Today was supposed to be one half of a “sports day”, but it really was just an excuse to wear out the students out on the field in the morning. Mr. Hayashi took me with him to Himeji to run some errands, and then we came back and had lunch in the cafeteria.
Mr. Hayashi asked me to help him with teaching a class to the students going to Australia. The first two students had arrived and then they paged all the teachers to go to the teacher’s room for a meeting. Mr. Hayashi had forgotten, so he left me in front of the fifteen students, without any lesson or plans.
I faked it – I told them about wearing shoes inside the house, about taking a shower in the morning rather than a bath at night, ordering food at McDonald’s, and basically winging it big time. The students watched in a strange fascination, but they were already pretty tired from running around outside in the heat.
Luckily, Mr. Hayashi came back in about twenty minutes and bailed me out. He talked a little about the trip, and how they are going to set up a website for their parents to follow along on their adventures. I’ll be interested to see how that goes.
After school I went into Kobe and attended my second Japanese class. The difficulty went up a notch, which is good. There were a couple of new students there, one guy from France. We’ve got quite an international crew. After the class I did a little bit of shopping, and then had some donburi for dinner at the ramen joint with the free kimchee. The donburi was delicious – it was grilled pork on a bed of rice with a bit of egg and nori on top. Yum!
Coming out of the restaurant and hitting the lively streets of Kobe – it was quite an experience. There’s something about walking out on the street on a steamy summer night with people walking all around speaking a language you can barely understand – signs you can barely read… it’s times like these where you really feel like you’re in a foreign country. There’s people on the streets hawking goods, guys trying to get you to meet girls, and everyone is staring at you as you walk by. Wow.
Now I’m back home with some shaved ice and trying to beat the heat. Tomorrow I’m off to Carrefour for some shopping – I’m cooking tacos for Kuniko tomorrow night.
