I was back teaching classes today – and it felt really good to be back in front of the students. I’m sure the students weren’t as thrilled as I was – but they coped with it just fine.
One of the things that happens at the start of a new term is a new seating assignment for everyone. The teachers today posted new seats, and everyone started moaning and groaning about where they got stuck or who they got stuck sitting with. The way they reacted you’d think the students had to marry the new person.
Since the festival was still in full swing, I had invited Kuniko to come over after work and walk around with me eating festival food and to buy a replacement lucky tree branch. The last one seemed to do a pretty good job for us.
Kuniko showed up after school and together we walked around picking foods to try. We bought a lucky branch after tossing the old branch into a giant pile of other old lucky branches. Armed with our lucky branch we ate a couple of different things – a unique version of a gyro (made by a foreign guy in a booth), a hot dog wrapped in egg with “habanero” sauce (really just a mild hot sauce – it wasn’t hot enough to be habanero), fried cheese balls (not much cheese, mostly just fried), and some dessert at the end – a pastry stuffed with white anko.
Kuniko was coughing pretty good, so we made our way to the station and back to Sannomiya. We did just a little bit of shopping there, and then came on home. Now Kuniko is in the kitchen making some interesting foods to snack on over the next few days, and I’m parked in the kotatsu writing up my day.
Just two more days until the weekend. I’m starting to feel the energy drain from work, and I’m sure I’ll be ready for lots of sleep come Saturday and Sunday.
