I got up early this morning and jogged around the block a couple of times. The area around Ito Yokado is illuminated and flat, so I’m going to run around there for a while and see how it goes. It was just after five in the morning and I ran past a guy standing in the middle of the street practicing golf swings with his driver. The things that go on when everyone else is asleep.
Today was nice because the Board of Education was sending someone to pick me up at 8:30 in the morning. Usually I’m already at work and sitting through a teacher’s meeting at 8:30 a.m. I used the extra time in the morning to practice kanji and stay warm inside my kotatsu.
At 8:25 a.m. my doorbell rang, and a very nice man walked me down to his car. I got in, and we started driving to Yashiro. We talked along the way entirely in Japanese, and it was a great chance for me to practice without any safety nets. He told a funny story about how at breakfast that morning his kids had asked him what he would do if I didn’t speak any Japanese. They taught him a few English expressions to use, like “How do you do?” and “This way, please.” He was very relieved to be able to speak in his native tongue during the one hour trip.
At Yashiro they gave me hot coffee, plenty of Japanese tea, and kept me busy throughout the morning. Things went really well, and we wrapped things up at 11:15. There was a bus leaving there at 11:30, so Mr. Hasegawa drove like a madman to the bus station to send me off.
On the ride back, I was wondering what my work situation the rest of the day would be. Mr. Hasegawa didn’t mention anything about whether I should go back to work, and I had told them that I would be gone the whole day. I sat there and did the logistics in my head, and it turned out that if I went straight to work and skipped lunch I’d arrive about halfway through the last class of the day. I made a judgment call and decided to not go to work in the afternoon.
It worked out just as well, since although the car ride to Yashiro is about an hour, the bus ride was almost an hour and forty five minutes. By the time I had lunch, it was too late to head to work anyway. Tomorrow I’ll go in and see if anyone missed me.
I used the extra time this afternoon clean up the house and do a little bit of studying. Dinner was a simple vegetarian rice dish with a Korean sauce, and I had some yogurt for dessert. Tomorrow’s day is a normal one for me, with an evening lesson for Azusa. The week is just flying by.
