I just got back from a wonderful weekend with Kuniko. I took the train to Osaka late Friday night, and walked through the rain and wind to get to her apartment. Kuniko was busy writing letters to each of her graduating students. She was still writing them when I fell asleep sometime after midnight.
The next day Kuniko was at school all day for her graduation ceremony. She was really nervous on her way out the door. During graduation there is a point where she has to announce the names of all her students. From memory. Whoah.
For my part I spent a relaxing day at Kuniko’s place, studying Japanese hard and watching TV now and then to see how I could pick up spoken Japanese. I did better on the news and shopping shows, poorly on variety and comedy shows.
Kuniko came back that evening with armloads of flowers and presents from her students their parents. She got to work trying to put all the flowers into vases, but it was an impossible task – there just weren’t enough vases to do the job.
Saturday was also Kuniko’s birthday, and so we had a birthday present opening ceremony, which was a lot of fun. She got some good stuff from my folks, and I got her a couple of things I was hoping she would like.
Sunday we both slept in, and then we went into Umeda to do a little bit of shopping for the upcoming trip to America. For lunch we had Shabu Shabu, one of the Japanese dishes that I’ve always wanted to try, but never had the chance. It consists of a big bowl of boiling water. You add your choice of vegetables and noodles. You are served a big plate full of thinly sliced meat – I had beef and pork. Then you take a slice of meat in your chopsticks and swish it back and forth a few times in the boiling water, and action that explains the “shabu shabu” sound effect. The meat cooks quickly because it is so thin, and then you dip it in either a soy/vinegar sauce or a sesame sauce. Delicious. I had the big plate of meat, and it was awesome.
Kuniko and I parted ways after that. She’s getting a new cellphone, so hopefully it’ll be up and running when she gets back.
I came back home and spent time doing some preparations for lessons tomorrow. I cooked up some Chinese chili shrimp over rice for dinner, and it turned out really good. It’s just a flavor packet that I bought over at Ito Yokado, but at 120 yen it was a steal. Tomorrow it’s back to work!
