Yesterday was an empty day – I spent most of the time at home studying Japanese and goofing around on the internet. At 5:30, I met Antoine and Struan at the train station, and walked them back to my place. We had decided to go ahead and do our first poker night, even though we only had three people. It had started out with a few more, but some folks had to bail. My emergency calls to get another player didn’t work out, so we ended up with just the three of us.
I cooked dinner for everyone, and then we settled down for some beer and poker. Antoine is on a red wine kick, so he was putting away a Stone Cellars Merlot that I found in a local store. Struan is quite good at poker, and I’ve played a few hands before, so Antoine was having a rough go. It turned out at the end that Struan had won a little, I won a lot, and Antoine lost quite a bit. After playing for three hours or so, we decided to run down to the yakitori place on the way back to the station.
We walked in and I was surprised to see the exact same crowd that was at the BBQ, with a couple extra people. Everybody cheered when we walked in, and they started getting to know Struan and Antoine. At some point in the past I had mentioned to someone there that my birthday was on October 11, so word had spread, and everyone sang a quick Happy Birthday to me. It was pretty overwhelming. One of the guys insisted on buying beers for us, and so we stuck around until Struan had to go. Antoine decided to crash at my place and head back to Takarazuka the next day.
I woke up around seven in the morning to hear the wind whistling outside and the roar of rain coming down hard. I closed up the apartment, a little surprised that nobody had mentioned anything about a typhoon last night. There were two or three community announcements over the large loudspeakers outside, but since I couldn’t understand them, I was a little worried. I flipped over and by the time I woke up again at nine, the rain and wind had gone.
I was a little worried about the weather because Carrie and I had planned on going hiking today in Kobe. I called Carrie, and she was game for trying it out, and so Antoine and I got cleaned up and out the door. I said my farewells to Antoine as I jumped off the train in Akashi, and then went down to meet Carrie in front of the Starbucks next to the station. After getting our act together, we went up to take the next train to Kobe. At the station, we bumped into Struan – he was off to Himeji castle to look around with a couple of his teachers.
Carrie and I charged up the northern hills of Kobe until we reached Nunonobiki falls, and then went even farther up. There are miles and miles of trails, and lots of interesting things to see. There were beautiful views and waterfalls, but then right next to them were construction sites and water treatment plants. It was an interesting contrast.
We had our lunch on a bench overlooking the green forests above Kobe, and talked about our JET experiences so far. It was very interesting to hear about some of the trials and tribulations of teaching through Carrie – she had some good insights into the attitudes and enthusiasm of the kids.
After a pretty good hike we came back down into Kobe, and we split up – Carrie was headed to Uniqlo to pick up some clothes, and I headed back home to get ready for next week.
On my walk home from the station, I recognized one of the kids from my apartment complex, she was standing across the street alone and she smiled and waved at me. I waved back, and kept on walking. About a minute later, she chased me down. I was a little surprised, but she just started walking with me. We talked in Japanese, and I found out that she had just gotten out of piano practice, and since her mom still hadn’t shown up to pick her up, she would just go with me back to the apartment complex. We walked along and talked about our days, and what we were having for dinner tonight.
All of the sudden her mom pulled up, and she didn’t look happy. I just waved and kept walking, and the poor little girl jumped in the car – I’m sure she was going to get a lecture. As they passed me on their way home, both of them gave me a big smile and wave, so I think I’m not in trouble 🙂
I’ve lit a couple of candles, pulled out some snacks and a bottle of red wine, and I’m listening to the blues as the sun sets outside. I had a good weekend. I’m looking forward to a nice short week, and then another busy weekend.
