Friday was an easy day for me – no classes, except for my adult class in the afternoon. I spent the day planning lessons and grading papers. Many people came up to me to ask what I thought of Arnold winning in California. The people here are highly amused, and I think that I probably feel the same way. Finally after six o’clock we drove into Kakogawa to have a birthday/birthday/congratulations party at an Italian restaurant.

The food was good – there was an appetizer of spring rolls, chicken sashimi, a fried foods platter with french fries, fried cheese and potato balls, shrimp and fried chicken. As for the main course, we had a pizza, which really only had cheese, basil, and tomato sauce on a very thin crust. It tasted great, but as a pizza it wasn’t really satisfying. I tried to describe a Mary’s Pizza to everyone, but they couldn’t comprehend something with that many ingredients.

It was “all-you-can-drink”, and a couple of the teachers took advantage of that. We had a great time – making a lot of noise and carrying on. Most of the good stuff was in Japanese and I missed it, but I got the general gist of the conversations and we had fun.

Afterwards, the group wanted to go to a “Snack” bar, which I haven’t been to yet. I’ve heard that it is similar to strip clubs in America, just no stripping. You sit down with some girl who you buy drinks for, and in exchange they talk to you and make you feel important. I begged off that trip, and jumped on the train for home. I got the “Survivor” download going, and this morning I watched the latest episode on my computer.

Sara called around 8:30 this morning to wish me a happy birthday, and we talked for a bit. Nancy and Lynn called and I got to talk to them for the first time since I left San Diego to go to the airport in Los Angeles. It was great to catch up with them. Melanie left a birthday card in my mail slot, and I got some great e-mails. Thanks everyone!

Just as I was wrapping up dinner, the doorbell rang and a delivery guy was standing there with a large box. It was a big birthday package from Sara. She had sent tons of stuff – things that are hard or impossible to find here in Japan. It was amazing what she fix in there – a couple of bottles of hot sauce, three big chunks of cheese, a bunch of fresh peppers (Jalapenos, Anaheims, and Habaneros), chips, a DVD, candy, corn nuts, and the list goes on. It was amazing.

As everything was unpacked and laying all over the place, Yasu called from next door. He is the guy that helped when Andy went to the hospital. Melanie was at their place, and they invited me over, since she was over there cooking some homemade curry. I had just eaten, but I went over anyway to visit a little bit – Yasu’s mom has kind of adopted us. We sat around and drank beer and ate curry, although I only had a little bit. There was another neighbor there, an English teacher from a nearby school, and so we talked to her a little bit. She seemed very nice, but maybe a little shy.

Anyway, afterwards they brought out some delicious cakes, and I left there on a sugar high. Melanie dropped by to pick up Count Of Monte Cristo, since I had just finished it, and almost passed out from exhaustion at my kitchen table. I’m hoping to stay up a little later tonight doing some work that I’ve been putting off, since I have no classes tomorrow.

I came in this morning and found out that yesterday after school, a girl had been caught smoking on school grounds. Many of the teachers were pretty upset, but Mr. Hayashi thought it was hilarious. There were six kids involved – one actually doing the smoking, and five (!) kids posted as sentries to watch out for teachers.

Mr. Hayashi and I were impressed how intricate the plot was, but in the end, having so many sentries backfired. One of them spilled the beans under intense questioning, and so even though the smoker wasn’t caught red-handed, she was still busted. She got suspended for one month.

All over the school are posters saying not to drink or smoke, but then it takes just one visit to our teacher’s room and you see the teacher’s standing by the fans smoking like crazy. Kind of mixed messages, I think.

Our freshman are going on a field trip next month to Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, and I was locked in to going, but I found out that I have a prefectural meeting in Kobe that is mandatory for me to attend. One meeting a year I’m responsible for, and I miss out on an all-expenses paid trip to Universal Studios Japan with my students. Ack!

Today was ESS club, and only two girls showed up. They were the two that were overcome with hormones last time – they are new to the club, and are just trying it out. They didn’t want to do any of the activities I had planned – they wanted to try to get me to say Japanese swear words, and so I ended up getting them to translate Japanese words that I knew (not the swear words). At least they worked on English a little.

A big “Happy Birthday” to my brother Mark – who just got one year older. Keep up the good work! Sorry I can’t be there to tip one back with you.

Today, through some strange quirk in the schedule, was the toughest one yet for me. I had only four classes to teach, but each one was with a different teacher and all of the ability levels were different. One lesson that I taught in the morning had run out of time before I could finish, and the same lesson in the afternoon finished with almost ten minutes left. The planning of the lessons is difficult – there are so many factors that vary with each class.

Other than the classes, the day went great. I caught a free lunch from the home economics class. It was a rice dish with egg and chicken over the top. They call it “Oyako”, translated as parent (oya) and child (ko). It was really good, although it could of used a big hit of hot sauce. I didn’t tell the home economics class, though.

After school, Mr. Hayashi had offered to take me to the post office and attempt international shipping. All of the sudden he got called into a meeting, so he roped Miss Kageyama into taking me instead. Miss Kageyama did a great job, and we were easily able to figure everything out. The only thing I’m worried about is US Customs – I understand it’s pretty tough to get stuff into the States.

When we got back to the school, everyone was still tied up in a staff meeting. We decided to bail out while everyone was gone, and so Miss Kageyama drove me all the way home. We practiced speaking English, and had a good time on the ride back.

When I got home, another part time teacher had left some goodies on my doorstep. A while back she had let Andrew (my predecessor) borrow a scale to weigh his luggage. She had forgotten about it, and had asked me to put it out on my doorstep a few days ago. I totally forgot, and so after many apologies, today I got it right. I had left a small “I’m sorry” gift for her, but she out-gifted me! Two giant Japanese pears, a basket full of monster Concord grapes, and some sweets.

I’m defrosting some tortillas right now for my big Mexican dinner – yum!

I just finished watching Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers here at home, courtesy of my folks. They sent a bunch of DVDs and some other goodies, and I got to curl up under a blanket on the sofa, turn off all the lights, and watch the movie. I had forgotten how spectacular the battle scenes were in that movie.

Today I did some grocery shopping, and this week’s menu is shaping up. Tonight I had udon soup with stir fried sprouts and rice. Tuesday will be baked fish with garlic, with some potstickers on the side, Wednesday is tacos with corn tortillas and salad with ranch dressing. Did you know that it’s impossible to find ranch or blue cheese dressing in Japan? My folks sent me some mix, so I’m going to make it up myself.

Anyway, to wrap up the menu, Thursday is shrimp tenpura with homemade onigiri (rice balls). This weekend is shaping up to be very interesting. Friday night some of the teachers are taking me out to dinner, Saturday might be a movie, Sunday might be poker night, and Monday is a holiday. I’m planning on going hiking with a girl that I met at the Tokyo orientation, and later again at the Yashiro orientation. Should be a busy weekend!

One of the guys that I have been hanging out with at the yakitori place had invited me to a BBQ, and today we all met in a park just south of the yakitori place. I’ve been to a few BBQs so far, and the Japanese style is pretty fun. Everyone just kind of pulls the meat off the grill when it looks ready with your chopsticks, and one guy just kind of keeps the food coming.

We sat around and talked for a couple of hours. Both of the yakitori part time employees were there, and the master even showed up, despite having to work in just a few hours. One of the part-timers, a very quiet girl from Okinawa made her appearance on a motorcycle – and that caught me by surprise. She brought along her sister, and between the two of them it was GiggleFest 2003.

The guy that had organized it decided to try to get me drunk, and so he kept pushing drinks towards me. Unfortunately for him he was drinking along with me, and he was having a really good time. He decided to move the party over to the yakitori after it started getting dark, so we went over there and the people that had just been BBQing with us were serving us. It was a lot of fun, and I even got home early and sober. My poor host was a wreck, and he ended up falling asleep on the bench in his girlfriend’s arms. Poor guy!

The most interesting part was that the whole day, I spoke only a few words in English. Almost everything was in Japanese. Some of the folks could speak English well, but I made a concentrated effort to stick with Japanese. It worked out just fine, and I had a great time.

Yesterday I went to Kyoto to the first time. Mr. Komuri wanted to show me around, since Kyoto is one of his favorite places to visit. Mr. Hayashi and Miss Kageyama came along for the ride. We met up in the train station in Akashi, and then took an hour train ride into Kyoto.

The Kyoto train station was the biggest train station I had ever been in – it was huge! There were so many different train lines going through, and so many people running from train to train. If I didn’t have a guide right there I would have gotten lost for sure.

We rented a car, and it had a navigation system. The system was very cool, and it also played DVDs, CDs, and got TV reception. Unfortunately, all the menus were in Japanese, so I couldn’t do too much with it. We just used it to get from place to place. One interesting feature is that all you had to do was type in the phone number of a place, and it would get you there. That was pretty handy.

The first temple we went to was north of Kyoto, up in the mountains. The drive was about 20 minutes, up winding roads. At the base of the temple is a long staircase made of rocks, and Miss Kageyama and I jumped out of the car and hiked up. Mr. Hayashi and Mr. Komuri drove around and met us at the top. There was a restaurant along the way, but we didn’t stop until we got to the top of the steps and met the guys there.

The temple itself was almost deserted, and we were able to walk all over the grounds. Some of the most interesting things are the religious artifacts that are inside the main temple, but there are no pictures allowed there so I can’t really show you what they looked like. They had large golden statues of four gods, and then one almost black statue that was supposed to be from the 1200’s. It was amazing to see.

The big attraction is a trail that leads to a cliff on the side of the mountain, and from there you can buy small plates made of clay and throw them off the side of the cliff, while making a wish. Mr. Hayashi and Mr. Komuri’s plates went a long way – I could tell they have been making wishes up here for a while. Mine was like a lame duck, wobbling as it fell. Not too impressive, but as it turned out my wish came true!

We went back to Kyoto and found a restaurant that Mr. Komuri recommended, and for the first time in Japan I ate in the traditional Japanese style. We sat on the floor on tatami mats, and there was a doorway that opened out on to a small garden. It was a great atmosphere, and the menu was built around buckwheat. Yes, buckwheat. We had buckwheat tea, noodles, appetizers, everything. The only thing that didn’t have buckwheat was the beer. You were able to grind up your own fresh wasabi by rubbing the wasabi root against a small piece of wood with shark skin attached to it. You collected the paste that resulted and put it on your food – it was delicious.

After lunch we went to Kinkaku, or the Rokuon-ji Temple in central Kyoto. On the temple grounds is a building that had it’s second and third floors entirely covered with gold leaf. It was a pretty dramatic sight – and there were tourists everywhere. As I walked along I heard English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean – this is a must-see for Kyoto tourists. Even though my stay in Japan is temporary, I felt a little sense of pride when I saw all these tourists – they will be here for a week or two and never get to see and do many of the experiences that I’ve related in this journal. It makes me wonder how much I have missed when I toured new places in my travels in the United States.

After Kinkaku, we went out of town again to visit another temple, the Sanzen-in Temple. This area had a temple, but it also had extensive grounds where you could walk around and see gardens, ponds, and streams. Inside the buildings we were able to practice Japanese calligraphy, which was very difficult. The pens they had were very nice, though – I’m going to have to buy one for home practice!

We spent a few minutes at a cafe after walking through the temple, recharging our batteries and enjoying the view. The cafe was perched on the side of the mountain, and although the view right outside our window was a gravel parking lot, the view beyond that was spectacular. The sun was just starting to go down and it lit up the valley filled with cedar trees just right. That combined with an open air cafe, sitting on pillows with good friends drinking homemade Calpis soda – oh yeah.

We drove back to Kyoto, and returned the car. We ended up getting there late, but they didn’t charge us anything – they were very friendly. We took the train back to Kobe, and Mr. Hayashi had set up a dinner at another Indian restaurant (I’ve eaten a lot of Indian food lately). He had arranged some special deal, and we ate like kings and had our drinks for free. The food was much spicier than the other Indian food I’ve had in Japan, and I decided that this place was my favorite.

We got back on the train, but it was still only around seven o’clock. I told everyone that I was going to get off the train at the next stop, and I think they were all curious. I said my goodbyes, and then dropped in on Like, Like for a beer. Like, Like was empty of customers, so they were rocking out to the Beatles very loudly in there. They were surprised to see me there alone – usually I have Antoine and Nel with me. I sat and talked with Yoshi, the bartender, and then I got to meet the owner’s daughter, who speaks a little English. I ended up talking with her for almost an hour. She was very cool – she promised to study English hard so that the next time we speak we can carry on a better conversation.

I jumped on the train and finally headed home. As I walked by the yakitori place, one of the guys that had invited me to watch softball leaned out the door and called me in there. The place was full of the softball players and their families, so I ended up having a couple of beers there and talking with the master and his customers. Some of the customers were pretty drunk, and wanted to try out their English with me. Two little boys were running around playing with their Game Boys, and I talked with one and we practiced writing Japanese characters on chopstick wrappers.

They organized a big barbecue for me today, so I’m going to meet someone at the yakitori place around 2 o’clock. It should be a lot of fun. I think most of these guys will be pretty hung over, but it was really nice of them to do it. It started out being eight people attending, but then they got on their cell phones and by the time I left, it was around fourteen people.

Finally, I got home, and had a couple of messages on my machine. One was from my parents, who had called while I was in Kyoto. The other was from Miss Kageyama. She had heard from the job interview, and she had gotten the job in Osaka! She was so excited that she was speaking half in Japanese and half English, but I got the message. The weird thing was that I wished for her to get the job as I threw my wobbly plate off the cliff, so there you go. Maybe I should become a monk or something. Do they get to drink beer?

A much more relaxed day today. I had only one class, and it was the first one, so at 9:30 a.m. I was done for the day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t leave.

I spent much of the day correcting papers and preparing for my teacher’s lesson in the afternoon. I had time to take lunch in the cafeteria with the students, which was interesting. Nobody was brave enough to sit with me, so all the other tables were packed, and I sat at a table for eight alone. It was pretty funny.

My teacher’s class went really well, and we drank peppermint tea and apple/mint tea while we studied. Mr. Hayashi recorded my voice reading the speeches of the students that are going to participate in the local speech contest, so they can listen to my pronunciation over and over again.

After school, Miss Kageyama dropped by to work on her transcriptions with me, since Mr. Hayashi was in a meeting. Afterwards we gossiped for a little while and I told her stories in an attempt to get her prepped for the interviews that she’s been doing. Tomorrow she is joining us in Kyoto, so we’ll practice some more.

Tonight is a quiet night. I’m going over to the yakitori to say hello to my gang over there, and this time I might bring Melanie. She has been asking me to take her there, but since she speaks almost no Japanese, I think it might be tough time translating.

What a big day! This morning I hauled all the tacos ingredients in a couple of bags to the train station, and then put them in the home-economics refrigerator for safekeeping. I stashed them in back to be out of the way.

After the morning meeting, the Vice-Principal called Mr. Hayashi into an office, and when they came back, Mr. Hayashi was grinning from ear to ear. It turns out that the school trip to Australia in December was approved, and so it looks like we’re going. Mr. Hayashi will be handling my travel arrangements, but it sounds like it should be no problem. I can probably do a week and a half in Australia by only taking five days of vacation! Nice! It looks like we’ll be in Sydney, and it will be about 15 students and 5 teachers. I’m not sure on the details, but it should be a good Christmas!

After classes, the ESS club met in the kitchen, and we got started making tacos. I noticed that someone had looked through all the bags – I think someone was curious about tacos ingredients. As for the taco brigade, all the members did great, and everyone pitched in to eat and to help with the cooking and cleanup. We had lots of extra tacos, so the girls made some for their favorite teachers and went around making deliveries. I got a few tacos delivered to some people that had asked about them, but they went fast. Two teachers that I had wanted to give them to were left out. I’m planning on making some proper tacos next week with the corn tortillas that my mom sent over, so I’ll hook them up then.

Just after we finished cooking, two girls from the broadcasting club came by to film us in action, but since we had finished, there wasn’t much to see. They had the look of a reporter that showed up late for a big story. I tried to tell them that the next time we do something cool, I would let them know, but I’m not sure the message was received.

Mr. Hayashi had told me earlier that two girls had expressed an interest in joining the ESS club, and today they showed up to see what was going on. They had good timing – they got a couple of tacos without having to do the work. The girls in my club were giving them looks, and the new girls were all over me, trying to flirt in Japanese, which doesn’t work very well if you don’t understand Japanese. I’m not sure how it’s going to work out. One of the new girls was almost out of control… she kept making biting gestures with her mouth and trying to get close to my face. Weird. I made them do dishes and help with cleanup, and that seemed to calm them down a little.

After making all the tacos, I cleaned up the place and went over to the teacher’s office. One of the students had asked me for a worksheet that they had forgotten, and I saw her just outside the teacher’s room door. I grabbed the worksheet from my desk and stood behind her waiting for her to finish her conversation with her friend. Her friend saw me standing there and stopped talking, and the girl turned around. I gave her the handout and told her when it was due, and suddenly her friend started making this low groaning noise as she looked at me – I’m not sure how to describe it. It sounded like a combination of the Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West melting, and an adult film actress that is, well, making noise. I hurried to leave, but heard them telling each other that I was “very cute” in Japanese. I quickly made my exit stage left before anybody started biting.

I was on the same train as Mr. Komuri for part of the ride home. We sat and talked about the hot sauce that I had brought (Tapatio), and I noticed that a crazy guy was sitting on the other side of me. I’ve only seen only one other crazy guy so far in Japan, which I think is pretty impressive. Maybe they are just better at hiding them away. Anyway, the guy was having a conversation, but only later did I see that nobody else was talking with him. At my stop, as I got up, he got up with me, asked me a question in Japanese, and then broke into song. Loudly. Everybody was staring at him, which is a nice change of pace for me, and I jumped out of the train before anybody started biting.

Dinner last night was great – the lasagne turned out to be excellent. We split a couple of bottles of wine and watched a movie afterwards, to celebrate the purchase of Melanie’s new DVD/VCR player.

A bunch of random little notes today:

The weekend is coming up, and it’s looking like a good one. There are a couple of things going on, but the one “for sure” thing is that I’m going to Kyoto with Mr. Komuri, Mr. Hayashi, and Miss Kageyama. Mr. Komuri knows an out-of-the-way temple north of Kyoto, and we’re going to go there and see what it’s like. I’m really looking forward to seeing Kyoto – it has been high on my list of places to visit in Japan.

My folks sent a big package of stuff for my birthday, and it arrived last night. There were about 50 corn tortillas, pinto beans, some DVDs of movies I’ve been dying to see, and some taco seasoning and ranch dressing mix. Lots of cool stuff – it feels like home around here with so much mexican stuff.

Speaking of Mexican food, tomorrow we’re going to cook tacos during our ESS club meeting. All of the girls are excited. I heard that there are two more girls that are interested in joining, so that would be really cool!

The sky in Japan seems to be so much more dramatic to what I’m used to in California. The sunsets in particular are very dramatic, and the strong winds seem to toss around the clouds in very unusual patterns.

Today I am getting dinner cooked for me from Melanie – I cooked her dinner a couple of weeks ago, and she wanted to return the favor. She has had the ingredients for lasagne shipped to her bit by bit from her parents in Ireland. I’m looking forward to it!

Today Mr. Komuri brought in some hot peppers that a friend of his had sent. They were the closest things I’m going to get to fresh jalapenos around here. They were excellent. He chopped them up and I got to taste a little bit. Delicious!

I’m trying to organize a trip to see The White Stripes at a club here. They are playing all over Japan, but nowhere really close. The Osaka show is closest, but it’s on a school night, and the trains wouldn’t be running when I get out. I’ve got some people looking into tickets, but if I do go, I’ll most likely have to travel quite a ways to see them. I’m hoping that I can get a day off to do it right. Or maybe I’m starting to feel a little sick. I’m not sure how it will work out. They were sold out in California when I left, so it would be cool if I could catch them here in Japan.

Today I had a relatively easy group of classes, and I put together a schedule so that I can finally track which classes I’ve taught and which lessons are next. It has been a bit like a house of cards after I got burned that one time. Now I’m relatively confident I know what is going on. The teachers seem determined to throw me off, but as time goes by, I am catching on.

One of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Tsutsumi, had to leave early because her youngest daughter was in the hospital with pnuemonia. I’m hoping everything is OK with her family tonight.

One of the things that I’m helping Mrs. Tsutsumi with is translating and editing two speeches by 2nd year high school students for a speech contest next month. The speeches are in English, and so I’m there to help with the pronunciation and editing. Today I was supposed to help two students after school with their speeches, but only one was able to make it. It was a lot of fun to help out the girl – you could tell that she was extremely intelligent. After going through her speech, we had an extra half hour, and she offered to show me some new kanji characters. We spent the time learning characters and having a good conversation. The students seem a lot less shy when they are one-on-one.

Her English was pretty good, and my Japanese was really only just adequate to have a conversation. After I left school I realized that in the end we both were able to understand almost all of the ideas and concepts were exchanging, and I felt like I am really starting to get comfortable language-wise here in Japan.

I got to Kobe a bit early to browse around the shops, and look for interesting things laying around cheap. There was a row of shops in Motomachi, a small suburb of Kobe, that had some amazing things that I’m sure some geeks in the US would give their right arm for. I’m not an expert on anime or electronics, so I’m not sure, but I think there is probably some valuable stuff there. Maybe I should get into the import/export business.

Nel, Kiyomi, and Antoine all converged on the same spot near Sannomiya station, and we went out to Gaylord, one of the Indian restuarants that Mr. Hayashi had turned me on to. The food was excellent again, and very spicy. We all had a good time getting to know each other, and then afterwards, we went two train stations west to Like, Like – our favorite bar in that area.

Our favorite bartender Kazumi wasn’t there, and Antoine was pretty bummed out – he likes her a lot. It was nice having Kiyomi around, because she could translate our questions. From that conversation, we found out that Kazumi was leaving for a full time job in Kakogawa. Her last day is Tuesday, so Antoine wouldn’t get to say goodbye. Yoshi, the bartender who was working, ended up calling Kazumi at home to let Antoine say goodbye, but she insisted on driving all the way out to meet us.

Kazumi made a big entrance, and Antoine was very happy. Kazumi and Kiyomi hit it off right away, and we ended exchanging phone numbers and e-mails all around, so we might see some more of Kazumi down the road. Finally, we called it a night and went our separate ways. It was a fun way to end the weekend, and I’m all geared up for a full week of classes.

This morning I walked out to South Futami, along the inland sea to meet the owner of the yakitori place I frequent. He had invited me out to watch him and his friends play in the local softball championship. Everybody was decked out and looking good – except for the team I was rooting for. These guys showed up in pretty scruffy clothes, but they actually did well. They ended up coming in second in the tournament, and so there was much moaning and groaning among the guys later on.

I took some pictures of the area, and I got one picture of the “master” of the yakitori place at bat.

I told the guys that I would drop by for a late dinner at the yakitori place at around 8:30. When I got there, one of the guys was sitting there having trouble staying on his chair. He had thought I had said 6:30, so he had been there two hours already, and was pretty drunk. The rest of the guys came in gradually, and the master cooked up some great stuff. I had fried tofu for the first time, and like most things that are fried, it was quite good.

Tomorrow I’m meeting Nel and Antoine in Kobe for Indian food. I also get to meet Nel’s fiancee for the first time. Should be fun!

There was an earthquake north of here (way north of here) in Hokkaido last night. I guess it was a big one, but since it was offshore, the main thing they were worried about was the tidal waves. It was way too far away for me to feel, and I only heard about it from someone at work. Everything here is A-OK, so no worries.

Today I had an easy day – just two classes. They were pretty fun, and the students behaved very well. I tought the teacher’s class in the afternoon, and they treated me to cookies and tea during the lesson. It was very nice.

Miss Kageyama brought in some tacos that she bought at a restaurant near her house. They were actually not too bad – flour tortillas, strips of pork and grilled onions, tomato, lettuce. No cheese, but considering the cheese they would have used, that’s probably a good thing. It was a very nice treat.

I’m off to Befu tonight to do a little bit of shopping. I’ll be back early to catch up on my sleep. Tomorrow I’m hoping to do some hiking, since the weather has turned beautiful.