I still haven’t been back to work yet. Today I got up early but instead of going to Takasago I took the bus with Chelsea to Yashiro to help out the Board of Education again.
This time around we were putting the final touches on the entrance exam, and we did a low quality recording so that they could present it to some VIPs on the board. Once they get final approval they’ll take it to a professional recording company, who will do the recording that students will actually hear.
We spent all day on the project, only breaking for lunch. We went out to a sushi restaurant with a couple of other teachers on the project. They were pretty excited to be hanging out with us, especially when they found that we could speak a little bit of Japanese. One of them even bought our sushi for us at the end of the meal – she was so happy to spend time with us.
Being in Japan for as long as we have, we start to take for granted meetings like that. For us, it’s another new face, another name to remember, and more food to eat. For them, it’s a rare opportunity to talk to someone from another country, someone who has a cultural background so much different from everyone else you meet. It’s a lunch that they’ll be talking about for a week. Today was a nice reminder that in Japan you are always on stage.
We caught the bus back to Akashi, and headed straight home. I picked up a couple of things at Ito Yokado and had a salad for dinner, along with some koyadofu and some lightly fried things that I’ve seen before and never tried. Turns out they are vegetables and quite good. I made a smoothie for dessert – banana and cocoa flavor.
I got in a couple hours of studying tonight, and the new study area is working really well. I can’t believe I went so long without a nice big desk to use. When I was walking through Ito Yokado earlier today I saw the kotatsu I bought at a higher price – they have some more in stock and the price jumped to 15,000 yen – up 30%!
I gotta hit the rack soon – I’m going to school for the first time in a long time tomorrow, and I have to dream up a couple of lesson plans for next week. The nice thing about going back to school is that weekends will mean something again – the other day Kuniko and I couldn’t figure out what day it was… a sure sign of too much vacation.
