher had been gone the day before.

It was a very strange thing for me to observe. Here this guy lost his younger brother and the next day he’s at school when clearly he needs some time to deal with it. I’ve sometimes put credence in the idea of going to work to get yourself out of a depression cycle, but this seemed a little early to me. Also the emotion was something that I’ve rarely seen in the teacher’s room.

I was sitting at my desk during third period when Tsutsumi sensei came down to talk to me. She told me that although the second and first years had exams today, the third years did not, so I went upstairs and dropped in on my own class.

Normally that would be a big problem, but my third year class is doing a presentation project. They are working on their own on different things, and really they just need someone there to help out and make sure they don’t jump out the windows. Still, a little embarrassing! Ms. Tsutsumi wasn’t too concerned – she apologized for not filling me in on the schedule. Anyway, we are on a regular schedule starting tomorrow, so I should be just fine from here on out.

The history teacher nailed me down for about 45 minutes today, asking me all kinds of questions ranging from the use of the word “tsunami” by Americans to asking about a zit I recently got just to the right of my nose. I gave him as detailed an answer as possible on all the subjects.

After school I went out to Azusa’s place to do a lesson for her. It was my first time to see her since New Year’s, so we caught up on all her adventures. We had a lot to talk about, and the lesson flew by. Her mom served us some coffee and cheesecake after the lesson, and then packed a bag full of home-grown lemons and apples and sent me on my way. I bought a juicer on the way home at the 100 yen store. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Back at home I got started on my leftovers, and then packed up a bunch of stuff and gave it to Jane to help out. I also gave her some booze and dessert – a well balanced meal or two in there.

Tomorrow it’s a regular day at school with three classes. I’m hoping to have a treasure hunt for the ESS club, and then hopefully meet up with Yasu and push some Mexican food on him, too.

I had a pretty easy day at school – just the opening ceremony, and no classes. I got the opportunity to leave early because there were no classes, so I came home to get ready for the gang at the yakitori coming over.

At 6:30 the master gave me a ring, and I had all the burners going plus an additional one that runs of cans of gas. The master came in after I gave him directions, and he had a couple of the yakitori guys with him.

Unfortunately, there were only three of them, so the party of six to nine people ended up as a party of four. No problem, though. We started out with tequila shots, and then hit the beer and Chu-hi. The guys had brought lots of alcohol, enough for another eight people to drink.

Everybody bravely tried the tequila, and nobody had the “tequila face” that you see every once in a while. One of the guys really got into it, and had a couple of shots with me.

I served up tacos for everyone – corn and flour tortillas, and let everyone sample from the wide array of hot sauces that I have now. I had made guacamole to go with everything, and there was plenty of chips and salsa.

Jane made paid us a visit and everyone said hello to her. She was on her way to meet someone, so couldn’t stay, but she gave us some chocolate to finish us off.

I stayed up late cleaning up, and it felt good to go to sleep with a clean kitchen. It was a lot of fun, and I hope that we can do it again sometime. Now I just have to eat Mexican food for a week!

This morning I caught a train home from Shin-Osaka, but it was a long trip. There was a car accident somewhere along on the train line, so we were delayed about half an hour. I’m glad that I wasn’t going to an important appointment!

Today is a holiday – “Coming of Age Day”. The holiday is the chance for people that turned twenty years old in the previous year to step out and make their “debut”. The girls wear beautiful kimonos, and the guys wear cool suits. Akashi station was full of young people excited about going out today. I was particularly impressed by all the kimonos, and not just because they were all being worn by 20 year old girls. I comtemplated taking some pictures but didn’t want to look like a sex offender.

I came home to a cold, empty house. On the way into my apartment I saw a sleepy looking foreigner come out of Jane’s apartment. I recognized him from a party that Jane threw when she first arrived. He smiled sheepishly at me and said hello. No wonder I haven’t heard from Jane much lately.

My place is pretty clean – I just did a few touch ups for the big Mexican party I’m throwing for the yakitori guys. We’re all set for tomorrow. I’ll try to take lots of pictures – it’ll be fun!

I talked with my family on the phone, and then made a big shopping trip to Ito Yokado. I bought all the tortillas that they had save one package, avocados, tomatoes, lettuce, chips, onions, ground beef, beer, the works.

For dinner tonight I cooked up some Spam and eggs. Susan and Dave from Hawaii had sent the Spam as part of a food exchange/care package that we did around Christmas time. It ended up being Spam, egg, onions, cheese, and chipotle sauce. I made a small caesar salad for a side, and dinner was served. Oh yeah.

After dinner I put on some running clothes and walked out to the park/island to the south of Futami. I went running out there once before on Saturday, and this time the wind was really blowing and it was cold. There’s a big set of 51 cement stairs, and a short loop that you can run around. I did three laps and went up and down the stairs a couple of times, and then came home hot and sweaty. Good exercise – I don’t know if I’ll be willing to keep it up as the weather fluctuates, but for now it’s a good time to go.

I’m off to bed soon – it’s going to be back to work tomorrow.

The Japanese word “kengakusuru” （見学する）means to go somewhere for study. This weekend I went to Osaka initially just to meet up with Kuniko, but I ended up staying through Sunday to do some studying while Kuniko went to a seminar.

I got in on Saturday evening, and Kuniko had cooked up a seriously delicious meal. It was a tofu dish with a spicy sauce, and along with a side of rice it turned out delicious.

Kuniko asked me if I wanted to join her and her coworkers for a seminar for teaching English to junior high and high school students. The bad news was that it was all in Japanese. Another bad point was that I had only brought one set of clothes, scrubby ones. Instead I stayed at her place and hit the books hard while she was gone.

Her place was a good place to study. It was really quiet, pretty warm even without the heater on, and plenty of space to spread out and read.

Once she got home we went out for Indian food at our favorite Indian restaurant – their specialty is cheese and garlic nan bread. They recognized us there and the server was really nice. I think it was a slow night there, so it was good to send some money their way. In the end, Kuniko insisted on buying dinner.

We hit the convenience store for some dessert, and then went up and went to sleep. Tomorrow is a workday for Kuniko, so we got to bed early.

Today we had a mandatory meeting at work at 10 a.m., and most people showed up at 9:50 or so. Everyone went into the meeting, we chatted for about 20 minutes, and then we left. People started drifting out of the staffroom for “lunch”. I stuck around to have lunch with the gang, and then I was out of there by 2 p.m. Now I’m gearing up for a three day weekend. I’m starting to feel guilty about taking a paycheck.

Talking to other ALTs it becomes pretty apparent that I have one of the most casual schools out there. Not only is it laid back and relaxed, but the staffroom environment seems a lot different from other stories that I’ve heard. In our staffroom you’ll often find people speaking English to each other, not because I’m around, or because they have to, but because they like to do it. It’s a big contrast from some of the other schools where the ALT has to learn Japanese or starve to death.

I’m really comfortable in my staffroom, and I have all the teachers to thank. The ALT that takes over for me will be one lucky person. I hope they realize how lucky they are.

This evening I began organizing my closets. I’m a little shocked right now that I’m sitting here in Japan writing in my journal about how I organized my closet on a Friday night. I’d like to make up stories and say that I went rollerskating with a cheerleading squad in Himeji, but really… who rollerskates in Himeji?

Kuniko did give me a call which was a nice treat – I’m hoping to go visit her tomorrow evening. It’ll be a good closet-organizing break for me.

Finally, I saw this website this evening and thought I’d recommend it to you. It’s a musician’s site, and I had lots of fun playing around with it.

http://www.billyharveymusic.com/

Enjoy!