The weather was beautiful today, and I found myself spending a lot of time gazing out the window wishing I was climbing hills or traveling the countryside. My classes weren’t too tough, and I had a new lesson for the first years that went really well. It is a lot more about fun and games since they are studying for their midterms that are coming up soon.

During one class we were doing a drawing exercise, and one student drew me. He was actually a pretty good artist – he captured my slightly crossed eyes and five o’clock shadow perfectly. He also drew a picture of a samurai running someone through with a sword, with lots of blood. It’s an interesting contrast.

After school I lounged around the teacher’s office, helping Mr. Hayashi with some English projects that he is working on. Finally around five o’clock Mr. Kimura, Mr. Hayashi and I jumped into Mr. Hayashi’s car and took off. We had one of the new teachers, Ms. Mori, following us to park her car at Mr. Hayashi’s house. From his house we just walked over to the restaurant.

Ms. Mori has a silver Mazda (called Matsuda here in Japan) Miata. It’s a two seat sports car and it’s pretty cool. We were walking to the restaurant and I mentioned to Ms. Mori that I liked her car. She smiled and said, “Just the car? How about the driver?”.

Huh?

While I stammered and struggled to recover my composure, Mr. Hayashi chimed in and said that it’s a two seat so there’s room for one more person in there. They laughed together and Ms. Mori just kind of kept walking and didn’t say anything else.

What a weird situation. I’m not sure if there was something planned there, or complementing someone’s car is more serious in Japan than it is back home… I was a bit flustered. I have enough problems at school with Ms. Shigata – I don’t need to be chased around by someone else.

Little did I know that this wasn’t the only trick up Mr. Hayashi’s sleeve that night We got to the restaurant, the same one that I visited on my birthday. The menu was basically the same, and again it was all you can drink for 90 minutes, which was very nice. I had three big beers and three glasses of red wine with my meal. I sat next to the vice-principal for a bit, who didn’t drink much but did enjoy speaking English with me. Ms. Mori sat across from me and talked to me a bit more during the evening but didn’t bring up anything else dramatic.

Mr. Hayashi pulled me aside and told me that he is planning a BBQ during the midterm examination period. He wanted to know if I thought one of the new office workers was particularly attractive. I knew where this was going, but I was stuck. I tried the most neutral answer I could think of – “She seems like a nice person”. Mr. Hayashi said that he will invite her to the BBQ – he seems determined to get me involved with somebody, and lately his efforts have stepped up.

Finally around nice o’clock we all staggered out onto the street in Kakogawa. One of our school’s third year students was unlucky enough to be outside on her bike, and so all the teachers enjoyed the chance to chat with her while buzzing. I talked with her mom in Japanese and managed to fake my way through half the conversation.

Mr. Kimura had said that he was going to take the train home and walk back with me – we would get off at the same station. By the time everyone was finished talking with the student, he was gone. I was saying “Where’s Mr. Komuri?”, accidentally switching his name for Mr. Kimura’s. This all you can drink stuff is pretty hardcore.

Mr. Maeda wanted to give me a ride to the station – he had been drinking but his wife was waiting to pick him up. At first I said that I would take the train and not to worry, but he insisted, and dragged me over to the car. I jumped in the car and met his wife and three children, and the look of shock on their faces when I hopped in was just perfect.

His wife had a big smile and a great sense of humor, and took the whole thing in stride. I introduced myself, and the kids all sat there with their mouths wide open. They insisted on driving me home, but when we got close they said they wanted to go to a family restaurant near my place. One cool thing about their van was that when they were backing up the GPS screen turned into a video showing what was behind the car as it backed up. The outline of the van was laid over the top of the video, so she just backed up looking at the screen and didn’t even look over her shoulder. Wow.

We all went inside and ordered some snacks and drinks. I had a non-alcoholic beer, and we sat and chatted. The kids were very shy. The son hid behind his menu, and when his mom took the menu away, he sat there with his eyes closed and a big grin on his face.

After about half an hour, they insisted on driving me to my doorstep, even though it was just a short walk. They were both genuinely happy to have been able to spend time with me outside of school. Being a foreigner in Japan gives you the chance to make a lot of people very happy – they want to meet new people and whenever you spend time with someone, they will probably remember it for a long time afterwards.

Well, it’s been as wet as I’ve seen it in Japan and everyone says that it’s still a month before the rainy season starts. The strange thing about the weather lately is that one day it will be rainy and the next day full sunshine. It makes it a little harder to plan weekends.

Today was my easiest day of the week – Thursday. I have just three classes, and they are the first three periods, so I’m done by 11:30. I locked myself in my classroom after lunch and got in about two hours of studying. Afterwards I read Doraemon at my desk until the staff meeting.

All this studying seems to give me a little more insight into what people are saying around me. Now I am able to get the vague gist of a conversation, whereas before I might only catch a word or two every couple of minutes.

After school I came home and made up a big plate of nachos – I realized that I had all the fixin’s just laying around – so it came out to be a great meal. Spicy!

This evening I’m just doing a little more kanji studying, and cleaning up the house a bit. There’s a chance that Kuniko might be able to visit at some point this weekend, so I wanted to do a little caretaking around here.

Tomorrow is the teacher’s enkai after school. It should be interesting – a lot of the teachers are still a little uncomfortable with each other, and the new teachers are definitely uncomfortable with me. Then they will have to meet the old teachers… a lot of social variables in play tomorrow.

Today was a pretty warm day – the weather has been alternating between sun and rain, but it’s always warm.

I had only one class in the morning, and two in the afternoon. The classes were pretty uneventful – one student turned in her homework on a paper folded into the shape of a heart. Inside she did a pretty good job on her assignment, and even said that she loved me. Yikes.

I’ve heard rumblings about a staff softball game, which is supposed to take place during midterms next week. I think I’ve been drafted by some team – but I’m not sure. That’s how communication sometimes works around here. I catch words and phrases in Japanese, or somebody asks me a vague question in English. My prediction is that I’ll be on the softball field next week swinging away.

Back home I was still up for grilling – I fired up the grill out on the porch. The grill smokes quite a bit early on, but eventually it gets going. I’d like to find a way to cut down on the smoke – I’m sure it makes the neighbors nervous.

As for the food – I grilled shrimp on skewers, and then soaked thin-sliced pork in some sweet ginger soy sauce and grilled those. I had all of that with a big green salad and a tall glass of cold water. Oh, yeah.

The downside of the grill is that once it gets going it still has plenty of power to cook more – I feel like I’m wasting valuable energy by throwing my stuff on for fifteen minutes and then I’m done.

In the evening I spent some time studying kanji, and then called up Kuniko and chatted for a while. She sounded a little down – I think she’s pretty tired. There’s an outside chance that she’ll be able to come visit me this weekend. I’ve got a English staff party on Friday night. Mr. Hayashi had invited her to come to a second party afterwards at Amuse in Kakogawa, but she said that she probably couldn’t make it. Maybe it’s better for her just to stick close to home and rest up – we’ll just have to wait and see how she feels.

I’m off to bed – I’m reading Doraemon comics in English and Japanese.

I’ve emerged from a self-imposed media blackout until I was able to see the final episode of Survivor. For two days I carefully avoided looking at any websites that might give away the winner. Tonight I just finished watching, so now that I know I can surf the web without a problem. It was a good season – lots of spicy stuff with hurt feelings and emotions – the kind of stuff I enjoy as personal entertainment.

Today was another four class day. I was busy all day long, but it made the time fly by.

After going thirty two years without a complete stranger slapping my rear end it happened twice today. Having never played in team sports where ass-slapping is more common, it was a strange experience. As I walked to one of my classes with my CD player in one hand and handouts in the other some of the baseball team guys came by and wanted to give me their customary high five. Since I had my hands full they gave me the low five equivalent.

Two classes later one of the girl students was running past me on the way to her class and she gave me a slap on the butt as she went by. I said “watch it!” in English, so hopefully she’ll get the gist of the message. The last thing I want is to be the whipping boy for five hundred Japanese schoolgirls. That’s the kind of fate you read about in spam e-mails.

A while back I had two of my classes listen to Radiohead, and nobody got too excited at the time. As I was talking with Mr. Yamamoto in the hallway, one of the students came up and asked him if he could ask me to bring the CD in for her to listen to. I was happy to turn someone on to Radiohead.

One of the part time teachers today stopped by to encourage me while I was studying Japanese. I had spoken to her a week or so ago to break the ice. She was more comfortable walking over to talk with me, so hopefully we can talk more. The good news for me is that she knows almost no English, so it forces me to use my Japanese in a professional setting.

My leftover grilled beef made an excellent BBQ Beef sandwich for lunch today. Some of the new teachers watched with envy as I bit into this dagwood of a sandwich. I felt like I was in some kind of carnivorous Wendy’s dreamland. This was a great sandwich.

After school I went straight home and cooked a relatively mild dinner of beef curry and rice. Gradually the temperature has been getting warmer. The good news is that my apartment opens up on both sides, so I can get the breeze coming off the inland sea as it cuts right through my building. Soon it will be too hot even for that, but for now I can sit and type on the computer as a cool breeze comes through.

I’ve caught up with my posts – whew! Blogger, the company that runs the software that I use to update my site, has some new features. One of the new features is the ability for you to add comments to the site.

To add comments, there should be a link at the bottom of each entry. Click on the link, and it’ll take you to a place where you can add comments to an entry. I’m still fooling around with it, but I thought I’d let you know that it’s there.

The rain was coming down hard all last night, and so I was ready for a wet one. I put on all my gear, grabbed the extra large umbrella, and went outside in the downpour. Once I got out there it wasn’t so bad. The downside of the large umbrella is that it catches the wind easily, so I have to be more careful about holding on to it.

I had four classes today. My first class started but no Japanese teacher showed up. The class and I waited around for about five minutes, but it seemed liked nobody was going to come. I had no idea who was supposed to be there, and I didn’t want to leave the class there while I chased all over the place looking for the teacher. I made a judgement call and taught the class alone.

Some of the exercises had to be adapted because I had designed them with two teachers in mind, but really it worked out just fine. The students did pretty well – I think they were amused to see me working without a net. It was a first year class, so they haven’t been around long enough to know how abnormal the situation was. I handled things in English throughout the class, and switched to Japanese when students got confused.

After class I found out that Mr. Kimura was supposed to be there. He was pretty embarrassed that he forgot, so I think I’ve got a free beer coming from him one of these days.

Mr. Hayashi finally booked my flight back to the USA today. I fly from Osaka to San Francisco on July 16th, with a couple of hours stopover in Seoul. I get to spend about two weeks in California, and then I get back on the plane on August 2nd and fly back to Korea. I have to spend a night in Korea, which saves me some money but also costs me some money in hotel bills. I think it’s some kind of kickback system by the travel agencies, but that’s fine. It’ll give me a chance to eat some more spicy food before I get back to Osaka.

After school I met up with one of my ESS students, Harada-san. She normally takes her bike, but the rain was so heavy that she took the train today. I rode the same train back, and she sat next to me and we chatted in English only the whole time. I noticed that we were getting lots of dirty looks from other passengers. I have a feeling talking with students on the train and maybe sitting next to them is a bad idea. I’m not sure, but I took my cue from Harada-san and enjoyed the chat. A while back she asked me only to speak to her in English so that she is forced to learn, so our conversation was slow but pretty wide-ranging.

Back home I organized a couple of loads of laundry and decided to fire up my new grill. It’s just a ceramic bucket with a grill on top and a little air duct on the bottom. I tried to get the fire going, but it was pretty smoky, and there wasn’t much heat. Luckily I had a backup plan, and had a pan ready to fry up the meat if the BBQ didn’t work out.

While I was waiting for the rice to finish cooking, I peeked out the window at the barbecue, and while I was in working on other things, the charcoal had turned red, and that sucker was putting out some heat. I threw some more charcoal on the coals, and in five minutes I was grilling my meat.

The meat is really thinly sliced here, so it cooked fast and I was in business. I grilled up beef and also pork. I had marinated the beef, and the pork went on just with a dusting of black pepper and some spicy stuff my folks had sent me a couple of days ago.

The meat tasted great, and my whole back porch smelled like roasted meat. The lady next door came out of the balcony to see what was smelling good, and I gave her a big wave and a grin. She was probably getting a big cloud of smoke blowing into her place when I was trying to get the thing started – I’m lucky she didn’t call the fire department on me.

We slept in a bit today and then had a quick breakfast of granola, orange juice, and yogurt.

As Kuniko and I walked towards the Shin-Osaka station we noticed that there were a lot of students on a school trip walking through the area. The students stared at me, and some of them giggled and gestured. The station is a central hub for travel because it has the Shinkansen bullet train line. It might have been the first time for the students to visit a big city, and maybe the first time to see a foreigner in person.

Sometimes I take for granted what a great situation I’m in – I’m centrally located and it’s easy to get to a big city when I want to. There are a lot of very isolated parts of Japan, either on islands or so far away from train stations that it’s a big deal to go to the city. Seeing the student’s eyes go big when they saw me was a good reminder for me that I’ve got it pretty good. I wonder how I would feel about the JET program if I had to make a four hour trip to get to a supermarket.

Kuniko had to catch a train to go to work, so she gave me her apartment key and I went another direction towards Osaka castle. Himeji castle is the big castle to see in Japan – it’s the original castle, so you walk through an authentic atmosphere all the way to the top.

Osaka castle on the other hand is a rebuilt replica. It’s still cool, and there’s some great exhibits inside, but still there’s something strange about taking an elevator to the top.

I took the Osaka loop line from Osaka station, and I was there within ten minutes. I was surprised that it was so close. The grounds and park surrounding the castle were huge, and the moat was surprisingly far away from the castle itself. I walked around the park and enjoyed the scenery, and even grabbed a snack at one of the booths around the castle. The guy was nice enough to give me tea as well.

A couple of students came up to me and asked me to answer some questions for a survey. They did the whole thing in English from some notes that they had. I took the survey and answered their questions. I noticed that the title of their survey was “Osaka Castle Gaijin Survey”.

There were a lot of foreigners around the castle touring, so I imagine they weren’t having a tough time with digging up people for the survey.

I enjoyed the view from the top of the castle, and took my time walking through the castle. The exhibits were nice – the suits of armor were first rate, and it was scary to see them there empty. One thing I never knew was that they had face plates that had scary expressions on them to scare their enemies. It was spooky to see the face plates grimacing at you even though there was no face behind it.

Continuing to explore I crossed the moat and went through a business commercial district. There was a shopping center where I found some interesting things – there was a restaurant for dogs, and a store that had Irish pint glasses. Oh yeah.

Finally I wrapped up my trip and went back to Kuniko’s apartment. I bought some salami and pepperjack cheese (expensive!) and stuck them in her refrigerator for her to find later, and then I sat back and watched the Hanshin Tigers game for about half an hour.

Kuniko got home soon thereafter, and then we went out for dinner. We both had a sushi craving, so we sat down for some excellent onigiri sushi. Kuniko and I ordered our favorites, and we just ate and talked, catching up on each other’s day.

We stopped in at Starbucks on the way back home and saw lots of foreigners there too. None of them seemed to friendly. I think it’s a very normal thing for foreigners to get used to being special and the only one around, so when they see someone that impinges on their uniqueness, maybe they aren’t so happy about it. For my part I just smile and nod.

I headed back home to Futami around 8 p.m., ready to go to work the next day. It was interesting to come into my home and see things all laid out from Saturday night – I dropped everything and ran out the door, and so things were all ready for me to crawl right into bed and hit the sack.

Saturday morning, and I was up at six in the morning and out the door. I haven’t done a decent hike in a long time, so I was eager to do something a little ambitious. I took the train to Kobe, and walked from the station up Rokko mountain.

The day was beautiful – maybe the best weather I’ve ever hiked in. The visibility wasn’t great from the top of the mountain, but it felt great to be outside walking around without a worry in the world.

I continued on past Rokko mountain and went up and down several more mountains on the ridgeline until I finally got to Maya mountain. Maya was where I crapped out during the 50k hike a while back. It was nice at the top, and I snacked on some onigiri that I had brought along.

After enjoying a nap at the top I headed down the ropeway and cable car combination, and then took a bus ride back to Sannomiya station. I took a few minutes to check for American maple syrup at the import food store, but I struck out – just Canadian maple syrup. Not so good – I like the buttery taste of American maple syrup.

Finally I headed back home, and went right to sleep – a sweaty mess. I woke up and decided to run over to the yakitori for dinner. The master was pretty lonely – his wife had commandeered the television to watch volleyball. He was dying to watch baseball, so when I came in he had an excuse to turn the channel – they both know that I enjoy watching baseball when I’m there.

I ordered up kimchee fried rice – one of the usual things I order. We have a sadistic stand-off going with the kimchee fried rice. I said that I like it spicy, so each time I order it they add a bit more spice to see when I flinch and say that it’s too much. This time was pretty close. I was sweating big time as I ate it, but it was delicious so I didn’t say “uncle”. Maybe one more time and then it’ll be too hot to handle.

The master is trying to get Hanshin Tigers tickets. He invited me to come along if he scores the tickets. I’m hoping he gets them – I still haven’t been to a game.

I headed home, and then started studying Japanese while listening to AC/DC. Kuniko called a little while later – she has to work both days of the weekend. I think she’s a little frustrated with the long hours they require at her new school. She’s a trouper, though – she works them and she doesn’t complain.

We talked about her schedule over the weekend and during next week, and it sounded more and more like we wouldn’t be able to get together for a long time. I misunderstood her at first and thought she wanted me to go over there this evening, and then the more we thought about it the more it made sense. I threw some clothes into my backpack and ran out the door, and then took the train ride to Osaka and was at her place by 11:00 p.m.

I’ve tried to do more spontaneous things like this lately, even though my brain’s natural reflex is to stay in a comfortable place. Every time I do something like this, it ends up turning out great, and this time was no exception.

Today was a pretty busy day at school. I got a good chance to spend some time with Miyake sensei, a part time teacher that has been studying English very hard. We set up some time to just sit and chat. It’s good practice for her, and I enjoy it as well. She has a good sense of humor and is a quick learner.

One of my classes that I have with Mr. Hayashi normally was all mine today. Mr. Hayashi was going to Kobe for some kind of meeting, so I taught the class on my own. It sounds impressive, but really all I did was give out some handouts, administer a test, and shoot the breeze with the students in Japanese and English.

At the end of school we had an assembly, so I snuck up behind Mr. Komuri and asked him if he was up for playing darts at Donkey that night. He gave out a startled giggle, and about a hundred students turned around to look at us. After calming down, he did say that he was interested, and he called around looking for some folks to go with us. We found a taker in Miss Yamamoto, one of the teachers that was transferred last term.

After school I came home and received a shipment from my last Costco excursion. Right after the delivery guy left, I caught the train to Akashi and walked over to Donkey. As I walked in the place was pretty empty. The master and his wife were there, and they recognized me from last time. A younger lady was there working, but she was also drinking a Corona. I wasn’t sure about her situation but she seemed interested in mine. Once I mentioned that I was waiting for Mr. Komuri, everyone got a smile on their face. He’s such a cheerful guy – he has that effect on a lot of people.

Mr. Komuri and Miss Yamamoto showed up and we ordered drinks. Mr. Komuri also asked for some food, and said that anything is OK. That gave the master a chance to serve us some strange things. I had some tiny squid – not cut up – just little babies. They had some mustard over the top, and they were actually pretty good. We also had some sashimi that was great and some tamago-yaki.

The younger girl served us the food and drinks, and then started practicing darts. She kept looking over at me to see if I’d step up and give her pointers or something. I tried to pay more attention to Mr. Komuri and Miss Yamamoto. After our snack we stepped up to play some darts. I explained a very simple version of baseball, and so we tried it out. Mr. Komuri did OK, about the same as last time. Miss Yamamoto was having some trouble but I could tell she was having a good time. I was throwing really well – kind of impressing myself. The master’s wife came out and played a game with us, and she was not too bad.

The master came and watched, and then joined in on a game. He pulled out one of those dart “holsters” that usually means he’s a serious player. He owns the board, so I was sure that he was good. I beat him by seven runs at the end – and he started pushing for me to join the Donkey team. I just smiled and said I’d think about it. I’m not that serious of a player, and it’s more fun to just play with friends.

After a few rounds of drinks we went out for okonomiyaki, and had some new flavors. One was really good – a thin pancake with pork strips across the top and a fried egg on top. It was really good with the sauce and the onions on top – wow! We closed down the okonomiyaki place and headed back home. In the station I said goodbye to everyone, but suddenly Struan came walking by out of nowhere. He was heading over to Murphy’s, so we went over together.

I haven’t been to Murphy’s in a long time. The place was just the same, dark and crowded. There weren’t many foreigners besides us, but Melanie came in with a couple of friends so that made it a bigger crowd. The beer prices went up – 850 yen for a 12 oz. glass, not even a real pint. I had one, and then I bowed out, having consumed plenty already in the other two restaurants I’d visited.

It was a fun night, and next Friday we are having an English teacher’s welcome/goodbye enkai. I’ll get to see Miss Yamamoto again, which will be fun. Now I’m off to bed!

The weather today was beautiful – not a cloud in the sky. The temperature was nice and warm, so no jacket required! I walked to work loaded down with gear for class and leftover sushi for my lunch.

All three of my classes today were during the first, second, and third periods. The nice thing about that was that I was done by 11:30 in the morning. I sat down and ate some sushi, and then spent the rest of the afternoon prepping my next lessons. Mr. Hayashi came by and dropped 15,000 yen in my lap the help that I gave him on the technical translations. It was a lot of money for not a lot of work. We said he’d buy me lunch sometime, too. Nice!

Mr. Hayashi has also agreed to tutor me in Japanese. I’m hoping to take the Japanese language proficiency test that is administered yearly. I’m shooting for Level 3. Level 4 is the lowest and Level 1 is the highest. The gap between Level 3 and Level 2 is huge and I don’t think I can get there by the end of the year. Mr. Hayashi bought a textbook for me to study, and the whole thing, including the instructions, are in Japanese. I spent some time today reading through it, and it was hard work. My first class is tomorrow, and we’re going to try the new book. I hope it works well.

ESS club met after school, and some of the more genki students got there early and they were eager to get started. I chatted with them in English and we looked through some magazines that my parents sent over from home. They really liked the pictures of California and the west coast. We talked about our upcoming cultural project, and what we will need to build a big display. One of the long lost ESS students even dropped by, and I think that she was surprised to see the turnout. No sign of the boy ESS student, so I’m not sure what his story is.

I had leftover Mexican food for dinner tonight, and sent off some e-mails. I’m thinking about going hiking this weekend – tomorrow is already Friday, so I need to start making plans!

Antoine and I met up in Kobe today, and enjoyed some sunny weather. The crowds were out sightseeing, and so we stood around in from the movie theater where we usually meet and just watched people walk by. We caught up a little bit, and then decided to jump on the train to Amagasaki and hit Costco.

As we got out of the station I was looking for a taxi, and instead there was a bus there with the Carrefour logo. Carrefour is right next to Costco, so we jumped in and got a ride for free. We just stepped out of the bus and walked next door instead. Probably a little uncouth, but I’ve spent enough money at Carrefour to feel no guilt whatsoever.

This was the second time I had been to Costco, and so I knew a little more about what to expect. First we ate some giant pizza at the snack bar in the front of the store (seafood pizza? no thanks) and then we grabbed a cart and walked the aisles. I discovered a couple of things that I didn’t see last time, like Rosarita refried beans, and French’s yellow mustard. Antoine was pretty happy with what he was finding – some shaving supplies, DVD-R’s, and various snack foods. He fell under the Costco curse and spent around $130. I spent only $30, so I felt like I had accomplished something.

Antoine carried his stuff off with him, and I shipped mine home, since I had a large box of charcoal that I didn’t want to deal with on the train. To get back the Carrefour bus was nowhere in sight, and since we didn’t have any Carrefour groceries it would have been a little awkward anyway. We saw some foreigners from Costco getting on a bus that looked like it’s ultimate destination was the train station. It was 500 yen a person, but I did some quick math and figured it was cheaper to take a taxi. We walked over to the side of Carrefour and waited about 10 seconds for a cab to come by. It 730 yen to take the cab straight there, so we saved on the bus and we got there quicker.

I got home around 3:30 and I started slicing things up for a sushi dinner. I had planned on cooking my own eggs for the inside of the sushi rolls, but I had found a slab of precooked eggs at the store for only 100 yen. I was a little worried at the store because the kanji on the package didn’t say “egg” – only on the back in small type. When I cut it open I found out why – there were fish cooked into the egg slab. Yikes! So, I cooked my own eggs.

Tomorrow it’s back to school – a two day week for me. It’s been so long since I’ve been there that I forget how many classes I have and what ones they are. I may have to show up and do some scrambling!

I started off the morning with Kuniko in Osaka, and we had a big breakfast of French Toast and juice. The bread here is really big, and so correspondingly the French toast is oversized as well. After breakfast I left for home and Kuniko went off to work.

Once I got to Akashi, I thought it might be nice to grab some ramen, so I stopped in at Osho, a chain restaurant that makes pretty good gyoza. I had kimchee ramen and a plate of gyoza, and then went to catch the Sanyo train home to Futami. Although the weather was dry in Akashi, it was raining in Futami, so I had to walk home in the rain without an umbrella. That’s what I get for taking a whirlwind trip on a moment’s notice. Still, it’s not like I’m going to melt or anything.

Back at home I started to put the house back in order and had a nice simple dinner of rice and miso soup. I’ve been eating a lot of heavy foods lately, so I’m going to try to simplify my dinners quite a bit and see how that goes. Tomorrow I’m planning a trip to Costco with Antoine. It’ll be more of a nostalgic trip than anything else, since I just got back from there a couple of weeks ago. I’ll be looking around more carefully this time.

Kuniko and I spent the morning cleaning up a bit after the party, and also cooking up some breakfast. We had fresh pineapple with quesadillas and some yogurt. The Japanese people that I’ve met put a lot of importance into breakfast, and so when Kuniko and I are together we do a bit larger breakfast than what I’m used to.

We decided to go out and do some fun things on the road, so I walked Kuniko to the Tsuchiyama station, and she took the train to her home in Kakogawa, picked up her car, and then picked me back up at my place. We drove along the coast of the inland sea towards Tarumi, a big shopping area facing the Akashi bridge.

As we drove along the coast the sun was shining, and Kuniko was happy to be behind the wheel – she loves driving but misses her car while she’s living in Osaka. I reclined my seat back, opened the window, and just relaxed and enjoyed the fresh air.

Getting closer to Tarumi we started running into more traffic, and when we got there we found out that the parking lot was full and they were turning away cars. Everyone else decided to do the same thing we thought of… bummer. We drove back the way we came, and stopped in one of our favorite towns – Okubo.

The movie theater there was crowded but since we wanted to see a movie that is not so popular, Cold Mountain, we had no trouble getting tickets. We had about an hour to kill so we ate lunch at a tonkatsu restaurant in a renovated food court, and then Kuniko did some clothes shopping while I walked around trying not to look too interested in women’s clothing.

While Kuniko was trying on some clothes I was walking in circles through the various departments, just kind of strolling and killing time. I walked by the underwear department, and they had a fascinating video playing. These women would try on these special bras, and then jump up and down, apparently amazed at how well the bra was working. I stood there for five minutes or so watching girls in bras jumping up and down, and then decided I had better move on.

Kuniko and I went upstairs to catch Cold Mountain, and afterwards we talked about it as we went back to the car. Kuniko didn’t like it – maybe because the end, or maybe because it was pretty strange at some points. I thought it was OK, but not one that I would recommend. I’d be interested in reading the book to compare.

We drove back to my place and had dinner – working on some of the leftovers from the party. Kuniko and I decided that we should take advantage of the holiday, so I ended up going back to Osaka with her to spend the night at her place. The train ride went a lot quicker with someone to talk to, and we talked about our weekend and how much fun it was to meet my friends. It was a great time.

Kuniko and I hit the trails early to do some shopping – first we went to Carrefour to pick up some hard to find things. We loaded ourselves down with groceries, and even stopped in for a quick Starbucks coffee.

Once we got back and stuffed everything in the fridge I sat down with Kuniko and taught her the basics of poker. She didn’t really want to play with us, but I thought it would be more fun if she could play a few hands. She caught on quick, but I could tell she wasn’t that much interested.

About an hour later I suddenly remembered that it was Antoine’s birthday on Saturday, so Kuniko and I went right back out and walked over to Carrefour again. We picked up a strawberry shortcake, and they even wrote Antoine’s name in Japanese characters for free on a little piece of chocolate. The lady that we talked to was wearing a microphone, and so as she took our order and spelled out Antoine, every customer in the bakery section could hear what we were talking about – how strange.

Soon we walked over to the train station to meet up with everyone. Just before we left Nel called up and said that he could make it and asked for last minute directions. Everyone started showing up at Higashi Futami station – Carrie, Struan, Antoine, and Nel all appeared separately, and so all together we walked back through town towards my place.

Everyone came in and looked around, and we settled down for some poker. At first Nel and Kuniko didn’t want to play, but gradually we talked them into it. Kuniko’s poker debut turned out nicely – she won the first game she played, and two hands later beat me with a full house… ouch! We played a few strange games, and some normal ones as well. Cincinatti turned out to be the most popular game we played.

The sausages turned out great for dinner, and I opened a couple of bottles of red wine, too. After a dinner break Kuniko and I brought out the birthday cake and let Antoine blow out the candles and cut it up for everyone.

At around ten o’clock we decided that we should head back to the station and go our separate ways. It was a really nice night and everyone was fun to hang out with. I’m hoping that we can do it again sometime soon.

Today was the start of Golden Week, and I spent most of the day preparing my apartment for the poker party on Sunday night. I walked to Max Value to do some shopping and picked up some tasty sausages to serve up for dinner. They were advertised as “Giant Weiners”, and they were quite big. They were about the same size as sausages available in California, so I was happy.

I ate some curry and rice for dinner, and around 9:30 in the evening Kuniko came by. She was staying the weekend for the poker party since Osaka is so far away. She brought some cookies that she bought from the Shin-Osaka station. There is a bakery there that always smells great, and I always seem to walk by after I’ve eaten dessert already. The cookies were great, and tasted just like I had hoped.

Tomorrow is some last minute shopping and then I’m going to relax and start enjoying my vacation.